Sometimes we get so focused on doing ‘the Lord’s work’ that we may actually miss the prompting of the Spirit.

One summer the junior high at the church I was serving traveled to St. Louis for our summer service project. The first day, we worked in a community garden in a city neighborhood. We were pulling weeds and doing basic cleanup in the garden. Right beside the garden was a playground, and many of the neighborhood kids were making their way over to us to see what was going on.

These are junior highers we are talking about, so before long they were back in the playground playing with the neighborhood kids. Sponsors got on them again about the reason we were here and ushered them back to the garden. Not too long after that, the unfocused junior highers were again in the playground. I reminded them the third time that they needed to get back to work. Since we are talking about junior highers here, it likely happened another time or two.

That evening, we adults gathered all the youth together to have a Bible study and talk about the events of the day. As we shared stories from the day, a theme quickly emerged. The youth didn’t talk about pulling weeds and making the garden look nice, but they shared stories of playing with the neighborhood kids. I heard story after story of how they built ramps, played games and had conversations with the children
The sponsors missed it. I missed it. But the youth did not miss it—the better option.

I was so focused on the work we were supposed to be doing that I missed it. I apologized to the youth that evening. Anybody could have pulled those weeds, but there was only one opportunity on that day for our youth to interact with those neighborhood kids. Weeds will grow back, but lives may have been forever changed; the lives of the neighborhood kids and the lives of our youth.

This reminded me of the story of Mary and Martha found in Luke 10:38-42. It is so easy to be hard on Martha. I mean Jesus was at her house, and she was busy doing everything but spending time with him. Martha was running around the house.

I imagine her thinking, Oh, my house is such a mess. I haven’t vacuumed or dusted for weeks. And I have to make this meal not only for Jesus but for his disciples. I hope I have plenty of beef and noodles; oh, and I should bake some fresh zwiebach, and do I have everything I need to make a shoofly pie?

Martha was doing what she should be doing. She was attending to the needs of the house and preparing a meal. It was her job as a Jewish woman at that time to be doing these things, and she wanted to know where her help was.

Her help should have been her sister Mary, but she was sitting at Jesus’ feet. Now to sit at the foot of a rabbi—a teacher—was not something a woman should have been doing.

Someone who sits at the foot of a rabbi or teacher is doing so in order to be a disciple, to learn. That was not Mary’s place. At that time, in that culture, in that setting, it was not Mary’s—or any other woman’s place—to be at the feet of Jesus.

For a better picture of who Mary is and what she is doing in this text, I turn to a different story, found in John 12:1-8. This story in many ways parallels our story from Luke. We find Jesus and the disciples at Mary and Martha’s house for dinner. Martha is serving, and Mary is at Jesus’ feet.

I mentioned that at the feet of a rabbi was not the place to find women. In this story there are several other things going on as well. William Barclay in his Bible commentary says that in Palestine, no respectable woman would be seen with her hair down, it would be put up. It was a sign of an immoral woman for her hair to be down.

The Bible says that Mary wiped Jesus’ feet with her hair. She couldn’t do that if her hair was bound up as it should have been. On top of that, she just wasted what is commonly believed to have been one year’s wages on perfume that she poured on Jesus’ feet.
So Mary, a woman, was at Jesus’ feet, wasted a year’s wages and had her hair down like an immoral woman. Mary was out of line, and her actions were inappropriate and absurd. I can just imagine everybody in the room feeling awkward, offended and embarrassed for Mary.

Martha, on the other hand, was doing what she was supposed to be doing. She was focused on doing the Lord’s work. Doing the Lord’s work for her was preparing the meal and caring for other’s needs. It was her job and her calling. It was how she was serving the Lord. There were expectations for Mary, and she was breaking all of them.

Her focus should have been on other things. Her way to “do the work of the Lord” should have been helping Martha. But Mary heard a different voice, and by listening to that voice she was allowing herself to follow the Holy Spirit. She allowed herself to be moved from the norm and to be daring enough to do something extraordinary.

I’m not saying that what Martha did was wrong, and I’m not saying that working in the garden that day in St. Louis was wrong. That was work, too, and it needed to be done. Jesus does not ever actually tell Martha that the work she was doing is bad or wrong.

There would have been no food to eat if Martha had not prepared it. It is just that Mary had chosen to do something else, and it would not be taken from her. Mary listened to the Holy Spirit.

William Barclay said it best when he wrote, “There is here one great truth about life. Some things we can do almost any time, but some things we will never do, unless we grasp the chance when it comes. We are seized with the desire to do something fine and generous and big-hearted. But we put it off—we will do it tomorrow, and the fine impulse goes, and the thing is never done. Life is an uncertain thing. We think to utter some word of thanks or praise or love but we put it off, and often the word is never spoken” (The Gospel of John, Westminster Press, 1975).

I wonder if sometimes we get so focused on the details of things, so focused on doing the work of the Lord, that we may miss opportunities the Spirit presents us with. Mary had one opportunity to anoint her Lord’s feet, and if she had not done something absurd she would have missed it. The youth had one opportunity to spend time with those neighborhood kids in St. Louis. If they had listened to us adults, they would have missed it.

Let’s open our eyes. Let’s open our ears. Let’s open our hearts. What is God saying to you through the Holy Spirit? Where is God at work in Mennonite Church USA, in your community and in your lives?

Mary didn’t let herself get boxed in by what was expected but boldly followed the Holy Spirit. Let’s not be so focused on doing the Lord’s work the way we expect it to be done that we miss an opportunity to follow the Holy Spirit and do something a little crazy, a little wild or perhaps even a bit inappropriate and absurd—something extraordinary.

Derrick Ramer is pastor of Emma Mennonite Church in Topeka, Ind.