There’s a story found in Luke’s gospel that is quite familiar to most of us; we’ve heard it or read it numerous times. Jesus is in Bethany at the house of his good friend Lazarus and his two sisters Mary & Martha. Now Lazarus isn’t mentioned, but we learn from John 11 that he lived in Bethany and had a couple of sisters named Mary & Martha. The three of them were close to Jesus—they considered him a dear friend to where he would connect with them and stay with them when he was passing through town.
This was evidently one of those occasions and, as was typical when house guests showed up, there were a variety of preparations to be made. For when Jesus showed up, it wasn’t just him that showed up. There was a cluster of people that accompanied him—his disciples and a variety of other followers. So there was quite a bit of work to be done. One of the sisters, Martha, was busy about that—getting the house organized, preparing food, etc.—while Mary, the other sister, enjoyed the company of Jesus … soaking in the situation and soaking up his teaching. This eventually irritated Martha to where a scene ensued.
As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!” “Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed—or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.” (Luke 10:38-42, NIV)
When I read this, I come away somewhat confused. For one thing, why is what Mary chose “better”? As a pastor, over the years I’ve been tasked with the responsibility of trying to grow a church and expand a congregation’s reach. And I can unequivocally say that if you’ve got a bunch of Mary’s—people who get off on spending time with Jesus but don’t so much as lift a finger to assist with some of the practical things that need to be done—you won’t be able to do it. If you’re going to impact a community, you’ve got to have some Martha’s—people willing to serve in the shadows … people who find satisfaction in doing some of the necessary behind-the-scenes things that have got to be done so others can have a personal encounter with Him. You need greeters, nursery workers, children’s ministry volunteers, people to run the sound and lights and media—an army of individuals who aren’t focused on themselves but find meaning and value in enabling others to experience Him. If you’ve only got a bunch of inspiration junkies who want to receive, receive, receive and aren’t willing to give, you’ve got a body that is going to have limited impact and a pastor that is likely living on the edge of burnout. So … I don’t understand why Jesus says that Mary chose that which was “better.” For it’s not as though Martha was doing something that was unnecessary or distracting or non-essential.
Another puzzling thing about Jesus’ saying Mary chose that which was “better” comes from the fact that, when it comes to growing as a Christian, one of the most beneficial things we can do is serve. Serving is one of the main ways God grows us and fashions in us the heart of Jesus. When someone moves from being a consumer to being a contributor—when they decide they’re no longer going to be a spectator and choose to get off the sidelines and join the team on the field—they begin to grow. Jesus, in characterizing his mission, said he didn’t come to be served but to serve. So it’s not as if Martha, by giving herself to serving, is doing something that is spiritually hazardous or crippling. She’s doing something that is valued and important … something that combats the excessive narcissism, vanity, and pride that is present in the lives of so many professing Christians who feel entitled and never lift a finger. Martha, with doing some of the necessary behind-the-scenes grunt work, is giving herself to something that’s an essential part of developing a heart that aligns with the heart of Jesus.
So … what does Jesus find so commendable about Mary and so undesirable about Martha? His remarks, on the surface, don’t make sense. Which makes me think that, perhaps, He was speaking to something that wasn’t so much about what Martha was doing but, rather, how she was going about it … that Martha, in her rush to try to get everything taken care of for Jesus and her guests, had become so anxious and agitated that she created a scene. She erupted and created a circumstance that was awkward for everyone. Her annoyance and frustration boiled over to where she turned a setting that was meant to be inspirational and life-giving into one that became uncomfortable and tense for everyone.
Have you ever been a guest at someone’s house and had your hosts get into an argument? I remember very vividly such a situation when I lived in North Carolina. A couple at the fringe of the church I pastored had Angie and I, and a couple of other couples, over for a meal and got into an argument while we were there. Hearing voices raised and a bedroom door slam off in the distance doesn’t make for a calm and comfortable setting. It makes you want to find an excuse to leave and get out of there as soon as you can do so gracefully.
It seems to me, as I run this story around in my head, what we’re dealing with here is an issue that is quite common in our world—the problem of hurry. Martha is excessively hurried … so much so that she goes off. She’s wound so tight that she creates a scene. Mary, on the other hand, is unhurried and relaxed. She’s chosen an approach that Jesus says is better.
One of the great enemies of being able to follow Jesus in our day is hurry—the drive to achieve more or participate in more and more events in less and less time. For what happens when we’re in a hurry? We don’t have time to connect with people. We can’t stop long enough to hear their stories or perceive what’s going on in their hearts. If, as the old proverb says, the word love is spelled T-I-M-E, hurried people can’t adequately love because they don’t have time to do it. In our struggle to maximize life and not miss out on anything we think the world has to offer, we diminish our capacity to do the one thing God calls us to do and the very thing Jesus said would be our identifier—John 13:35, “By this everyone will know that you’re my follower, if you love one another.” He went on to say that the single greatest command was to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength and our neighbor as ourselves. But love is painfully time consuming. It can’t be done at a sprint. Hurry and love are like oil and water—they don’t mix. The only way to effectively love someone is to slow down long enough so you can truly engage with them.
If we’re going to follow Jesus well, we must continually do battle with hurry. For while hurry, in and of itself, won’t cause us to renounce our faith, it has a way of making us so preoccupied to where we’ll often settle for a mediocre version of it. Corrie Ten Boom said it so well: “If the devil can’t make you sin, he’ll make you hurried.” For both hurry and sin have the same effect in our lives: They cut us off from our connection to God. They cut us off from our connection to other people. They even cut us off from ourselves and our connection to our own soul. Hurry keeps us from living an emotionally healthy and spiritually vibrant life. It thwarts our commitment to prayer. It disrupts our ability to do the things that facilitate a sense of closeness with God. It impedes our commitment to the kind of reflective thought that is the source of insight and wisdom. Hurry kills our ability to follow.
