Martha and Mary 2
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II. Secondly, we observe that THE MARTHA SPIRIT INJURES TRUE SERVICE. Service may be true, and yet somewhat marred upon the wheel. Give your attention not so much to what I say, as to the bearing of it upon yourselves. It may be that you will find, as we speak, that you have been truly guilty touching these things. The Martha spirit brings the least welcome offering to Christ. It is welcome, but it is the least welcome. Our Lord Jesus when on earth was more satisfied by conversing to a poor Samaritan woman than he would have been by the best food and drink. In carrying on his spiritual work he had food to eat, that his disciples knew not of. Evermore his spiritual nature was predominant over his physical nature, and those people who brought him spiritual gifts brought him the gifts which he preferred. Here then was Martha’s dish of well-cooked food, but there was Mary’s gift of a humble obedient heart; here was Martha decking the table, but there was Mary submitting her judgment to the Lord, and looking up with wondering eyes as she heard his matchless speech. Mary was bringing to Jesus the better offering. With Martha, he would in his condescension be pleased, but in Mary be found satisfaction. Martha’s service he accepted benevolently, but Mary’s worship he accepted with complacency. Now, brethren and sisters, all that you can give to Christ in any shape or form will not be so dear to him as the offering of your fervent love, the clinging of your humble faith, the reverence of your adoring souls. Do not, I pray you, neglect the spiritual for the sake of the external, or else you will be throwing away gold to gather to yourself iron, you will be pulling down the palaces of marble that you may build for yourselves hovels of clay.
Martha’s spirit has this mischief about it also, that it brings self too much to remembrance. We would not severely judge Martha, but we conceive that in some measure she aimed at making the service a credit to herself as the mistress of the house; at any rate, self came up when she began to grow weary, and complained that she was left to serve alone. Like Martha, we also want our work to show well; we like those who see it to commend it, and if none commend it we feel that we are harshly treated, and are left to work alone. Now, to the extent in which I think of myself in my service I spoil it. Self must sink, and Christ be all in all. John the Baptist’s saying must be our motto, "He must increase, I must decrease;" for Jesus’ shoe-latchet we are not worthy to unloose. Too much work and too little fellowship will always bring self into prominence. Self must be prayed down, and fellowship with Jesus must keep it down.
Martha seemed to imagine that what she was doing was needful for Christ. She was cumbered about much serving, because she thought it necessarythat there should be noble hospitality for the Lord. We are sill too apt to think that Jesus needs our work, and that he cannot do without us. The preacher inquires what would become of the church if he were removed! the deacon is suspicions that if he were taken away there would be a great gap left in the administration of the church; the teacher of a class feels that those children would never be converted, Christ would miss of the travail of his soul, were it not for him. Ah, but a fly on St. Paul’s Cathedral might as well imagine that all the traffic at his feet was regulated by his presence, and would cease should he depart. I love you to think that Christ will do much work by you, and to attach as much weight as you can to your responsibilities, but as to Jesus needing us — the thing is preposterous. Mary is much wiser when she feels, "He desires me to receive his words, and yield him my love; I would gladly give him food, but he will see to that; he is the Master of all things, and can do without me or Martha. I need him far more than he can need me."
We spoil our service when we over-estimate its importance, for this leads us into loftiness and pride. Martha, under the influence of this high temper, came to complain of her sister, and to complain of her Lord too, as if he were excusing her idleness. "Do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone?" How it spoils what we do for Christ when we go about it with a haughty spirit; when we feel "I can do this, and it is grand to do that; am not I somewhat better than others? Must not my Master think well of me?" The humble worker wins the day. God accepts the man who feels his nothingness, and out of the depths cries to him; but the great ones he will put down from their seat, and send the rich ones empty away. Activity, if not balanced by devotion, tends to puff us up, and so to prevent acceptance with God.
