“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 10:41-42
One thing that I have
noticed whenever people have these conversations about what women can and
cannot do in the body of Christ the verse that keeps coming to mind is the one
above. While there are many things that women can do in the body that would
satisfy almost everyone I keep coming back to this scene – on one hand we have Martha,
doing many things and specifically doing the things that women were supposed/
allowed to do, and on the other hand we have Mary doing only one thing, and
this one thing is the thing that women were not “supposed” to do. A thing that
was frowned on for women to do.
And while there’s
generally nothing wrong with the things Martha was doing – it’s stuff that
needs to be done, and blessed is she that does it, Jesus said that only one
thing was important and that Mary had chosen it, and also that it wouldn’t be
taken away from her.
What is this one thing
that Mary chose? To seat at the feet of Jesus and be discipled by Him. And one
thing to note about being discipled is that you are discipled to disciple
others. You are taught to teach. This is the important thing, the better thing!
And while cooking cleaning, and doing all the other peripheral things are good,
if you have the opportunity to be discipled so that you can disciple others, God
expects you to take it.
People would rather have you leave this one thing and do the many other seemingly good things. They may even be upset at you and try to use a higher authority to get you to step away from the better thing you’ve chosen – stand firm. As long as you’re at the feet of Jesus, He will not let anyone take it way from you.
