CAMINANDO WITH JESUS: The Better Part

Don’t just do something, sit there.

 

We are busy people. There is so much work to do - there are meetings and messages and dishes and workshops and classes and laundry and workouts and deadlines and bedtimes and it never seems to end.

 

We are distracted by many tasks. Of course we are! We have school and jobs and kids and parents and pets and an enormous amount of work to do to keep ourselves, our lives, our relationships, and our worlds turning smoothly. And it never quite goes as smoothly as we would like. There is always more to do.

 

“Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her,” Jesus tells Martha when she complains to him about her sister, and this is an affront. At least it feels that way.

 

Can we really just stop all this work? How is it going to get done if we don’t do it? How is our family going to get by, how is life going to keep getting sorted out? Bible commentaries often note this is a pair of siblings in dispute, both women. Coincidence? Or do women worry about getting everything done in a different way than men do? Would this story read differently if this were a pair of brothers or a married couple? Maybe. But I wonder what else it would bring up.

 

At any rate, it is unusually harsh that Jesus seems to rebuke Martha, seems to begrudge her the righteous indignation she deserves. While Mary is sitting at Jesus’ feet, Martha’s workload has just doubled. Why don’t they both get the work done, then they can both sit down with Jesus? Doesn’t that sound like a better plan?

 

When I read through reflections and sermons on this passage, I notice how many times they go something like this: “Martha’s work is just as important as Mary sitting with Jesus” or “we have to balance our work and our rest - there is time for both.” But that’s not what Jesus says. He says that the “better part” is being near him, listening.

 

I don’t think Jesus means that our many tasks are not important. He simply says that they are not everything. We are not made up of our work and our responsibilities, the things we get done. We are made from love, for love, in order to learn to love our God and our neighbor, and to be loved by them. And to be near the source of this love - Jesus himself - is the better part of our lives.

 

Sometimes the work of discipleship can seem like one more thing on our never-ending schedule. How do we fit it - worship, a prayer life, service to others, a rest day - into what is already crammed with the work of life?

 

Maybe it doesn’t have to be like that. Maybe, when we remember who we are, what we are made for, we find we have plenty of time for the work we have to do. And our tasks no longer distract us from that. Maybe the better part comes first.

 

The Good News is: we don’t save our own lives, or the world, with all the work we do. Jesus does that. All we have to do is remember the “better part."