The Portion Nobody Can Take

Imagine your family is expecting a guest for dinner. One person is in the kitchen, chopping, stirring and setting the table. Another is sitting in the living room, talking with the guest. The cook gets grumpier by the minute.

Most of us side with the cook. So this short story about two sisters can feel unfair at first.

It comes from Luke, one of four books in the Bible that tell the life of Jesus. These books are called Gospels. "Gospel" means good news. Jesus had told his followers that he would be killed and then rise from the dead (Luke 9:22). Now he was walking toward Jerusalem, the capital city, where that would happen (Luke 9:51).

On the way he stopped at Bethany, a village near Jerusalem, where two sisters named Martha and Mary lived (John 11:1). Martha welcomed Jesus into her house (Luke 10:38). She was the host, and a good meal meant a lot of work.

Just before this, Jesus talked with an expert in God's law, the commands God gave his people. They agreed on what that law asks most: love God with everything you have, and love your neighbour as yourself (Luke 10:27). Then Jesus told a story about a man who stopped to help a stranger left hurt by the road, and ended, "You go, and do likewise" (Luke 10:37). In other words, go and help people.

The very next story is about a woman who did not go and do. She sat down. Together, the two stories hold both halves of that command: love your neighbour, and love God.

1. Mary sat where a student sits

She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet and listened to his teaching.

Luke 10:39

"Lord" means master, and Luke uses the same word for God. Mary did not sit at the table. She sat on the floor by Jesus' feet, and she listened.

In that world, sitting at someone's feet was how people described being their student. Paul was an early leader among Christians, the people who follow Jesus. He once told an angry crowd in Jerusalem about his own schooling:

I am a Jew, born in Tarsus in Cilicia, but brought up in this city, educated at the feet of Gamaliel.

Acts 22:3

Tarsus in Cilicia was a city in what is now Turkey. Gamaliel was a famous teacher of God's law in Jerusalem, and Paul had been his student. So when Luke says Mary sat at Jesus' feet, he is telling us she was a disciple. A disciple is a learner who follows a teacher to become like him.

But Mary was not only learning. She was being fed. Hundreds of years earlier, God spoke through Isaiah, a prophet. A prophet is someone who carries God's message to people:

Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good.

Isaiah 55:2

God was calling his people to stop spending their lives on things that could never fill them. "Listen diligently" means listen carefully. God says listening to him is like eating good food.

Here is the surprise. Martha was making a meal for Jesus. Mary was eating the meal Jesus was serving: his words. That day, Jesus was the real host.

2. Good work can pull you apart

But Martha was distracted with much serving. And 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."

Luke 10:40

Martha was serving, and she was serving Jesus. That is good work.

The New Testament, the part of the Bible written after Jesus came, was first written in Greek. Luke's Greek word for "distracted" is perispaō. It means to be pulled or dragged around. Picture someone walking five dogs at once, each pulling a different way. Martha's hands were busy, and her heart was pulled in every direction.

Then the busyness turned into a complaint about her sister, and a hard question for Jesus: "Do you not care?"

This is the uncomfortable part. Jesus' closest followers once asked him the same thing. Mark's Gospel tells how they were crossing a lake when a storm hit. Jesus was asleep in the boat, and they woke him:

Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?

Mark 4:38

Perishing means dying. In Greek, their words and Martha's are the same: "do you not care". They were afraid of drowning. She was tired of cooking alone. Big trouble and small trouble can lead to the same wrong idea, that Jesus does not care.

Peter was one of those followers. Years later he wrote a letter to Christians who were suffering because they followed Jesus:

Casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.

1 Peter 5:7

Anxieties are worries. To cast them means to throw them, like dropping a heavy bag onto someone stronger. And "cares" is the same Greek word Martha used. Her question was, "Do you not care?" Peter's answer is, "He cares for you."

3. One thing comes first

But the Lord answered her, "Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary."

Luke 10:41-42

Jesus says her name twice. He is not brushing her off. He sees what is going on inside her: worry about many things. Then he names the one thing a person cannot do without.

A song in the Psalms, the Bible's book of songs and prayers, had already said this. Its heading links it to King David, Israel's most famous king:

One thing have I asked of the LORD, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to inquire in his temple.

Psalm 27:4

"The LORD" in capitals is how many Bibles print God's own name. To dwell means to live. The house of the LORD, also called his temple, was the place where God's people worshipped him. To inquire means to ask and learn. David had a kingdom to run and wars to fight. Out of all of it, he chose one thing: to be near God and learn from him. That is what Mary was doing.

Does that mean work does not matter? No. Jesus had just told the expert in the law to go and help people. Once, when two of his followers asked for the most important seats beside him, he said this about himself:

For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.

Mark 10:45

Son of Man was the name Jesus most often used for himself. A ransom is the price paid to set a prisoner free. Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem to pay that price with his own life. Serving cannot be the problem when Jesus himself is the greatest servant.

Martha kept serving, too. At another dinner in Bethany, just days before Jesus died, John simply says, "Martha served" (John 12:2). This time, John records no correction. The lesson was never "stop serving". It was "do not let serving push Jesus out of first place." Listening to him comes first, and good work grows out of it.

4. The portion nobody can take

Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.

Luke 10:42

A portion is a share, like your helping of food at dinner. Martha was busy dishing up portions. Jesus says Mary had already chosen the best one.

The Old Testament is the part of the Bible written before Jesus. Long before he was born, Jewish scholars translated it into Greek. In this psalm they used the same word for "portion" that Luke uses:

My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

Psalm 73:26

The writer had been upset that bad people seemed to do well while he struggled. In the end he saw that even if his body and courage gave out, God himself was his share forever. For Mary, that portion was sitting in her house, because Jesus is God who came to live as a man.

But do not stretch that promise too far. Choosing Jesus did not keep sorrow away. Later, Lazarus, the sisters' brother, fell sick and died before Jesus arrived:

Now when Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet, saying to him, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died."

John 11:32

Mary is at his feet again, but this time she is weeping and asking why. Jesus went on to raise Lazarus from the dead, but first Mary had to grieve. "Will not be taken away" did not mean nothing would be taken. Her brother was taken. Jesus was not. She could still come to him with the hardest thing she had ever said.

Jesus made the same promise to everyone who follows him. Speaking in Jerusalem, he called his followers his sheep:

I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.

John 10:28

Eternal life means life with God that starts now and never ends. To snatch is to grab away by force. A dinner is eaten and gone by the next morning. Friends move away, money runs out, and health fades. But no one can pull a person out of Jesus' hand. That is the portion nobody can take.

What to do this week

Listen before you work. Tomorrow, before you check your phone or start your jobs, read Luke 10:38-42 slowly. Ask, "What is Jesus saying to me here?"

Catch the "nobody cares" thought. When it comes, stop and tell Jesus plainly what feels like too much. If you need help, ask the person directly and kindly. Martha asked Jesus to tell Mary. You can just ask.

Do not use Mary as an excuse. If you sat and listened, get up afterwards and help with the dishes. Time with Jesus should make you more ready to serve, not less.

Martha's dinner was gone by morning. What Mary chose that day, she still has.