Henry David Thoreau’s Walden might be one of the most lovely odes to a simpler, slower way of life. Thoreau, bone weary of city living, left everything and moved into the wilderness to enjoy solitude and work with his hands. He waxes eloquent about really attending to nature. After all, “a taste for the beautiful is most cultivated out of doors” (38). At times he is a bit romantic, but at his best, Thoreau kindles a deep hunger for a more meditative life.
One quote from Walden has haunted me for years: “To be awake is to be alive. I have never yet met a man who was quite awake. How could I have looked him in the face? We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake” (90).
How does that land on you? I am torn between taking it as a challenge or a lament. Perhaps we need not choose. Thoreau puts his finger on the experience of most modern people. We are hurried and half-awake. He gives voice to the sneaking suspicion that presses us in rare moments of quiet: “Maybe I’m living a distracted life. . . . Maybe I’m not fully alive.”
Attention
Unfortunately, Thoreau can offer us no final solution to our situation. Thoreau had never met a man awake because he had never met the Man who wakes the dead. He had never quite been alive because he had never met Life. Unlike him, we have a more enchanting Face than that of nature to gaze upon.
The story of Martha and Mary perfectly captures the anxiety we feel and offers the antidote Thoreau can’t. You know the story (Luke 10:38–42). Jesus stops by for dinner. Martha works to host, while Mary waits at his feet. Martha serves; Mary sits. Eventually, Martha gets frustrated and fussy, and Jesus calms and corrects her.
Often, we hear this story as a contrast in personalities. You are either a Martha, pragmatic and inclined to work, or a Mary, enjoying the heady brew of contemplation. But the contrast here is not of personalities but of priorities. The issue is one of attention. Who gets the priority of your attention? What are you alive to? Are you awake to what matters? In that regard, we are all Marthas needing to become more like Mary.
Distracted by Good
Now, we sympathize with Martha — don’t we? She is busy. Luke tells us she is “distracted by much serving” (verse 40). A hundred things demand her attention. There is bread to bake, a table to set, drinks to pour, wine to mix, dishes to do, floors to sweep — an endless parade of tasks.
What’s amazing about Martha’s problem is that she is distracted from Jesus by serving Jesus. Amid a whirlwind of good things, her attention is pulled from the one thing that matters. As one of my pastors recently reminded us, “The pressure is always to make it about something other than Jesus” — even if that other thing is serving Jesus.
Martha’s experience, being distracted by good from best, we know all too well. Every meal, every dish in the sink, every skipped nap, every school assignment, every work deadline, every committee, every new email, every sermon becomes one more voice in the cacophony of our distractions. Ministry usurps marveling. Service overshadows savoring. Jesus invites us to sit and soak in his words, but we politely decline. “Sorry, Jesus. I’m too busy working for you.” In becoming efficient servants, we become defective disciples.
Don’t misunderstand. Jesus does not condemn Martha’s work. He is not calling us to be monks locked away with just a journal and a Bible (as attractive as that may sound at times). Our Lord loves fruitful labor. “Go and do likewise” (Luke 10:37). But Jesus does confront Martha’s priorities — and ours. Before he ever wants my work, Jesus wants my undivided attention.
Contagious Discontent
After all, my attention problem never remains my problem. Martha’s problem certainly doesn’t. Her distraction leads to discontent, and her discontent is contagious. Her tornado of activity seeks to suck Mary in.
Imagine the scene. Martha jumps from task to task, frantic to get everything done. So much to do, so little time. All the while, her frustration begins to boil. How can my lazy sister just sit there? As she checks the oven for the tenth time in so many minutes, her heat rises. She fusses as she kneads the bread. She’s so selfish! Finally, when she shatters a plate in her hurry, it’s the last straw. She storms into the living room. “Lord, don’t you care she’s left me alone to do all the work. Tell her to help me!” (verse 40).
That little word alone tells all. Martha is frustrated, not because she wants to join Mary at Jesus’s feet, but because she wants Mary to join in her busyness. When distraction sours our joy, the discontent demands company. And Martha tries to leverage Jesus’s authority to issue the draft. Because Martha was not attending to Jesus, she assumed her priorities were his. They were not.
Tenacious Treasuring
Jesus gets right at the heart of the issue, diagnosing the problem and prescribing the antidote: “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her” (verses 41–42).
Jesus approves of Mary’s priorities. He commends her fixed attention on him. Her determined delight translates the heartbeat of the Psalms:
My flesh faints, and my heart fails. But God is the rock my heart fixates on, my portion forever. (Psalm 73:26)
The Lord is my picked portion and my cup . . . a beautiful inheritance. (Psalm 16:5–6)
One thing I have asked of the Lord, and I will seek after it — to sit in the presence of the Lord all the days of my life so I may gaze on the beauty of the Lord. (Psalm 27:5)
In short, Mary is a Christian Hedonist, and Jesus loves it because her rapt attention magnifies his worth. He is worthy of all our attention — worthy of our eternal attention. And Mary knows it. She is not lazy. She is tenaciously treasuring Christ. She is not anxious. How could she be? She is awake to Jesus. Mary is fully alive.
Awake and Alive
Saint, don’t you want that? How many of us are but half-alive because we are but half-awake to Jesus? How many of us live a distracted existence — anxious about many things, slaves to the tyranny of the present crisis, overworked, under-rested, our attention fractured, our joy tempest-tossed, our love for God like the cooling coals of a long-dying fire? Too often, we are modern-day Marthas, distracted, contagiously discontent, endlessly fussy.
And all because we fail to attend to the one thing, the one Person that matters. Our daily time at his feet slides to the periphery. What is essential for our souls becomes optional. We are far more busy than we want because we have far less of Jesus than we need.
Our Lord calls us to a far fuller life — more life than Thoreau could have imagined (John 10:10). Every day, Jesus bids you to come alive. He beckons you to wake up to his wonders, to marvel at his beauty, to abide in his love. He’s urging you to keep first things first — to attend to him as an antidote to your anxiety. Each morning, he calls you close and spreads out the riches of his word before you and says, “Friend, these are but the mere fringes of my gladness. Come, sit. You are not yet fully alive, and I mean you to be.”
Jesus has thrown wide the door to joy! Let us not remain outside, dabbling in distraction. Mary heard his voice and heeded. Will you?
Desiring God