What Comes First
Commentary
I have tried to find different ways of saying it so that my children don’t tire of hearing it. But the basic principle remains the same, and my kids have heard it a ton. “First things first.” They ask if they can do this or they start to do that, and I will endeavor to redirect them, saying, “Why don’t we make sure we’re doing first things first!”
In some areas of life, we know without argument that doing and putting things in the proper order is essential. If I put the dry pancake mix on the griddle first, and only after heating that up do I mix in the egg and milk and such, I know that my pancakes won’t turn out so well. In a recipe, you’ve got to do things in a certain order for them to turn out right.
It’s inarguably true in other matters, as well. Put the words in the wrong order and the sentence will come out with a different meaning or no meaning at all. Likewise with the pages in a document, the notes in a song, or the code in a computer. It’s essential to put first things first, for if the first thing isn’t in its place, then everything after is bound to be out of order.
The wiser we get, the more clear the principle becomes to us in other areas of life, as well. Don’t put things in the wrong order. Don’t do things in the wrong order. Make the first things first.
The Bible is overt in its concern for putting first things first. The first of the commandments that God gave to his people Israel was right on point: “You shall have no other gods before me” (Exodus 20:3 ESV). That’s about priorities, you see. And it’s a particularly striking commandment inasmuch as one would think it is sufficient to say, “You shall have no other gods. Period.” That is certainly right and true. But the Lord builds into the law the principle of what comes first.
Jesus echoes that same prioritization principle in a challenging word to his disciples. “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me” (Matthew 10:37 ESV). Love of family is not a bad thing. Love of parents or children is not a sin to be eliminated from our lives. No, it’s a simple affirmation of love for God taking precedence over all other loves. First things first.
In our three selected passages for this week, we see the principle at work again. As we read a word of judgment from Amos, a teaching from Paul, and a story from Luke, we are reminded from several different angles about the proper order of things.
Amos 8:1-12
The question at hand for us with our assigned Old Testament lection is the distance at which we want to hold the text. On the one hand, we can hold it at a distance of 2,700 years and contemplate exclusively what Amos was saying to the people of his day. On the other hand, we can hold it up close and courageously listen for what the Lord’s message through Amos says to us today. The former might seem tedious and irrelevant to all but the most curious Bible students. But tedious may be more desirable than offensive, which is no doubt what the passage will be if we hear it as addressed to us personally.
Amos was one of the great 8th-century B.C. prophets, along with Hosea, Isaiah, and Micah. Amos and Hosea were perhaps the only canonical (writing) prophets whose calling was to the northern kingdom of Israel. And, following that 8th-century B.C., there was no more northern kingdom of Israel, compliments of the Assyrian empire.
So it was that Amos appeared on the scene with a harsh judgment message about Israel’s impending doom. It was no doubt an unwelcome message. And it was probably also an incredible message at two levels. First, the notion of the Lord judging his own people as a national entity was a foreign concept. The Lord was Israel’s God, after all, and historically he judged other nations and rescued Israel. But Amos was bringing a startlingly different message. And, second, the people of Amos’ audience were living in such comfort, luxury, and security that a message of desolation must have seemed unimaginable.
The message might be broadly divided into two categories: the sinful condition of the people and the judgment that will befall them. We might call the two categories present and future. Or we might call them cause and effect.
Interestingly, the passage begins not with the present but with the future. The first statements are about the judgment to come, beginning with the ominous declaration that the Lord will not again “pass by” the people of Israel. That could be regarded as either good news or bad news depending upon the context. In this particular context, just one chapter earlier (7:8), the Lord used the same expression, and it was followed by a message of judgment. So the dire words that follow here in chapter 8 come as no surprise.
Then, in verse 3, we read the alarming description of what is to come. It is strong and frightening poetry. And no doubt it evokes the question of what could possibly be the cause of such devastation. The answer is the sinfulness of the people, which is cataloged in verses 4 through 6.
As is the case throughout so much of Amos, the indictment is economic in nature. While the other northern prophet, Hosea, focuses more on the idolatry — the spiritual infidelity — of the people, Amos highlights their injustice and oppression. No doubt both problems were prevalent in the land: rarely prevails in the singular.
We see in the Old Testament law a mandated concern for the needy, for the people who were situationally vulnerable. But the people in Amos’ audience had not only been insensitive to the vulnerable in their midst, they had taken advantage of them. And where human justice is absent, divine judgment will step in to fill the void.
