Bringing out the nice dishes
But the Lord said to her, “My dear Martha, you are worried and upset over all these details! There is only one thing worth being concerned about. Mary has discovered it, and it will not be taken away from her.”
Luke 10: 41-42 NLT
I have 3 plates hanging together on the wall as a decoration in our house. Two came from my grandma, and one belonged to my great grandma. They are really beautiful pieces of art.
I don’t own a set of dishes like those hanging on my wall. When I got married, I chose everyday, white dishes that I thought would last the long haul. Fourteen years in, we’ve lost one or two to the tile floor. One of the big dishes has a nice chip off the side. But they serve us well.
Having kids took us even farther from the fancy stuff. There were days I just couldn’t muster up the energy to clean the kitchen again. Enter the paper plates and plastic silverware.
This week while I was thinking about the stack of paper plates in the cupboard, Mary and Martha came to mind.
Boy I bet Martha could set a table! She probably had a table cloth and a runner, a new plate for every course, a fresh set of silverware for each plate, candles and bountiful serving plates. For Jesus, it needed to be perfect. And when he arrived and it wasn’t yet finished… well, that just wouldn’t do.
Mary on the other hand probably would have thrown the stack of paper plates out on the counter with the plastic cups and a box of plastic silverware, before returning to the feet of Jesus.
And I think Jesus would have been more than satisfied!
It’s not that Jesus doesn’t want us to present our best. It’s not that he doesn’t want us to put in the effort. But he is saying that the time is precious, and limited. It can be easy to put all our time into a perfect preparation and forget to focus on the relationships that are built over a shared meal.
The girls know when I say “we’re using the fine china tonight,” that what I really mean is we’re using the paper plates and plastic silverware. And if Jesus shows up at my house tomorrow, that may be what we pull out. And if it affords us the time to sit and spend some extra time in his presence, it will have been the right choice!
Leni eating lunch, May 2017.
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