Only One Thing is Needed

Hey everybody.

I will wrap my exegesis of Luke 10 with the story of Martha and Mary as recorded in Luke 10:38-42.  Here is my translation of it: 

38 They entered one of the villages as they traveled along.  They were welcomed into the home of one of the women there.  Her name was Martha. 39 She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet, listening to things that he said. 40 Meanwhile, Martha was overburdened by all of her preparations.  She came in and said, “Lord, doesn’t it bother you that my sister has left the job of serving everyone to me alone? Tell her to help me!” 41 The Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and worried about everything.  42 But only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen something better, and it will not be taken away from her.

So, as Jesus traveled on his way to Jerusalem, he stayed in the home of Martha.  It appears that Martha is the head of the household here.  No man is mentioned in the passage.  She may have been a single woman or widowed.  Mary is mentioned here, but Lazarus is not.  Martha was busy making preparations, while Jesus sat and taught.  Martha became frustrated because she was left to do all of the work herself while her sister Mary sat at Jesus’ feet listening to Jesus’ teaching. 

She then asks Jesus to intervene and make Mary get up and help her.  “Lord, doesn’t it bother you that my sister has left the job of serving everyone to me alone? Tell her to help me!” Martha was very busy attempting to serve Jesus.  This was a good thing to do, but it left her unable to hear the lessons that Jesus was teaching.  Luke uses the word περιεσπᾶτο (periespato) to describe Martha.  The word means to “be pulled or dragged away,” or ``to be distracted or overburdened by other things.” 

What Martha wanted to do was admirable.  She wanted to serve Jesus well. But, Jesus does not tell Mary get up and help, and in fact, he honors Mary for choosing to sit at his feet.  Jesus responds to Martha, by saying that she is anxious and worried about everything. In fariness to Martha, someone does need to serve, or no one gets to eat, but Martha also needs to learn to relax and enjoy being with Jesus, because being with Jesus is supposed to be something enjoyable, not something that becomes a huge anxiety-laden burden. 

Jesus says that Mary has chosen something better.  Serving is good. Learning from Jesus is better.  Robert Stein says this in his commentaty on Luke, "It is better to sit at Jesus' feet and hear God's word. What feeds the soul os more important than what feeds the body." (Stein, 321.) If we are too busy to spend some time with Jesus then we are too busy, no matter how much good we may be accomplishing. 

I don’t know what Martha did after this. I'm sure that everything she prepared was amazing, but I hope she also sat down for a while and just listened to Jesus. 

Martha was worried about everything, but Jesus tells her that only one thing was needed.  Mary had chosen that one thing. That one thing was Jesus’ words and Jesus says that it would not be taken from her.  Disciples of Jesus can get really busy, but if we are going to succeed, it is vital that we hold on to that one thing that is needed, sitting at Jesus' feet and learning from him.

Tom 

     Robert H. Stein, Luke, Nashville, Tennessee, B&H Publishing Group, 1992. 

Won't You Be My Neighbor?

Hello everyone.

I haven't written anything is a while, but I hope to be back on track to do more writing moving forward.  Anyway, as we continue our journey through Luke, we arrive at one of the more fanous of Jesus' parables: The Good Samaritan. That is what we are going to look at today.

This story begins with an expert in the law who wants to put Jesus to the test.  This is not the only time Jesus is asked this question.  But this time the questioner has an ulterior motive.  Jesus gives the question back to the expert in the law, asking him how he reads the law.  The man answers well, and Jesus acknowledges that. 

Darrell Bock says that by responding this way, Jesus shows himself to be one who wishes to reflect upon what God requires, and not some radical who is trying to tear down the law.  He sends the lawyer back  to his own source material, the law, for the answer.. (Bock, 1024.) The man responds in verse “Love the Lord your God, with all of your heart, with all of your soul, with all of your strength and with all of your mind, and love your neighbor as yourself," combining the Shema of Deut. 6:5 with the command to love your neighbor in Lev. 19:18.   

The man answers the same way Jesus does when asked the most important commandment in Matthew 22:36.  “Love the Lord your God with all of your heart  and with all of your soul and with all of your mind and love your neighbor as yourself.”

