Christians are notoriously busy people – often too busy. Church-organised activities and the many needs of family, friends, neighbours and various good causes prompt us to do more and more. But we know from Saturday’s reading that we can’t earn our way into God’s good books, and we may find we’re doing all these things at the expense of time to pray and hear from God. 

At Martha’s home, Jesus prompts us to ask the question, ‘Exactly how much do we need to do?’ And his answer is ‘less’ (see v 42). Jesus doesn’t say exactly what the ‘only one’ thing is that’s needed, but somehow it relates to the time Mary spends hanging on Jesus’ words, wholly dependent on him.

Someone once said to me, ‘If you’ve got too much to do and too little time to do it, be sure you’re doing something God doesn’t want.’ That certainly made me sit up and think. To be honest, it’s still a challenge for me to sit still, keep quiet and listen to him, but I’m trying. Do you read the Bible and pray with Daily Bread when you have time to linger, or is it always a rush? Do you need to rethink?

‘Forth in your name, O Lord, I go, / my daily labour to pursue, / you, Lord, alone resolved to know / in all I think, or speak, or do.’¹

This simple story is often explained too simplistically. It is not about hospitality, the Holy Spirit’s gift,² which Jesus regularly enjoyed. In Luke’s Gospel, this story of a woman determined to hear Jesus follows that of a male lawyer who only wanted to hear himself. Jesus knew this little household, although Lazarus seems absent. The women invited him in. Martha went to prepare the meal while Mary sat at Jesus’ feet, the traditional pose in front of a rabbi, assuming the position of a male disciple. This annoyed Martha, who was probably more upset about Mary’s posture than her help in preparing the meal, thinking that Mary was being overfamiliar. Her criticism is not addressed to Mary but to Jesus – who, she asserts, should have said something about it. Her outburst contains four first-person pronouns (my, me, myself, me) as if she is affronted, even jealous. Jesus, however, accepted Mary’s role, thus inviting all women to be disciples. His response to Martha was far deeper than mere housework. Martha was letting herself get distracted and anxious. Her mental state was hampering her spiritual life.

Here were two very different women, whose spirituality would always be different, but who would love and follow Jesus in their own ways. On another day, Mary will anoint Jesus with perfumed oil and wipe his feet with her hair, an act which Jesus declared was preparing his body for death.³ Martha, always the practical one, met Jesus when he came to raise Lazarus while Mary stayed inside, mourning. John recorded Martha’s conversation with Jesus, which prompted one of his most important sayings, ‘I am the resurrection and the life’; Martha responded, as we all must: ‘I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God’.⁴

Lord of our days, help us not to be distracted from you by the busyness of life, nor to let our anxieties muffle your voice in our hearts and minds.

¹ Charles Wesley, 1707–88, altered  ² 1 Pet 4:9–11  ³ John 12:1-8  ⁴ John 11:25–27