Martha also fell into an unbelieving vexation. Her idea of what was necessary to be done was so great that she found she could not attain to it. There must be this side dish, and there must be that main dish, there must be this food and that wine, it must be cooked just so many minutes, this must be done to a turn, and so on, and so on, and so on, and so on; and now time flies, she fears yonder guest has been slighted; that servant is not back from the market... Many things go wrong when you are most anxious to have them right. You good housewives, who may have had large parties to prepare for, know what these cares mean, I dare say; and something of the sort troubled Martha, so that she became fretful and unbelieving. She had a work to do beyond her strength as she thought, and her faith failed her, and her unbelief went petulantly to complain to her Lord.
Have we never erred in the same way? We must have that Sunday school excellently conducted, that morning prayer-meeting must be improved, that Bible class must be revived, our morning sermon must be a telling one, and so on! The preacher here speaks of himself, for he sometimes feels that there is too much responsibility laid upon his shoulders, and he is very apt in reviewing his great field of labor to grow desponding in spirit. But when the preacher confessed that he spoke of himself, he only did so because he represents his fellow workers, and you also grow faint and doubtful. Alas! in such a case, the enjoyment of service evaporates, the fretfulness which pines over details spoils the whole, and the worker becomes a mere drudge and scullion instead of an angel who does God’s commandments, hearkening unto the voice of his word. Instead of glowing and burning like seraphs, our chariot wheels fall off by our anxiety, and we drag heavily. Faith it is that secures acceptance, but when unbelief comes in, the work falls flat to the ground.
At such times when the man or the church shall become subject to the Martha spirit, the mandatory principle falls a little into disrepute. I believe themandatory principle is the worst thing in all the world– to work where there is no grace. But where there is grace it is the one principle that God accepts. Now, Martha would have Mary forced to serve Christ. What right has she to be sitting down there? whether she likes or not she must get up and wait like her sister. Martha’s voluntary desire to do much, leads her to think that Mary, if she has not quite such a voluntary love for the work must be driven to it, must have a sharp word from Christ about it.
So it is with us. We are so willing to contribute to the Lord’s work, that we wish we had ten thousand times as much to give. Our heart is warm within us, and we feel we would make no reserve, and then are grieved with others because they give so very little, we wish we could compel them to give. And so we would put their cankered money into the same treasury with the bright freewill offerings of the saints, as if the Lord would receive such beggarly pittances squeezed out by force in the same manner as he accepts the voluntary gifts of his people. It would be wiser if we left thoseunwilling contributions to rust in the pockets of their owners, for in the long run I believe they do not help the cause; for only that which is given out of a generous spirit, and out of love to Christ, will come up accepted before him. Too readily do we get away from the free spirit when we get away from the right spirit.
The fact is, the Martha spirit spoils all, because it gets us away from the inner soul of service, as I have said before, to the mere husks of service; we cease to do work as to the Lord, we labor too much for the service sake; the main thing in our minds is the service, and not the Master; we are cumbered, and he is forgotten. Thus have I indicated as briefly as I could, some of the weaknesses of the Martha spirit.
III. Now for THE MARY SPIRIT.
I have to show you that it is capable of producing the noblest form of consecration to Christ. Its noblest results will not come just yet. Martha’s fruits ripen very quickly, Mary’s takes time. When Lazarus was dead, you will remember Martha ran to meet Christ, but Mary sat still in the house; Martha wanted her own time, Mary could take Christ’s time. So after awhile, just before our Lord’s death, we find that Mary did a grand action, she did what Martha never thought of doing, she brought forth a box of precious ointment and poured it on the Lord’s head, and anointed him with ointment. While she was sitting at Christ’s feet, she was forming and filling the springs of action.
