There are some Bible stories that feel far away until you put them in a kitchen.

Then suddenly they are not far away at all.

Luke 10:38-42 tells us about two sisters, Martha and Mary. Jesus came into their village, and Martha welcomed Him into her house. That is no small thing. She opened her home. She served. She was doing something good.

Mary, meanwhile, sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to His word.

Now, I do not know exactly what Martha was fixing in that kitchen, but I have been around enough church meals to know one thing for certain: when guests arrive, food does not magically appear just because everyone is spiritually encouraged. Somebody has to set things out, and you have to find the serving spoon that has hidden itself just to ruin your day. While you are on that hunt, there isn’t anyone to watch the bread so it doesn’t burn. Let us not forget you also have to figure out why there are three lids and none of them fit the bowl.

Martha was busy.

The Bible says she was “cumbered about much serving.” That old word carries weight. She was distracted, dragged around, pulled in different directions by all the work.

I understand Martha.

There are folks who can sit peacefully while dishes stack up in the sink. I am not one of those folks. I can hear a dirty skillet from two rooms away, and if it is cast iron, I can hear it from the driveway.

Martha finally said what many busy people eventually say, though most of us dress it up a little better.

“Lord, dost thou not care that my sister hath left me to serve alone? bid her therefore that she help me.”

There it is.

Not just, “Lord, I need help.”

It was more like, “Lord, do You not see what is happening here? I am doing all the work, Mary is sitting there, and apparently, I am the only adult in the room who knows where the plates are kept.” Now I have two older sisters, Mandy and Rhonda, and have seen something like this play out in the past.

That is where the lesson begins to breathe.

Martha was not wrong for serving. Service is good, hospitality is good, and feeding people is good. Oh yeah, and taking care of what needs doing is good. The problem was not that Martha had an apron on. The problem was that service had started turning into a scoreboard.

That happens to us, and I can almost guarantee that right there.

We start out doing something good. We help, serve, carry, fix, and we show up. We take care of the thing nobody else cared to notice. Then, somewhere along the way, our heart starts keeping minutes.

“I have been doing this for forty-seven minutes.”

“Nobody has thanked me.”

“Nobody sees this.”

“Why am I always the one?”

“Lord, dost thou not care?”

That is a dangerous little sentence.

It sounds spiritual because we put the Lord’s name in it, but sometimes what we really mean is, “Lord, please agree with my irritation.”

Jesus answered Martha gently, but directly. “Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things: But one thing is needful.”

He did not shame her for serving. He did not say food did not matter. He did not say work did not matter. He went deeper.

Martha was anxious and troubled. Her hands were serving, but her heart was tangled. Mary had chosen “that good part,” and Jesus said it would not be taken from her. That line probably bit her just a bit.

Mary chose to sit and listen when the Lord was speaking. She chose the better portion. Not because dishes do not matter. Not because serving is beneath anybody. But because there are moments when the soul needs to stop clattering long enough to hear the Word.

Some of us are very good at clattering.

We clatter with chores, we clatter with schedules, we clatter with errands. We clatter with good intentions. We clatter with church work. We clatter with family obligations. We clatter with worry. We clatter so loudly we can convince ourselves we are faithful simply because we are exhausted.

Y’all, exhaustion is not the same thing as faithfulness. Being busy is not always obedient; serving is not always listening.

This is where Martha finds us. She finds us when we are doing something good with a sour heart. She finds us when we help someone and then quietly resent them for needing help.

She finds us when we serve the church but start acting like the church belongs to us because we know where everything is stored. She finds us when we clean the kitchen while mentally prosecuting everyone sitting in the living room.

She finds us when we say, “I am fine,” while stacking dishes with enough force to make the spoons consider repentance.

The Lord did see Martha, and that matters.

He saw her work, her frustration, her worry, and the tangle underneath the serving. He loved her enough not to leave it unnamed.

“Martha, Martha.”

There is tenderness in that. He did not need to raise His voice. The Lord does not have to holler to hit the truth.

The lesson is not that we should all quit serving and sit down while somebody else burns the beans. The lesson is that service must stay under better management.

A heart listening to Christ can serve with peace.

A heart keeping score can turn even good work into bitterness.

I need that reminder, and maybe you do too.

There are days when the sink is full, the schedule is tight, the people are needy, the body is tired, and the help seems to have wandered off to a committee meeting nobody voted for. On those days, Martha can start moving into our own kitchen.

Before she takes over, we may need to stop and ask ourselves: Am I serving, or am I scoring?

Am I helping, or am I building a complaint?

Am I listening to the Lord, or am I asking Him to referee my resentment?

Mary chose to sit at the feet of Jesus and hear His word.

Martha needed to remember that the One sitting in her house was more important than the work happening around Him.

That is still true.

The meal matters.

The dishes matter.

The people matter.

But the Lord matters most.

And if I lose sight of Him while trying to serve Him, I may need to lay down the dish towel for a minute, quiet the clatter, and listen.

Because one thing is needful.

If this piece gave you something to think about, I’d encourage you to visit a local church of Christ near you. Bring your Bible, bring your questions, and come sit a while.

Clatter: the noise of dishes, pans, chores, worry, and resentment all banging around at once. Sometimes the definition gets lost in the very racket the word is trying to describe.