In Luke 10:38-42, when Martha complains that Mary is not helping her with the important work of providing hospitality for Jesus and his companions, Jesus tells Martha, “there is need of only one thing.” And that Mary had chosen it.
Now, don’t get me wrong. What Martha was doing was very important. Probably the most important thing for a woman to do in the first century was offer hospitality well.
To be a gracious hostess was not just something nice, it was necessary. It was the premier duty and responsibility, the greatest honor and the single activity that would define her life. Martha must have felt so very important when Jesus asked to stay there and dine with them. And by her hard work she obviously took her role very seriously.
But when she appeals to Jesus for Mary’s help, Martha learns that nothing in this world is more important (not even feeding the son of God) than being a disciple of Jesus.
In the spiritual discipline of “sitting under” we give up our places of honor at the table to sit at the feet of Jesus. We give up our roles of doing important things to listen and learn from Jesus. Jesus teaches us that far more important than what we do is what we are becoming.
When Mary sits down at the feet of Jesus, she is beginning the process of becoming someone who can lead like Jesus. Mary has taken the role of disciple so that she can someday be a teacher. She has stopped doing to start developing, she has sat at the feet of Jesus so that someday she might lead others to Jesus. And this spiritual discipline of sitting under Jesus becomes the key to a lifetime of making a difference for Christ in the world for everyone, man, woman, boy and girl.
So many of us are so busy with so many important things. We have business to run and families to support and responsibilities to fulfill. But Jesus tells Martha that Mary’s choice to sit under his teaching is the most important choice she could make.
In all our important ‘doing’ have we stopped ‘becoming’? In all of our doing have we abandoned our first priority of being a disciple?
In all of our responsibilities have we stopped being those who take the time to sit under, listen and learn from Jesus? Has doing important things and being important in our jobs, at our homes, in our activities taken the place of the truly important role of being a committed learner sitting at the feet of Jesus?
To many of us, submitting to someone else seems as if we are giving up our ability to be a leader, to make a difference, to be important. But in the Kingdom of God, sitting under is the most life-changing and world changing place to be.
My friends, let this Lent season begin a shift from seeing yourself as a “doer” to seeing yourself first and foremost as a “disciple”. Let it be a season of discernment, of listening, of learning, of letting go of what makes us feel important in order to do what is important. Let it be a season of “sitting under”, a season of submission.
Let it be a season of:
Being a listener…so you can become a leader.
Being a learner…so you can become a teacher.
Being “less important” so you can attend to what is “most important”…
Being a faithful disciple of Jesus Christ.
That is exactly what this spiritual discipline is all about: mutually sitting under other Christians so that we can continue to learn all we need to follow Jesus Christ faithfully and effectively.
In my own life, I have learned to make almost no decision without seeking the counsel, wisdom and perspective of wise, biblically sound Christian. I have a covenant group of pastors that meet once a month and who email each other frequently as we seek to make decisions. I sit at their feet listening as these pastors, all of whom are older than me, most more experienced, help me learn from Jesus how to lead this church as best I can. I have a group of old friends who know me well and can speak very candidly to me. I have a wise and spiritually sensitive executive team that meets together every week. And I believe that our Session of elders is God’s chosen counsel for me and for this church. We work together mutually submitting ourselves to each other as we make decisions for the good of the church.
And frankly, I never make any decisions without listening and learning from the one person whom God has put in my life and commanded me to submit my life to: my wife.
Ephesians 5:21 is specifically written to married couples. It tells them that as they are filled with the Spirit, their marriages will look different than the marriages of non-Christians in first century Greco-Roman culture where the man is the Emperor of his household. Instead, it says, “And further, you will submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.” (NLT)
For me, this life of mutual submission to other wise, biblically sound Christians as an act of complete submission to my Lord is the only true and sound way to live.
So, let me ask you again, what does it mean for you to sit under, to “submit to another” Christian, to accept influence from someone else as part of your acts of reverence for and devotion to Christ?
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