“As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him.  She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said.  But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made.  She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself?  Tell her to help me!”  “Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed.  Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”

// Luke 10:38-42

In our realm of portable church, one of the obstacles we face is setting up our worship space.  There’s the stage, the cables, the lights, projectors, t-shrits, coffee, cookies, tents, signage, check in stations, baby friendly areas, sound checks… And just as the ole sayin goes: what goes up, must come down!

On any given Sunday at The Rock, there is a good 3-4 hours of set up/tear down.  But did you see this part of the passage: “Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made.”  Did you get that?  JESUS WAS SITTING IN MARTHA’S HOUSE BUT SHE WAS TOO BUSY TO MEET WITH HIM!!!  This is HUGE!  Don’t miss this!  It is all too easy to get distracted by the service and miss out on the Savior!  But when service takes precedent over Savior it becomes sin.

There are two traps we can easily fall into:

1. The first trap is this:

“Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself?”

Martha was so distraught because Mary would not volunteer to help when there was so much that just had to be done.  Be cautious Christian!  Don’t fall into the trap of self pity! If we begin to focus on how much others are NOT doing, we hop on a slippery slope of bitterness and self righteousness.

And just FYI, Jesus wasn’t too kind to the self righteous.

And one more thing… while Martha worried, Mary met with Jesus. And the only people who get frustrated when people meet Jesus are, well… SATAN!!!

2.  The other trap we fall into is this:

“If I don’t do it, no one will.”

There is a great post on that here.

Please please PLEASE don’t miss out on what Jesus is saying by focusing on the distractions.  Because at the end of the day, its not about what we do but what Jesus has done!  The question is, in a world that demands Martha, will you choose to be a Mary?