Learning to Love

They were as opposite as two people could be. One was organized, the other spontaneous. One was dependable, the other carefree. One gave herself to service, the other followed her own impulses. Yet, they were sisters raised in the same family.

Everywhere the Bible tells Martha’s story, she is a take-charge lady. In Luke 10, it is Martha who welcomes Jesus to Bethany and invites Him into her home. She is the one who devotes herself to preparing a meal for Jesus and His disciples, the one concerned with the 101 details of hosting the Lord.

In John 12 when Jesus returns to Bethany, Martha is the one who again is described as serving the supper for Jesus and His followers. In the previous chapter it is Martha who attempts to look after the welfare of Jesus when He orders the rock in front of Lazarus’ tomb rolled away. Contact with the dead made one ceremonially unclean according to Jewish law. Martha cautions Jesus about His command.

Martha is the type of person who blesses every pastor’s heart. Marthas are willing to get involved, to take charge, to organize, to get things done. Marthas help make churches function.

Mary is more spontaneous. While Martha busied herself with the details of dinner in Luke 10, Mary sat at Jesus’ feet soaking in every word. Social norms of the time forbade women to mingle with men in such occasions. But Mary paid little attention to social customs. More important to her was her own desire to learn from the Lord.

In John 12, Mary takes an alabaster box of spikenard, a precious perfume worth about a year’s wages, and pours it over Jesus’ feet. Then, before all the astonished guests, she wipes His feet dry with her long, dark hair.

What prompted such a spontaneous act scholars still debate. Those who witnessed the scene argued about its appropriateness. None of that mattered to Mary. In one great act, she expressed her devotion to her Lord.

They were opposites, different in every way. Yet John 11:5 declares, “Jesus loved Martha and her sister Mary and Lazarus.”

What a lesson for Christians to learn.

Sometimes it appears that today’s church spends most of its time trying to fit people into a predetermined mold. Some seem to think Christians are supposed to think alike, act alike, dress alike, worship alike, be alike in every way. How unbiblical.

Instead of celebrating God’s love for both Martha and Mary, we act as if God can only love one kind of person — those like us. Instead of trying to empower today’s Marthas and Marys for the Lord’s service, we try to change them to be like us.

Those who like contemporary worship accuse those who like hymns and anthems of not being spontaneous enough in worship. Those who like hymns cast the verbal stones right back saying the contemporary crowd does not appreciate the heritage of the church, the awe and majesty of God.

And so it goes. Christians argue over evangelism and social service, over Bible study and discipleship, over international missions and proclamation at home. We argue over the architecture of church buildings, over which musical instruments to use.

It seems that most believe God can only love one type of person — those like themselves. Too often, we have little appreciation for or use for those who are different from us.

But the example of Jesus will not go away. Jesus loved the take-charge, organized, dependable, sometimes frazzled Martha. And Jesus loved the carefree, spontaneous, sometimes self-absorbed Mary. If Jesus can love such opposites, shouldn’t those of us who claim to be Christians do the same?

Billy Graham, in his autobiography “Just As I Am,” describes some of his experiences in Asia during the late 1950s. He writes, “My experience … taught me that most people were not going to take us (Christianity) seriously if we spent all our time debating our differences instead of uniting around the cross.”

Instead of trying to re-create people in our own image or force them into some predetermined mold, a better task would be learning to follow Jesus’ example of loving today’s Marthas and Marys. After all, Jesus is not willing that any should perish. That is why He died for the sins of all who will call upon Him to forgive their sin. Jesus loves all people. Even you and me.

Learning to love is a hard task, but it is a God-given task.  And when we learn to love those who love the Lord but are different from us, we are, as Graham said, “uniting around the cross.”