After the several verses of condemnation, the message returns to a portrait of the judgment. What was thumbnailed in verse 3 is fleshed out in verses 8 through 12. The catastrophe is complete. It spans both the land and the sky. It includes both dispersion and death. It turns the tables on the comfortable and affluent Israelites. And, in a remarkable expression of judgment, the Lord warns of a spiritual famine. For while people might naturally fear a lack of physical food. the Lord declares a more damning drought: the absence of God’s word.
If we hold the passage at arm’s length, we will get a devastating picture of the greedy sinfulness of the people of 8th-century Israel, as well as a glimpse of divine judgment. If we bring the passage closer, though, then we are confronted with the question of how familiar those ancient Israelites look. Are we comfortable and complacent at the expense of others? Are we so money-hungry that we neglect that which is holy in favor of profit? And if so, can we expect a just and holy God to keep “passing by” us?
Colossians 1:15-28
This passage is a hopeless task for the preacher, for there is simply too much there to be able to do justice to all of it in a single sermon. Take me into a room in an art museum and ask me to spend twenty minutes talking about the beauty and artistry of a single piece hanging there. But don’t ask me to cover all of the art on display in that room in the same twenty minutes! We might select any single verse from this Colossians 1 passage and preach a sermon about it.
For our purposes here, then, let me zoom out and take a larger view of the passage so that we might orient ourselves to its flow and what Paul is saying. And then, with that context in place, you may elect to focus on what seems best and most suitable for this week’s preaching.
The passage begins with perhaps the most dense Christology of any single passage in all of scripture. Paul identifies who Jesus is in relation to the Father, to creation, to powers, and to the church. There is nothing in this bold statement that could confuse Jesus with John the Baptist, Elijah, or one of the prophets (see Luke 19:19). Likewise, these declarations dwarf even the boldest claims about any other human figure from any religious tradition across history. Paul is saying unprecedented and unparalleled things about Jesus, and all of it deserves our consideration and elaboration.
Meanwhile, it is noteworthy that Paul’s Christology does not remain theoretical or detached. The statements about Jesus turn immediately to the personal implications for the members of Paul’s audience, which now includes us. He refers to the believer’s past-tense state of affairs: “once alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds.” Even so, a brief a phrase is packed with meaning, for Paul has said something relational about us (alienated), something about our inner condition (hostile in mind), and something about our behavior (doing evil deeds). This is a concise summary of the human plight because of sin. But the Christological affirmations of the first segment now come close to home, for those very sinners “he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him.” We are thus transformed from alienated to reconciled and from evil to blameless. So great a salvation!
Finally, the connection between the first segment and the second segment is revealed in the third segment. That is to say, the vital piece that has brought Christ and all that he is to the sinners in the audience is Paul, and so the passage concludes with statements about his ministry. He had been called to a ministry, a stewardship, and a making known of God’s word. Suffering proves to be part of that, but for Paul it does not seem to be either incidental or accidental. Rather, the suffering is essential for Christ and his church.
The passage has simply too much, you see, to plumb the depths of every part. So pick one masterpiece hanging in the room of this assigned text, and help your people see all that is there.
Luke 10:38-42
This episode from the gospel of Luke is so familiar that the names of the two female characters have become labels for different personality types. So we look in the mirror or at one another and we ask, “Are you a Mary or a Martha?” The question may be misplaced and the labels misused. But let us consider the familiar story together.
We know from John’s Gospel that these two sisters lived in Bethany, not far from Jerusalem, with their brother Lazarus. The brother, for whatever reason, is not a factor in this particular scene. Instead, we see Jesus being hosted in the home by these two sisters, Mary and Martha. And while he is there with them, we see the two women make very different choices about what to do while he is there. Martha, it seems, is being the ultimate hostess. She is making sure that everything is just so. Mary, meanwhile, is evidently sitting there with Jesus, talking and listening to him.
Martha becomes understandably frustrated with her sister. One is tempted to suspect that this was not the first time that she had felt this particular frustration. Martha is doing all the work and Mary, it seems, is doing nothing. And so Martha appeals to Jesus to adjudicate between them. Or, more accurately, Martha appeals to Jesus to get him to make Mary do what Martha knows Mary ought to be doing.
Jesus didn’t do that. In fact, it seems that he did quite the opposite. For rather than correcting Mary, Jesus actually corrects Martha. It must have been truly stunning for Martha, who was so sure that she was in the right.
