A Fresh Perspective

Let’s begin by being clear on what this story does not teach. Martha is busy attending to things, making sure the food is prepared and being the proper host. Mary is setting in the presence of Jesus listening to his teaching. Martha rebukes Mary and even turns to Jesus expecting him to back her up. But Jesus rebukes Martha and commends Mary for choosing the “better part.” Why does he do that? Why does Jesus commend Mary but rebuke Martha? Let’s begin by laying to rest one explanation very quickly. It’s not because contemplation is more important than activism. It’s not because prayer is more important than service. Jesus is not disparaging the active work involved in hospitality, nor is he elevating worship over hospitality. Both work and rest, prayer and ministry, solitude and service,  hospitality and worship are equally important in the grand scheme of the spiritual life. We can trace a pattern in Jesus’ own life of active engagement in teaching, preaching, and healing,...

John Pierce, the executive editor of Baptist Today , shared a story his friend told him about a coworker who was enjoying a visit from her sister and her two young nieces. They began running and screaming more so than usual so their mother went into the guestroom to check on them. The excited little girls shouted that a bug was after them and they were afraid of being bitten. The false alarm was over a small moth, floating lazily around the room. Their mom assured them, “Moths don’t bite people, they only eat clothes.” The next morning the girls were found sleeping peacefully in their bed – and naked. Their clothes were piled together away in the corner.  Our fears obviously affect our attitudes and actions. And this is true of all of us, not just little kids. Isn’t it obvious today how much our fears shape our attitudes and actions? Fear is guiding a lot of political speech today and bringing out the worst in people. When the angel first appears to Mary the angel sa...

Not every experience of the Divine, not every encounter with God is as momentous as Mary’s encounter with the angel in our text today, but Mary’s experience can be seen as a kind of archetypal representation of what a divine encounter can do in our lives. Any authentic God experience generally gives us two things that are foundational to a heathy and transformative spiritual life. First, such experiences give us ground to stand on. Luke says that when the angel appeared saying, “Greetings, favored one!” she “was much perplexed . . . and wondered what sort of greeting this might be.” Then the angel declared, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.” Isn’t interesting that almost every time God appears or an angel of God appears in the Bible, the first thing the angel says is, “Do not fear?” It would seem that fearing God, being afraid of God has been a problem throughout human history. If Mary is to stand on solid ground with God, she must let go of her f...

The author of John’s Gospel develops a sharp contrast between Mary’s free, most likely spontaneous expression of magnanimous love and Judas’ calculating complaint in John 12:1-6. Mary breaks open an expensive bottle of perfume, pours it lavishly on Jesus’ feet and then wipes his feet with her hair. John observes that the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. Judas, we are told, complained, “Why wasn’t this perfume sold and money given to the poor? It was worth a year’s wages.” The writer comments: “He did not say this because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief; as keeper of the money bag, he used to help himself to what was put into it.” Scholars have argued that John’s portrait of Judas is biased and not historically accurate, that the author surely had an ax to grind. Maybe so. But that matters little to the one reading this story for spiritual guidance. What is significant is the kind of spirituality and religion Judas and Mary represent. ...

In John 12, Jesus interprets Mary’s extravagant gesture of pouring perfume on his feet as preparation for his death (John 12: 7–8). Both Mary and Jesus seem to be aware that Jesus’ death is looming just over the horizon. Both are aware of how his head-on clash with the powers will end. Mary’s extraordinary expression of love is offered in light of Jesus’ impending death. Henri Nouwen writes about a time when he was hit by a car and ended up in the hospital. He didn’t have any external injuries to speak of, but after he was carefully examined, the doctor told him, “You might not live long. There is serious internal bleeding. We will try to operate but we may not succeed.” Suddenly everything changed. Death was right there in the room with him. He was confused and in shock, and yet in the midst of his confusion and shock, he felt “at rest” and experienced an “embrace of God” where he felt safe, that God was going to bring him home. Nouwen says that he was so much at peace that ...

Gospel scholars tell us that Mary’s canticle of praise (the Magnificat) was most likely a song or prayer used in early Jewish Christian worship. It is a song or prayer of longing that envisions a dramatic reversal : “He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty” (1:51–53). . The overthrow of the wealthy does not come about through the rising up of the oppressed in revolution, but through the advent of a lowly, humble child, who is born in humility, if not poverty, and who, throughout his ministry, demonstrated what Gospel scholars call a preferential option for the poor. When he defined his ministry in the synagogue at Nazareth , he declared that his mission was to bring good news to the poor and set the oppressed free (Luke 4:18–19). When he said that he had come to declare “the acc...