You are not losing time while you are feeding the soul. While by contemplation you are getting purpose strengthened and motive purified, you are rightly using time. When the man becomes intense, when he gets within him principles vital, fervent, and energetic; then when the season for work comes he will work with a power and a result which empty people can never attain however busy they may be. If the stream flows at once, as soon as there is a shower, it must be little better than a trickling rivulet; but if the current stream is dammed up, so that for awhile nothing pours down the river bed, you will in due time, when the waters have gathered strength, witness a torrent before which nothing can stand. Mary was filling up the fountain head, she was listening and learning, feeding, edifying, loving, and growing strong. The engine of her soul was getting its steam ready, and when all was right her action was prompt and forcible.
Meanwhile, the manner of her action was being refined. Martha’s actions were good, but, if I may use the word, they were commonplace, she must make a great meal for the Lord Jesus, just as for any earthly friend; the spiritual nature of Christ she had forgotten, she was providing nothing for it; but Mary’s estimate of Christ was of a truer order; she looked at him as a priest, she viewed him as a prophet, she adored him as a king, and she had heard him speak about dying, and had listened to his testimony about suffering, and dimly guessing what it meant, she prepared the precious spikenard that before the dying should come she might anoint him. The woman’s deed was full of meaning and of instruction; it was indeed an embodied poem; the odor that filled the house was the perfume of love and elevated thought. She became refined in her actions by the process of musing and learning.
Those who do not think, who meditate not, who commune not with Christ, will do commonplace things very well, but they will never rise to the majesty of a spiritual conception, or carry out a heart-suggested work for Christ. That sitting of Mary was also creating originality of are. I tried two Sabbaths ago to enforce upon you the duty of originality of service as the right thing, that as we wandered everyone his own way, we should each serve God in his own way, according to our peculiar adaptation and circumstances. Now this blessed woman did so. Martha is in a hurry to be doing something — she does what any other admirer of Jesus would do, she prepares food and a festival; but Mary does what but one or two besides herself would think of, she anoints him, and is honored in the deed. She struck out a spark of light from herself as her own thought, and she cherished that spark until it became a flaming act. I wish that in the church of God we had many sisters at Jesus’ feet who at last would start up under an inspiration and say, "I have thought of something, that will bring glory to God which the church has not heard of before, and this I will put in practice, that there may be a fresh gem in my Redeemer’s crown.
This sitting at the Master’s feet guaranteed the real spirituality of what she did. Did you notice when I read what the Master said concerning the pouring of the ointment upon him, "She has kept this for my burial"? He praised her for keeping it, as well as for giving it. I suppose that for months she had set apart that particular ointment, and held it in reserve. Much of the sweetest aroma of a holy work lies in its being thought over and brought out with deliberation. There are works to be, done at once and immediately, but there are some other works to be weighed and considered. What shall I do to praise my Savior? There is a cherished scheme, there is a plan, the details of which shall be prayed out, and every single part of it sculptured in the imagination and realized in the heart, and then the soul shall wait, delighting herself in prospect of the deed, until the dear purpose may be translated into fact. It is well to wait, expectantly saying, "Yes, the set time will come, I shall be able to do the deed, I shall not go down to my grave altogether without having been serviceable; it is not yet the time, it is not yet the appropriate season, and I am not quite ready for it myself, but I will add grace to grace and virtue to virtue, and I will add self-denial to self-denial, until I am fit to accomplish the one chosen work." So the Savior praised Mary that she had kept this; kept it until the fit moment came before his burial; and then, but not until then, she had poured out and revealed her love.
Ay, it is not your thoughtless service, performed while your souls are half asleep, it is that which you do for Christ with eyes that overflow, with hearts that swell with emotion, it is this that Jesus accepts. May we have more of such service, as we shall have if we have more of sitting at his feet.
Christ accepted her, he said she had chosen the good part which should not be taken from her; and if our work be spiritual, intense, fervent, thoughtful, if it springs out of communion, if it be the outgushing of deep principles, of inward beliefs, of solemn gratitudes, then our piety shall never be taken from us, it will be an enduring thing, and not like the mere activities of Martha, things that come and go.