It is worth noting that Jesus uses the double vocative. He begins his corrective statement by saying, “Martha, Martha.” We don’t know what tone of voice Jesus used, but this particular construction helps us to recognize that it was probably not a harsh scolding but rather a gentle — even sad — correction. Think, for example, of other uses of the same construction. “Absalom, Absalom” (2 Samuel 19:4); “Simon, Simon “(Luke 22:31); “Jerusalem, Jerusalem” (Matthew 23:37). What is the tone of voice you hear in those vocatives? So, too, I believe there is a tenderness and even sadness as Jesus corrects Martha.
We should note that Jesus doesn’t say that Martha is doing anything wrong. She is not being condemned for seeing the needs that she sees or doing the work that she is doing. He doesn’t say it’s bad; he says that what Mary chose was better.
This is a significant distinction. After all, it wasn’t wrong for the one man to have bought a field (Luke 14:18), or for another man to have bought some oxen (verse 19), or for yet another man to have just gotten married (verse 20). These are not bad, wrong, wicked, sinful things. But those men chose those things over the great banquet. But Mary, you see, had chosen the better part.
I think it’s too bad when we think of Mary and Martha as labels for different personality types, for then we are disparaging so many of the hard workers who make the world go around, as well as condemning them as somehow naturally predisposed to be less spiritual or less godly. But Mary and Martha do not represent different types of personalities; they represent different types of choices. And any one of us makes, from time to time, the Martha choice — doing the good and important thing, while in the process neglecting what is the best and most important thing.
Application
It may be that, in some areas of life, we are unsure about the proper order of things. We are temporarily paralyzed in our work because we aren’t certain what the next best step is for a certain project, which person needs to be consulted first, what is the most strategic order of the elements of the advertising rollout, or some such. And sometimes it happens to us even in the ordinary decisions of daily life when we feel overwhelmed by having so many things to do that we aren’t sure where to begin, what to do first.
Our assigned text from Colossians makes the big-picture truth abundantly clear. Let there be no doubt what comes first. Jesus!
Paul says that Jesus is before all things. He holds preeminence in creation. He has first place in the church. And he is “the firstborn from the dead.” If we peel back the layers of truth, we affirm that Jesus is first personally, he is first cosmically, and he is first eternally. And so if we are to order our lives properly, we will attend to first things first, which means that our starting place is always Jesus.
The episode from Luke, meanwhile, offers a homespun sort of illustration of the principle in the juxtaposition of Mary and Martha. Jesus is in the house, yet only one of the two sisters is truly prioritizing him. We don’t deny that Martha was doing things that have to be done; but did they have to be done then? It’s a little reminiscent for me of the Sabbath command in the Old Testament. The Lord says that in six days we should do all our work and on the seventh we should rest. So, the work has its time, to be sure, but the Sabbath takes priority. The Sabbath day is not the time to do those otherwise required tasks. And when Jesus is in the living room, it’s not the time to be puttering in the kitchen.
That analogy of the Sabbath, meanwhile, brings to mind our selected passage from Amos. The passage is not explicitly about Jesus, of course, but it does speak to priorities. And the damnable priorities of the people of Amos’ audience were greed and selfishness. Their appetite for commerce provoked them to dishonor the Sabbath. And their hunger for money — more and more money — prompted them to mistreat others and to oppress the poor.
Everyone has priorities; priorities are inevitable. Something or someone holds first place in our hearts. Something or someone enjoys pride of place in our schedules and in our budgets. So everyone has priorities, it’s just a question of whether our priorities are the right ones.
I tell my kids, “First things first!” It’s an important principle. But it is only helpful if we are clear about what the first things truly are and ought to be. Colossians tells us. Mary reminds us. And the people of Amos’ day are a tragic example of the alternative.
Alternative Application(s)
Luke 10:38-42 — “Tell It to The Judge”
We noted above the frustration that Martha felt with Mary. Martha had been doing all of the work — work which she felt sure needed to get done — while Mary was literally just sitting there. I imagine Martha might have said to herself, “Well, sure, I’d like to just sit down and talk to Jesus, too, but there is too much to do. I can’t just sit around, and you shouldn’t, either.”