It appears to me what’s happening these days is that many professing Christians are assimilating to a culture of overload and hurry which leads to God becoming more marginalized—something that ultimately deteriorates our relationship with Him. And when that happens, we become increasingly vulnerable to adopting secular assumptions as to how to live which leads to even more conformity to a culture of hurry and overload. And the cycle keeps on going.
In 1 Corinthians 13, when the apostle Paul spelled out a list of adjectives that are illustrative of love, the very first one he put forward was “patient”—love is patient. I’m wondering if, when he wrote that, he had a window into the future and saw me years ago when I was trying to get Angie and our boys out the door on Sunday morning so we wouldn’t be late to church. Perhaps he saw the agitation in my actions and heard the tone of my voice and thought, “That doesn’t look like love. That doesn’t sound like love.” There’s a reason why we talk about “walking with God.” You never hear someone talking about “running with God.” For following can’t be done at a sprint. Love is unhurried. It is deliberate and slow.
Granted, the word “slow” has acquired a bit of a negative slant in our world. When a student has a low IQ, we dub him or her as “slow.” When the service at a restaurant is lousy, we call it “slow.” When a movie is boring, we complain that the plot line is “slow.” We’ve come to believe that slow is bad and fast is good. Hurry makes us feel valuable; it makes us feel important. But when it comes to God and his Kingdom, things have been turned upside down. As followers of Jesus, we’re called to embrace an inverted value system. And in this arrangement, hurry is of the devil and slow is good. For slow is of Jesus, and Jesus is what love looks like—unhurried … circumspect … living life at an easygoing, relaxed pace.
One of the things that stands out to me about Jesus is that while he was often busy, he was never hurried … and there’s a difference between those two things. While he frequently had much to do, he never did it in a way that compromised his connection to his Heavenly Father. He was never so hurried that it interfered with his ability to love. On one occasion, you see him pulling away to spend time alone when his followers were getting overwrought because everyone was looking for him. On another, you see him stopping to interact with a woman with a desperate medical issue when his followers were trying to expeditiously move him from Point A to Point B. Jesus wasn’t sedentary or lazy. He saw time as a limited commodity and used it judiciously and wisely. But you never see him complaining about not having enough time to get done what he needed to get done—in fact, he encouraged us not to worry about tomorrow’s problems. He said we should focus our attention on today’s tasks … that stress or hurry cannot add a single hour to our day or help us be more productive.
I read a blog post recently that referenced a Time magazine article from 1966 that said one of the biggest problems people would face in the 21st century is what to do with all their leisure time—that automation would be doing most of the work to where the average American would only work 23 hours a week and 28 weeks a year. In fact, the article said one of the most essential jobs of the 21st century would be “leisure counselors”—people who’d help us figure out what to do with all our excess and surplus time. When I read that, I laughed out loud. For during the course of my pastoral ministry, I’ve never had one person come to me and indicate that one of their biggest life concerns what to do with all their surplus time
So—how do we combat hurry sickness? As it relates to this aspect of modern-day life, how do we live in such a way to where we’re in the world but not of it? How do we keep from becoming a Martha—a person who feels such pressure and succumbs to the pathological busyness of our day that we end up on edge and do things that alienate and hurt the people around us?
A couple of practical things: (1) Pre-decide. I think the reason a lot of us struggle with hurry is because we haven’t decided what’s truly important. We haven’t determined what’s essential, or crucial, or priority. In many ways, hurry is not the result of a disordered schedule so much as it is a disordered heart. When we pre-decide that we’re not going to allow hurry to run our lives—that we’re going to try to be as productive as we can with the time that we have but we’re not going to embrace an unreasonable agenda for fear of missing out—it helps us begin to get the upper hand on this obstacle that can undermine our followership.
(2) Start small but do something. An example of this for me dates back to the year 2006. I was going through an exceptionally difficult season in ministry that had lasted for the better part of two years. One day, while talking with a pastor friend and chronicling for him the challenges I’d been dealing with and what I was feeling, he suggested I attend an event that was the forerunner of today’s Global Leadership Summit. He said, “John, just set aside the two days and go. No excuses—just do it!” So I decided, on the basis of his recommendation, to do it. No one went with me. I just went by myself—didn’t know another soul that was there. In the first day’s afternoon session, a guy named Wayne Cordeiro gave a talk called “Dead Leader Running” where he listed the characteristics of a leader that’s on the brink of exhaustion and at risk. And as he went through that list, every single one of them applied to me. The session ended with a prayer time and, during that prayer time, I determined I would set aside those two days every year going forward unless providentially hindered.
Now, I haven’t been to every GLS since then—one year our church had VBS … another year we took our son to college … once we were either on vacation or a had a family get-together. In addition, when I was in my doctoral program at Asbury, that was the time of year I was on campus doing coursework. But I’ve been to ten or twelve of them. Just setting those two days aside to recharge reminds me I don’t need to hurry … the world can get along without me just fine for a little while. For the greatest gift I can give to God is not the various things I do; the greatest gift I can give Him is the person I become. And I can’t become the person I want to become—I can’t be a successful and effective follower—if I’m constantly giving in to hurry.
Each of us needs to find ways to withdraw from the rat race and not be a slave to urgency and hurry. To become the person we want to be and that God wants us to be, we must heed Jesus’ words to Martha: “You are worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed.” If we’re going to follow and follow well, we must realize it can’t be done at breakneck speed. We’ve got to slow down.