I have thus wrought out my text. I shall utter but two or three words upon the GENERAL APPLICATIONS of it. I shall apply it to three or four things very briefly. Brethren, I believe in our Nonconformity; I believe if ever England needed Nonconformists it is now; but there is a tendency to make Nonconformity become a thing of externals, dealing with state and church and politics. The political relations of Nonconformists, I believe in their value, I would not have a man less earnest upon them, but I am always fearful lest we should forget that Nonconformity is nothing if it is not spiritual, and that the moment we, as Dissenters, become merely political or formal, it is all over with us. Our strength is at the Master’s feet, and I am afraid for our Nonconformity if it lives elsewhere. I mark so much conformity to the world, so much laxity of rule, so much love of novel opinions, that I tremble. I wish we could go back to Puritanism. We are getting too lax, there is too much worldliness and carnality among us. There is little fear of our being censured, even by the world, for being too particular. I am afraid we are too much like the world for the world to hate us. As I pray that Nonconformity may always prevail in England, so I earnestly pray that she may stand because she abides near to Christ, holds his truth, prizes his word, and lives upon himself.
Now the like is true of missions. Apply the principle there. God bless missions; our prayer goes up for them as warmly as for our soul’s salvation. When shall the utmost ends of the earth behold the salvation of our God! But the strength of missions must lie not so much in arrangements, in committees, in money, in men; as in waiting upon Christ. We shall not do any more with a hundred thousand pounds, than with a single thousand, unless we get more grace; we shall not have more souls won with fifty missionaries than with five, unless we get ten times the amount of power from the right hand of the Most High. The waking up in missions needs to begin in our prayer meetings, and in our churches; in our personal wrestlings with God for the conversion of the heathen must lie the main strength of the workers that go out to do the deed. Let us remember this, Mary shall yet pour the box of ointment upon the head of the Anointed, Martha cannot do it.
The same thing is true in revivals. People will talk about getting up a revival — of all things I do believe one of the most detestable of transactions. "If you want a revival of religion," it is said, "you, must get Mr. So-and-so to preach" — with him I suppose is the residue of the Spirit. Oh, but if you want a revival, you must adopt the methods so long in vogue, and so well known as connected with such-and-such a revival! I suppose the Spirit of God is no more a free Spirit, then, as he used to be in the olden times; and whereas of old he breathed where he desired, you imagine your methods and plans can control him. It is not so; it is not so in any degree. The way to get the revival is to begin at the Master’s feet; you must go there with Mary and afterwards you may work with Martha. When every Christian’s heart is act right by feeding on Christ’s word and drinking in Christ’s Spirit, then will the revival come. When we had the long drought, some farmers watered their grass, but found it did but very little good. An Irish gentleman remarked in my hearing that he had always noticed that when it rained there were clouds about, and so all the air was in right order for the descent of rain. We have noticed the game, and it so happens that the clouds and general constitution of the atmosphere have much to do with the value of moisture for the herbs. It is no good watering them in the sun, the circumstances do not benefit them. So with revivals. Certain things done under certain circumstances become abundantly useful, but if you have not similar circumstances, you may use the same machinery, but mischief instead of good will follow. Begin yourself with the Master, and then go outward to his service, but plans of action must be secondary.
So too, lastly, if you want to serve God, as I trust you do, I charge you first be careful of your own souls; do not begin with learning how to preach, or how to teach, or how to do this and that; dear friend, get the strength within your own soul, and then even if you do not know how to use it scientifically, yet you will do much, The first thing is, get the heart warmed, stir up your manhood, brace up all your faculties, get the Christ within you, ask the everlasting God to come upon you, get him to inspire you, and then if your methods should not be according to the methods of others it will not matter, or if they should, neither will it be of consequence, having the power you will accomplish the results. But if you go about to perform the work before you have the strength from on high, you shall utterly fail. Better things we hope of you. God send them. Amen.
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