The fact that Martha takes her case to Jesus makes me think that this sort of thing had happened between Martha and Mary before. In other words, if this was the first time Martha had ever felt this frustration, my hunch is that she would have been able to gently and privately take Mary aside and ask for her consideration and assistance. But the fact that she doesn’t even bother addressing Mary but goes straight to Jesus, instead, suggests to me that she has gotten nowhere with Mary in this sort of matter before.
How many times have we seen this same behavior pattern in ourselves, or with family members, or while visiting with other people? Two persons have an ongoing frustration with each other, and one or both of them is eager to get someone from the outside to serve as judge and jury in order to take their side and finally vindicate them. That’s no doubt what Martha assumed Jesus would do.
We explored above the surprising result that Martha received: what Jesus said, how he probably said it, and what the message was for Martha (and for us!). What I’d like to highlight just now, however, is the way in which Martha was exemplary. She took her complaint to Jesus, and I believe that ought to be our policy — our first reflex — as well.
We see evidence of this all through the Psalms, of course. People who are experiencing some trouble or injustice take their complaint to God. It is an act of faith, you see, to complain to God. It is an implicit affirmation that he is just, that he cares, and that he is willing and able to step in and right the wrong. At that level, therefore, Martha stands in a long line of faithful saints.
Additionally, if I have a complaint about another person, it is far less combative for me to tell the Lord about that complaint than for me to tell the other person. It may well be, of course, that in some situations it will be helpful and fruitful to let the other person know. But even where such directness is beneficial, I expect it is still good policy to begin by taking the complaint to God. Let him know everything I think and feel, while the people around me won’t have the bear the burden of all that: they can get only what is useful to them.
Finally, the great advantage — one which Martha experienced but was no doubt surprised by — of taking our complaints first to the Lord is that then we have put ourselves in a position to be corrected. If I take my complaint about Mary directly to Mary, we may just end up in an argument about who is right and who is wrong. And, if I’ve got a lot of pent up anger or stored up hostilities, then I will end up introducing into the present conflict a lot of poison from past conflicts or frustrations or disappointments. Ah, but if I begin with Jesus rather than with Mary, then I am submitting myself to his input. And I may learn from him what my ego or my anger makes me incapable of learning from anyone else: that I am not entirely correct in my complaint.
Mary was exemplary by the choice she made in sitting at Jesus’ feet rather than rushing about and taking care of all sorts of other things, lesser things. But Martha is exemplary, too. She is a role model for us when we have a complaint, for she does the right thing with it: she tells it to Jesus.
In some areas of life, we know without argument that doing and putting things in the proper order is essential. If I put the dry pancake mix on the griddle first, and only after heating that up do I mix in the egg and milk and such, I know that my pancakes won’t turn out so well. In a recipe, you’ve got to do things in a certain order for them to turn out right.
It’s inarguably true in other matters, as well. Put the words in the wrong order and the sentence will come out with a different meaning or no meaning at all. Likewise with the pages in a document, the notes in a song, or the code in a computer. It’s essential to put first things first, for if the first thing isn’t in its place, then everything after is bound to be out of order.
The wiser we get, the more clear the principle becomes to us in other areas of life, as well. Don’t put things in the wrong order. Don’t do things in the wrong order. Make the first things first.
The Bible is overt in its concern for putting first things first. The first of the commandments that God gave to his people Israel was right on point: “You shall have no other gods before me” (Exodus 20:3 ESV). That’s about priorities, you see. And it’s a particularly striking commandment inasmuch as one would think it is sufficient to say, “You shall have no other gods. Period.” That is certainly right and true. But the Lord builds into the law the principle of what comes first.
Jesus echoes that same prioritization principle in a challenging word to his disciples. “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me” (Matthew 10:37 ESV). Love of family is not a bad thing. Love of parents or children is not a sin to be eliminated from our lives. No, it’s a simple affirmation of love for God taking precedence over all other loves. First things first.
In our three selected passages for this week, we see the principle at work again. As we read a word of judgment from Amos, a teaching from Paul, and a story from Luke, we are reminded from several different angles about the proper order of things.
Amos 8:1-12
The question at hand for us with our assigned Old Testament lection is the distance at which we want to hold the text. On the one hand, we can hold it at a distance of 2,700 years and contemplate exclusively what Amos was saying to the people of his day. On the other hand, we can hold it up close and courageously listen for what the Lord’s message through Amos says to us today. The former might seem tedious and irrelevant to all but the most curious Bible students. But tedious may be more desirable than offensive, which is no doubt what the passage will be if we hear it as addressed to us personally.
