We come to the reading of the Word of God to the gospel of Luke chapter 10, and I shall read a little story, just a little story. Listen carefully. Now as they went on their way, Jesus entered a village, and a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house, and she had a sister called Mary who sat at the Lord's feet and listened to his teaching. But Martha was distracted with much serving. She went up to him and said, Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me. But the Lord answered her, Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things. But one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her. The Word of the Lord, the delightful little story, and we know these girls, don't we? This is an interesting sorority in Scripture, these sisters, Mary and Martha. They have a brother too. You remember their brothers Lazarus? A little later on, we're going to hear about how the Lord raised Lazarus from the dead. But apparently Jesus enjoyed this little family. He loved them. We're very close to him. All three of them, Martha, Mary and Lazarus. They were his dear friends. And it says that he entered a village when they went on their way. I have a feeling the little village was entered into quite often. And we know that the last week of Jesus' life, he spent the night in their home probably most of the nights of that last week. As he would go from Bethany where they lived out a few miles and then back into Jerusalem to have his triumphal entry, to teach and to preach, and to do all the things he did in Jerusalem. And eventually, of course, to have the last supper with his disciples and be betrayed and crucified. And you know the story. So this is a group of people, a little family, that very, very important in the life of Christ. And we get a lot of lessons from watching them, each one of them how things to teach us about their personal relationship with Christ, Christ in his humanity, Christ as a friend. There was a sense in which Christ was almost a brother to these two girls. He was that close to them. He was that close to Lazarus, we know. But it's interesting to me to see some of the things that we can learn just observing the way they related to the Lord. And that's what our story is about today. It's the one thing necessary, the one thing necessary. Even though these resistors shared the common gene pool, they were in many ways quite different, quite different. Not as good and evil, or better or worse, but just different. They related to the Lord differently. Martha related to the Lord almost as she would relate to a brother, even a younger brother, appear in many ways. Jesus had that kind of relationship with her. She loved to talk to Jesus. Here we see in this particular story that finally, when she saw what was happening, that she was slaving away in the kitchen, and she was being the hostess, not only of Christ, but his disciple group. She had a house full of people. She was trying to take care of busy in the kitchen, cooking, serving, cleaning, making sure everybody was comfortable, everybody was taking care of, literally just slaving away to make this event happen, serving the Lord, working for Jesus. Mary was in there with the fellas, with Jesus when he was teaching. Jesus was in the great room of the house, and it's interesting to notice something about posture. We always know that the teachers usually would sit in the rabbinic tradition. The rabbis would sit and teach, and we often hear that Jesus would sit and teach. On the ceremony of the Mount, he sat down and taught them. It doesn't say that Jesus sat here, but more than likely he was seated, but it's interesting that Mary sat at the Lord's feet. If Jesus was seated on, say, a couch or a bench, or maybe a portion of the structure, more than likely she was sitting on the floor. She was humble before the Lord. She recognized very positively and acutely his Lordship in her life. Mary seemed to just love it at the Lord's feet before him in humility, before him in worship, before him in quietness. In fact, she just liked to be at the feet of Jesus. You remember the story that's told later when Lazarus had died, and Jesus had waited two days, and he finally made his way to the village, and Lazarus was already dead, and had been dead. Martha runs out in confronts, Jesus. If you had been here, my brother would not have died. She said, and she and Jesus engage in a wonderful conversation about the resurrection, but when Mary comes to meet Jesus, notice the text that says that Mary fell at Jesus' feet. She asked the same question, Lord, why did you come? If you had been here, Lazarus would not have died, but she does it from his feet, prostrate, humble, broken before the Lord. Then the next chapter, John, records for us another incident of Mary. They're having a great feast, kind of celebrating Lazarus' new life, and they've entertained all the people around about. But it's Mary that sits at Jesus' feet and anoints him with the perfume, the balm for his burial. She was at Jesus' feet, and you see in the narrative here that Jesus, in talking to Martha, says, one thing is necessary, and Mary has chosen that thing, and I'm not going to take it away from her. What is that necessary thing? That is that necessity of being at the feet of Jesus. That's where we start. We come to him in submission, in repentance, in contrition, bowing down, worshiping him, saying to him, my Lord and my God, King, Lord save your master. If you haven't found yourself at the feet of Jesus, that's the one necessary thing. That's where you have to be. It's interesting to me that when I was reading this over in the in the Greek text, I noticed that word that's translated sat. It says, Martha had a sister called Mary, verse 39, who sat at the Lord's feet and listened to his teaching. I was struck by that word that's translated sat. We translated it with three little letters, sat. It was an incredibly long word in the in the Greek. It was 14 letters long. So I said, I got to study it a little. So I started scratching around to try to do a word study to figure out what in the world that word meant. It wouldn't just that she sat at Jesus' feet. It starts with a preposition. It's a compound word, and it starts off with paraph. We get our word parable and parallel. She sat next to Jesus' feet. She sat beside Jesus' feet. She sat close to Jesus' feet. It wasn't that she was just in the congregation. It wasn't that she was just at his feet in terms of the level, but she was as close to Jesus as she could physically get.
She was beside his feet. Then as I was looking over the text a little more, I thought, well let's look talk a bit about Martha. What's going on in the life of Martha? She's the one that welcomes. She's the one that seems to kind of be in charge of the household, and she is busy. Verse 40 said Martha was distracted with much serving, and that word is translated distracted, has another lawong Greek word, and it has a prefix as well, a preposition parallel. It's parallel, which means to be surrounded. Surrounded, perimeter in the English, parry. She was surrounded. There were things that surrounded her that crowded out the opportunity to be next to Jesus, and Jesus himself identifies it, said she was distracted with much serving, and she went up to the Lord and said, do you not care that much? It's always kind of a little bit accusatory tone in the voice of Martha, when she talks with the Lord. Don't you care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me. Let's get the Lord into our servants. Let's recruit the Lord. You be the one to go tell her. Let me tell you what to tell her. See the difference in the attitude toward the Lord. Now let's don't beat up on Martha because the Lord loved Martha, and Martha was wonderful in every way, and she was doing exactly what needed to be done, and she was busy. These are important things. In fact, these are, in a sense, necessary things. Is there anybody in the audience, any women that would argue with me that it's not necessary to do a lot of things in order to be a good hostess and to have an event like this in your home? Absolutely. But what's the relative merit? The Lord answered her, Martha. He didn't talk about Mary right away. He's going to talk about Mary in just a moment, but he talks to Martha. He said, Martha, you're anxious and troubled about many things. We don't have to go far for application, do we? Are you anxious and troubled about many things? Are you surrounded and distracted by all of the many things in life? Good things, necessary things, things such as making a living, taking care of your family, serving your community, working in the church. You are troubled and vexed and anxious and try to get it right and get it done to the liking of whoever you're trying to please and trying to meet deadlines that you are surrounded with things and you're anxious and you're troubled about many things. Which surrounds you, those many things and you fill in the blanks in your life? What are those many things? Keeps you, the parry that which surrounds you, keeps you from the pyrah, the getting next to and close to Jesus. You've got to work this out in your life. You've got to work this out in your life. We're moving to talk next Sunday about the Shabbat, the Sabbath. We read in our call to worship today where Jesus said, come into me, all you that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. Jesus is the Sabbath. He is the rest. What's your posture today? Are you like Martha, surrounded and anxious and troubled by many things? Or are you like Mary, who has found the one thing necessary and that is to be pyrah next to Jesus, listening to his voice.