Mary & Martha Moments

Scripture: Luke 10:38-42

The story of Mary and Martha is one that is familiar to most regular Sunday School attendees. I had heard it many, many times before. Jesus comes to visit his friends, Mary and Martha. Martha is so preoccupied with making sure that everything is prepared appropriately for His visit that she chose not to sit at His feet and enjoy his presence, like her sister Mary did. I was always shocked that anyone could be anything other than a “Mary”. I mean, Jesus was in the room! He was there, in His very short time on Earth, to speak with Mary and Martha. What an incredible experience to have, how could Martha not see that the dishes could wait until later?

On our first Monday morning of the summer, Bill Buchanan used this scripture as the morning devotion before our group headed to the Clothing Closet at First Baptist. He encouraged the students to be aware and prepared to engage in what he called “Mary” moments. In other words, remember that you are working with people who have a lot to share. While the intention is to be able to adequately serve the communities we work with, do not ignore the presence of God in the room so that you can put three more men's jeans out on the rack. I’m slightly embarrassed to admit that for a large part of the last two weeks, I was in full “Martha” mode. These youth had places to be and people to serve, and it was my responsibility to ensure that that happened. I spent my first few days probably overly-dependent on my program binder, desperate to check all of the boxes and ask all the right questions. I knew the importance of keeping room for “Mary” moments, I just didn’t realize how deep I was in the other direction. 

This past Wednesday evening we discussed the systems that uphold and prevent our society from changing. Most of the group was exhausted, I’m sure, and we had a lot of program to cover that evening. That morning I had recycled Bill’s “Mary and Martha” devotional, but it was a long day and most of us (including myself) had probably forgotten what we had talked about that morning. Towards the end of the night, after students shared ideas about solutions to these systems, I asked the group why nobody had done these things before. An adult chaperone then began to open up about her experiences with food stamps and Section 8 housing. It was an incredible moment of vulnerability, and the air in the room completely changed. Every person in the room was aware of the presence of God. There was nothing anyone could say to twist that experience into a “teaching moment”, because it simply already was. We all were Mary at that moment, eager to hear and know that chaperone and her story. We were witnessing God in her vulnerability and openness with the more difficult moments of her life. 
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I am, and will forever be, so incredibly grateful to her for that moment. She not only displayed incredible wisdom, but reminded all of us of the remarkable presence of God. I pray for more moments like that this summer. That maybe weeks, months, years down the line, there will be a memory of engaging in God's work with God's people that we can look back and remember fondly. Maybe we can’t recall the name of the agency we worked with, but we can picture the face of the woman whose shopping basket we held as she shared that she was shopping for a job interview. Maybe the theme of the week is forgotten, we can treasure the feeling of knowing that God is good and God is with us. These things will not be taken away from us. Praise be to God. 

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by Sophie deMaine