Amos was one of the great 8th-century B.C. prophets, along with Hosea, Isaiah, and Micah. Amos and Hosea were perhaps the only canonical (writing) prophets whose calling was to the northern kingdom of Israel. And, following that 8th-century B.C., there was no more northern kingdom of Israel, compliments of the Assyrian empire.
So it was that Amos appeared on the scene with a harsh judgment message about Israel’s impending doom. It was no doubt an unwelcome message. And it was probably also an incredible message at two levels. First, the notion of the Lord judging his own people as a national entity was a foreign concept. The Lord was Israel’s God, after all, and historically he judged other nations and rescued Israel. But Amos was bringing a startlingly different message. And, second, the people of Amos’ audience were living in such comfort, luxury, and security that a message of desolation must have seemed unimaginable.
The message might be broadly divided into two categories: the sinful condition of the people and the judgment that will befall them. We might call the two categories present and future. Or we might call them cause and effect.
Interestingly, the passage begins not with the present but with the future. The first statements are about the judgment to come, beginning with the ominous declaration that the Lord will not again “pass by” the people of Israel. That could be regarded as either good news or bad news depending upon the context. In this particular context, just one chapter earlier (7:8), the Lord used the same expression, and it was followed by a message of judgment. So the dire words that follow here in chapter 8 come as no surprise.
Then, in verse 3, we read the alarming description of what is to come. It is strong and frightening poetry. And no doubt it evokes the question of what could possibly be the cause of such devastation. The answer is the sinfulness of the people, which is cataloged in verses 4 through 6.
As is the case throughout so much of Amos, the indictment is economic in nature. While the other northern prophet, Hosea, focuses more on the idolatry — the spiritual infidelity — of the people, Amos highlights their injustice and oppression. No doubt both problems were prevalent in the land: rarely prevails in the singular.
We see in the Old Testament law a mandated concern for the needy, for the people who were situationally vulnerable. But the people in Amos’ audience had not only been insensitive to the vulnerable in their midst, they had taken advantage of them. And where human justice is absent, divine judgment will step in to fill the void.
After the several verses of condemnation, the message returns to a portrait of the judgment. What was thumbnailed in verse 3 is fleshed out in verses 8 through 12. The catastrophe is complete. It spans both the land and the sky. It includes both dispersion and death. It turns the tables on the comfortable and affluent Israelites. And, in a remarkable expression of judgment, the Lord warns of a spiritual famine. For while people might naturally fear a lack of physical food. the Lord declares a more damning drought: the absence of God’s word.
If we hold the passage at arm’s length, we will get a devastating picture of the greedy sinfulness of the people of 8th-century Israel, as well as a glimpse of divine judgment. If we bring the passage closer, though, then we are confronted with the question of how familiar those ancient Israelites look. Are we comfortable and complacent at the expense of others? Are we so money-hungry that we neglect that which is holy in favor of profit? And if so, can we expect a just and holy God to keep “passing by” us?
Colossians 1:15-28
This passage is a hopeless task for the preacher, for there is simply too much there to be able to do justice to all of it in a single sermon. Take me into a room in an art museum and ask me to spend twenty minutes talking about the beauty and artistry of a single piece hanging there. But don’t ask me to cover all of the art on display in that room in the same twenty minutes! We might select any single verse from this Colossians 1 passage and preach a sermon about it.
For our purposes here, then, let me zoom out and take a larger view of the passage so that we might orient ourselves to its flow and what Paul is saying. And then, with that context in place, you may elect to focus on what seems best and most suitable for this week’s preaching.
The passage begins with perhaps the most dense Christology of any single passage in all of scripture. Paul identifies who Jesus is in relation to the Father, to creation, to powers, and to the church. There is nothing in this bold statement that could confuse Jesus with John the Baptist, Elijah, or one of the prophets (see Luke 19:19). Likewise, these declarations dwarf even the boldest claims about any other human figure from any religious tradition across history. Paul is saying unprecedented and unparalleled things about Jesus, and all of it deserves our consideration and elaboration.
Meanwhile, it is noteworthy that Paul’s Christology does not remain theoretical or detached. The statements about Jesus turn immediately to the personal implications for the members of Paul’s audience, which now includes us. He refers to the believer’s past-tense state of affairs: “once alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds.” Even so, a brief a phrase is packed with meaning, for Paul has said something relational about us (alienated), something about our inner condition (hostile in mind), and something about our behavior (doing evil deeds). This is a concise summary of the human plight because of sin. But the Christological affirmations of the first segment now come close to home, for those very sinners “he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him.” We are thus transformed from alienated to reconciled and from evil to blameless. So great a salvation!
