Martha Martha #maryandmartha #Jesus #kairos #chronos #meditation #spirut...
Martha, Martha, Mary Has Chosen What Is Best.
Background Readings
Amos 8:1-12 Psalm 52, Colossians 1:15-28, Luke 10:38-42
Dear Martha
“…Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things: But one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her.” -Luke 10:41b-42
There has been so much said about Martha, but Jesus was not criticizing her. Martha started the criticism with her complaint that Mary was not helping with the entertaining duties.
She was joining the men.
She was soaking up the presence and the words of Jesus. She was investing in things that were intangible.
Jesus did not invalidate Martha or her work. He observed that she was busy and frantic and occupied with many things.
These things could have occupied Mary as well. There is always something to occupy us, busy, us, and worry us in this life.
The Greek word, “chronos” is time you can measure with a clock or a calendar. “Kairos,” however, is time that can be measured only in encounter, impact, and significance. Mary was living the moment in kairos time. Martha was stuck in chronos time.
Luke says it was Martha’s house. Can we surmise that Mary was the younger sister?
When Jesus came, she positioned herself and Jesus’ feet in what seemed to Martha to be laziness and irresponsibility. But Jesus called it the choice of the better way.
She did the needful thing. She chose the better part. She invested in what she could never lose, a kairos moment with Jesus.
“Now it came to pass, as they went, that he entered into a certain village: and a certain woman named Martha received him into her house.”
Who cares if the bread burns? Who cares if the table settings are not perfect? Who cares about the niceties that have us in a frenzy? One thing is needful: the kairos moment of turning and encounter.
Choose, first, the good part today.
There will be time for all else later.
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