"One thing is needed..."

…said Jesus in Luke 10:42. Yes, I know, another familiar record; but are you really that familiar with it? Am I? By virtue of observing our culture, I think deep down none of us are really familiar with that record. We are willingly surrounded by noise, whether it’s TV, texting, social media, or plain old scattered thinking—it’s the white noise of our souls.  We always have it with us like theme music in the background of our lives.  Only this theme music isn’t heroic or inspiring; instead, it’s distracting and even debilitating. Let me explain.

 

Martha invited Jesus into her home that she shared with her sister Mary. The two sisters had very different reactions to Jesus; Mary sat at His feet and heard His word while Martha was distracted with being a fastidious hostess.

 

Martha welcomed Him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, who sat at Jesus’ feet and heard His word. But Martha was distracted with much serving, and she approached Him and said, “Lord, do You not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Therefore tell her to help me.”

 

And Jesus answered and said to her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and troubled about many things. But one thing is needed, and Mary has chosen that good part, which will not be taken away from her.” (Luke 10:38-42)

 

While I realize this is a record of an actual event that occurred in the past, I remain convinced that all of Jesus’ teachings have applicability to any age or era.  This record is no different.   The risk in this record is like the over-arching risk of all history, we read it but don’t learn from it; therefore, it is more apt to be repeated rather than actually influencing a change in behavior.  Our charge is to instead internalize Jesus’ words and then apply the lessons Jesus is teaching.

 

What’s the Lesson

Here the lesson is really an illustration of a battle between doing vs. being; or noise vs. silence. In one corner we have doing, fussing around out of a sense of obligation. In the other corner, we have being with Jesus out of the sense of love and desire to learn.  Or for football fans, one sideline has noise, always needing to be seen doing something, because stillness to them means laziness. They are hard to coach because they don’t sit still long enough to listen and learn from the Master. Perhaps they are afraid to be still and listen for fear of hearing something they don’t want to hear or being forced to face a deeply entrenched fear. Sometimes, we keep ourselves busy as a strategy of avoidance: avoiding confronting the pain.

 

On the other side of the field is silence. While they do have times where they’re busy, they also know when it is time to be quiet, to sit at the feet of the Master and soak in His presence. They’re easy to coach because they’re always ready to listen and learn. To listen requires that they quiet their mind, that they sit still and know that God is God and will bathe them in His presence via the indwelling Holy Spirit.  They are unafraid of the silence and are willing to face with courage the truth the Master imparts to them.

 

Now back to Luke 10. Mary is silent. How do I know? Because she is sitting at Jesus’ feet. In the Bible days, this was a sign of great respect and was also the posture of the student soaking in the wisdom of the teacher.  What’s more, she “heard His word”; it is very hard to hear another person if your mouth is running or your mind is wandering far from the subject at hand.  Therefore, Mary is silent.

 

Practical Application

Our application of Mary’s example is to take time and just be with Jesus in prayer. How do we do this? Well, unfortunately, Americanized Christianity has an awful tendency of filling our prayer time with laundry lists of requests and things we want God to do. Our internal voice is continually chuntering on about inane stuff, so much so, that our internal noise completely drowns out anything God might be trying to say to us. We’ve lost what the ancients called contemplative prayer by sitting quietly; meaning we still our mind of all incoming distractions, and simply focus on what God may or may not be saying to us via His Holy Spirit. This is difficult to do, just try it!

 

A good beginning point is to focus on our breath going in and out. As we focus on our breathing, then the other distractions of the day will melt into vapor and we can then start listening to the “still small voice” within the depths of our soul. We need to be careful, however, not to confuse the nudging of the Holy Spirit with our own internal voice.

 

Why is this important? Well, since we can no longer physically sit at the feet of Jesus, we need to employ the next best method, and following Mary’s example, that would be sitting quietly and listening to the internal nudging of the Holy Spirit.

 

We can also employ this discipline by reading Scripture and letting it soak into the deep fibers of our soul. Rather than treating our reading as nothing more than a check box on a to-do list, why not instead read with the intention of letting God speak to us via the truths we are reading.

 

It Takes Discipline

Granted, these sound like trite techniques, and they can indeed become that. But to really begin grasping the deeper things of God, these can instead become disciplines; disciplines of silence, contemplation and Scripture reading. As we practice such disciplines with serious intention we will draw more deeply from the endless waters of God.