Finally, the connection between the first segment and the second segment is revealed in the third segment. That is to say, the vital piece that has brought Christ and all that he is to the sinners in the audience is Paul, and so the passage concludes with statements about his ministry. He had been called to a ministry, a stewardship, and a making known of God’s word. Suffering proves to be part of that, but for Paul it does not seem to be either incidental or accidental. Rather, the suffering is essential for Christ and his church.
The passage has simply too much, you see, to plumb the depths of every part. So pick one masterpiece hanging in the room of this assigned text, and help your people see all that is there.
Luke 10:38-42
This episode from the gospel of Luke is so familiar that the names of the two female characters have become labels for different personality types. So we look in the mirror or at one another and we ask, “Are you a Mary or a Martha?” The question may be misplaced and the labels misused. But let us consider the familiar story together.
We know from John’s Gospel that these two sisters lived in Bethany, not far from Jerusalem, with their brother Lazarus. The brother, for whatever reason, is not a factor in this particular scene. Instead, we see Jesus being hosted in the home by these two sisters, Mary and Martha. And while he is there with them, we see the two women make very different choices about what to do while he is there. Martha, it seems, is being the ultimate hostess. She is making sure that everything is just so. Mary, meanwhile, is evidently sitting there with Jesus, talking and listening to him.
Martha becomes understandably frustrated with her sister. One is tempted to suspect that this was not the first time that she had felt this particular frustration. Martha is doing all the work and Mary, it seems, is doing nothing. And so Martha appeals to Jesus to adjudicate between them. Or, more accurately, Martha appeals to Jesus to get him to make Mary do what Martha knows Mary ought to be doing.
Jesus didn’t do that. In fact, it seems that he did quite the opposite. For rather than correcting Mary, Jesus actually corrects Martha. It must have been truly stunning for Martha, who was so sure that she was in the right.
It is worth noting that Jesus uses the double vocative. He begins his corrective statement by saying, “Martha, Martha.” We don’t know what tone of voice Jesus used, but this particular construction helps us to recognize that it was probably not a harsh scolding but rather a gentle — even sad — correction. Think, for example, of other uses of the same construction. “Absalom, Absalom” (2 Samuel 19:4); “Simon, Simon “(Luke 22:31); “Jerusalem, Jerusalem” (Matthew 23:37). What is the tone of voice you hear in those vocatives? So, too, I believe there is a tenderness and even sadness as Jesus corrects Martha.
We should note that Jesus doesn’t say that Martha is doing anything wrong. She is not being condemned for seeing the needs that she sees or doing the work that she is doing. He doesn’t say it’s bad; he says that what Mary chose was better.
This is a significant distinction. After all, it wasn’t wrong for the one man to have bought a field (Luke 14:18), or for another man to have bought some oxen (verse 19), or for yet another man to have just gotten married (verse 20). These are not bad, wrong, wicked, sinful things. But those men chose those things over the great banquet. But Mary, you see, had chosen the better part.
I think it’s too bad when we think of Mary and Martha as labels for different personality types, for then we are disparaging so many of the hard workers who make the world go around, as well as condemning them as somehow naturally predisposed to be less spiritual or less godly. But Mary and Martha do not represent different types of personalities; they represent different types of choices. And any one of us makes, from time to time, the Martha choice — doing the good and important thing, while in the process neglecting what is the best and most important thing.
Application
It may be that, in some areas of life, we are unsure about the proper order of things. We are temporarily paralyzed in our work because we aren’t certain what the next best step is for a certain project, which person needs to be consulted first, what is the most strategic order of the elements of the advertising rollout, or some such. And sometimes it happens to us even in the ordinary decisions of daily life when we feel overwhelmed by having so many things to do that we aren’t sure where to begin, what to do first.
Our assigned text from Colossians makes the big-picture truth abundantly clear. Let there be no doubt what comes first. Jesus!
Paul says that Jesus is before all things. He holds preeminence in creation. He has first place in the church. And he is “the firstborn from the dead.” If we peel back the layers of truth, we affirm that Jesus is first personally, he is first cosmically, and he is first eternally. And so if we are to order our lives properly, we will attend to first things first, which means that our starting place is always Jesus.