In the Greek the answer involves loving God with ὅλης (holēs), which means the whole, or all, in four areas. Καρδίας (kardias), which means heart. Ψυχῇ (psychē), which means sould. Ἰσχύϊ (ischui), which means strength, and διανοίᾳ (dianoia), which means mind. This pretty much covers every area.  We are to love God with our whole self.  Then love our neighbors as we love ourselves. 

The man knew the correct answer, but it appears that he didn’t really understand the correct answer. After acknowledging that the man’s answer was correct, Jesus tells him that if he will do that, he will live.  If he loves God and his neighbor, he will gain eternal life. Kenneth Bailey points out that Jesus does not just give the man the answer.  He doesn’t tell him what to do.  He gets the lawyer to tell himself the answer. Bailey goes on to say “The answer is given in a command for an open-ended life-style that requires unlimited and unqualified love for God and people.” (Bailey, 38)

The man had answered well, but for some reason, in verse 29, he still felt the need to justify himself, and asked Jesus, “Who is my neighbor?” Why did he feel this need to justify himself?  He had answered well.  Was this an attempt to trap Jesus in words?  If it was, it wasn’t a very good one, and it ultimately sprung on him rather than Jesus. I tend to think it was not a trap, but rather an attempt to clarify who he was required to extend his love to, so that he could justify his standing - that he was loving his neighbor enough. 

Undoubtedly when those like this Israelite lawyer thought about the concept of ‘neighbor’ it included their loved ones, their friends and family.  Perhaps even all of Israel's children, but I am certain that his definition of ‘neighbor’ did not extend to the Samaritans. Leviticus 19:18 does imply that ‘neighbor’ for the Israelites was their fellow Jews, but Jesus' definition of ‘neighbor’ extended to everyone. This lawyer got more than he had bargained for.

To answer the question, “Who is my neighbor?” Jesus tells the story that we know as the Good Samaritan. A man is traveling down the dangerous road from Jerusalem to Jericho.  The man is not described, but the audience would likely assume the man to be Jewish. The road itself was well-known for being treacherous, because there were many good places for robbers to hide. The man was robbed, beaten, stripped and left for dead. 

The telltale signs of the man’s ethnicity were no longer readily visible.  The clothes that might signify him as a Jew, or a non-Jew had been taken.  Since he was unconscious, his Jewish (or non-Jewish) accent could not be heard.  We know that in Jesus's story, that neither the priest nor the Levite stopped to help this man. Would the priest or the Levite have stopped for a known Jew, maybe.  But since the ethnicity was not clear, they passed on by.  To the Samaritan, the man's ethnicity did not matter.  This was a person in need. 

Why did the priest and the Levite not stop to help the man?  The text does not say.  Many ideas have been offered.  A dead body would make them unclean.  They may have feared being robbed and left for dead themselves.  The Samaritan shows up and does for the man everything that the priest and Levite did not do. He bandaged the wound and took the man to an inn, paying for his care.  The Samaritan is the hero of the story and the one we are told to imitate.  The Samritan acts graciously toward the man, knowing that because he was a Samaritan, it is possible that his kindness will go unrewarded and unappreciated. 

Jesus tells a story to a Jewish audience, in which the hero is a Samaritan.  It is an interesting choice for Jesus, since he knew that his audience would be racially motivated to hate the Samaritan. At the end of the story the expert in the law could not even bring himself to say ‘the Samaritan,’ when asked who had been a neighbor to the man who had been robbed.  Instead, he said, “the one who had mercy on him." It must have been quite shocking for the audience to be told to go and imitate a Samaritan. 

Jesus turns the lawyer's question about neighbors around on him.  Don’t worry about who counts as a neighbor.  You go and be a good neighbor to everyone.

Tom 

     Darrel Bock, Luke, Volume 2 - 9:51-24:53, Grand Rapids, Michigan, Baker Academic, 1996. 

    Kenneth Bailey, Jesus Through Missle Eastern Eyes, Downers Grove, Illinois, IVP Academic, 2008.