The episode from Luke, meanwhile, offers a homespun sort of illustration of the principle in the juxtaposition of Mary and Martha. Jesus is in the house, yet only one of the two sisters is truly prioritizing him. We don’t deny that Martha was doing things that have to be done; but did they have to be done then? It’s a little reminiscent for me of the Sabbath command in the Old Testament. The Lord says that in six days we should do all our work and on the seventh we should rest. So, the work has its time, to be sure, but the Sabbath takes priority. The Sabbath day is not the time to do those otherwise required tasks. And when Jesus is in the living room, it’s not the time to be puttering in the kitchen.
That analogy of the Sabbath, meanwhile, brings to mind our selected passage from Amos. The passage is not explicitly about Jesus, of course, but it does speak to priorities. And the damnable priorities of the people of Amos’ audience were greed and selfishness. Their appetite for commerce provoked them to dishonor the Sabbath. And their hunger for money — more and more money — prompted them to mistreat others and to oppress the poor.
Everyone has priorities; priorities are inevitable. Something or someone holds first place in our hearts. Something or someone enjoys pride of place in our schedules and in our budgets. So everyone has priorities, it’s just a question of whether our priorities are the right ones.
I tell my kids, “First things first!” It’s an important principle. But it is only helpful if we are clear about what the first things truly are and ought to be. Colossians tells us. Mary reminds us. And the people of Amos’ day are a tragic example of the alternative.
Alternative Application(s)
Luke 10:38-42 — “Tell It to The Judge”
We noted above the frustration that Martha felt with Mary. Martha had been doing all of the work — work which she felt sure needed to get done — while Mary was literally just sitting there. I imagine Martha might have said to herself, “Well, sure, I’d like to just sit down and talk to Jesus, too, but there is too much to do. I can’t just sit around, and you shouldn’t, either.”
The fact that Martha takes her case to Jesus makes me think that this sort of thing had happened between Martha and Mary before. In other words, if this was the first time Martha had ever felt this frustration, my hunch is that she would have been able to gently and privately take Mary aside and ask for her consideration and assistance. But the fact that she doesn’t even bother addressing Mary but goes straight to Jesus, instead, suggests to me that she has gotten nowhere with Mary in this sort of matter before.
How many times have we seen this same behavior pattern in ourselves, or with family members, or while visiting with other people? Two persons have an ongoing frustration with each other, and one or both of them is eager to get someone from the outside to serve as judge and jury in order to take their side and finally vindicate them. That’s no doubt what Martha assumed Jesus would do.
We explored above the surprising result that Martha received: what Jesus said, how he probably said it, and what the message was for Martha (and for us!). What I’d like to highlight just now, however, is the way in which Martha was exemplary. She took her complaint to Jesus, and I believe that ought to be our policy — our first reflex — as well.
We see evidence of this all through the Psalms, of course. People who are experiencing some trouble or injustice take their complaint to God. It is an act of faith, you see, to complain to God. It is an implicit affirmation that he is just, that he cares, and that he is willing and able to step in and right the wrong. At that level, therefore, Martha stands in a long line of faithful saints.
Additionally, if I have a complaint about another person, it is far less combative for me to tell the Lord about that complaint than for me to tell the other person. It may well be, of course, that in some situations it will be helpful and fruitful to let the other person know. But even where such directness is beneficial, I expect it is still good policy to begin by taking the complaint to God. Let him know everything I think and feel, while the people around me won’t have the bear the burden of all that: they can get only what is useful to them.
Finally, the great advantage — one which Martha experienced but was no doubt surprised by — of taking our complaints first to the Lord is that then we have put ourselves in a position to be corrected. If I take my complaint about Mary directly to Mary, we may just end up in an argument about who is right and who is wrong. And, if I’ve got a lot of pent up anger or stored up hostilities, then I will end up introducing into the present conflict a lot of poison from past conflicts or frustrations or disappointments. Ah, but if I begin with Jesus rather than with Mary, then I am submitting myself to his input. And I may learn from him what my ego or my anger makes me incapable of learning from anyone else: that I am not entirely correct in my complaint.
Mary was exemplary by the choice she made in sitting at Jesus’ feet rather than rushing about and taking care of all sorts of other things, lesser things. But Martha is exemplary, too. She is a role model for us when we have a complaint, for she does the right thing with it: she tells it to Jesus.
