Student of Roses

I have never really liked the story about Jesus visiting Martha and Mary in Luke 10:38-42. Admittedly, it’s probably because I am Martha. I am preparing, solving, generating, tending, working, upholding, doing, most of the time.

Jesus rebukes her, though softly and in his tender way, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and upset about many things but only one thing is needed.”

During both of my pregnancies, I wish I had been kinder to my body. Oh, there was plenty of care taking. I was a model mother from a perspective of healthy habits.

Drink water constantly to keep up your hydration.
Walk regularly for circulation.
Remember deep breathing for oxygen.
Labor to remove any anxieties within you.

But looking back, I see an absence of kindness toward myself. The irony is not lost on me. All of my care-taking was rooted in a desire to be and become the healthiest, happiest home for my most treasured guests, my children. My work was not in vain, it helped in many ways. But only now, many years older and wiser, does it help me understand Jesus’ rebuke of Martha.

“You are worried and upset about many things [hydration, circulation, oxygen, emotions] but only one thing is needed.”

Sometimes the stress over even our best endeavors threatens to cancel out all of their healthy benefit.

Mary, on the other hand, she pauses. She stills. She adores. She focuses attentively to the Master. She effectively shoves a giant stick in the consuming cogs of the culture of the world.

What she exemplifies is more than just a way of being. It reorients things. It reorders things. Jesus really liked to reorder things.

The King arrives as a baby. The Savior dies on a cross. The Master washes feet. The life of Jesus doesn’t just dismantle and discard our sense of how things are, it asks us to look at them again with new eyes.

Jesus tells Martha only one thing is needed, him. For it is he who provides, prepares, solves, generates, tends, works, and upholds…if we let him, if we come to him first.

In reality, Mary’s adoration may have lasted only a few minutes. Enough for Jesus to point out the differences between her and her sister. And then? We are not told, but I think it is reasonable to believe that the next thing that happened was Mary and Martha got up to finish preparing the meal.

But this time, it was without the presence of haste, jealousy, or a harbored misunderstanding that could cloud Martha’s harried mind and heart. In one fell swoop, Jesus reorients them both. He releases Martha from the slavery of a productivity focused life and affirms Mary in her attempt to get the order correct.

First: pause, still, adore.

What unfolds beyond that may be necessary, but it is secondary.

Jesus knows fruit cannot come before flower, oaks cannot come before seeds. The nest must must be made before the egg, and the night must fall before the dawn can rise.

There is a secret order to worship and life that is not so secret. It is evident all around us for those willing to pay attention. What unfolds non-anxiously reveals “the only thing” that is actually at work. Because space is made and the order is correct, all that is needed gets done.

It may take many years. But the flower does not refuse to bloom because it takes too long to produce fruit. The acorn does not grumble because it takes twenty years to grow an oak tree. If we truly trust in a God that holds the natural order of our lives and our blessings in his hands, what is time besides a measurement of our impatience?

Jesus often gestures to the natural creation for how to orient ourselves under his care,

“Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?

And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” (Matthew 6:26-33)

It reminds me of a poem I wrote a few years ago, if you’ll indulge me to share it, titled “Student of Roses.”

The Roses know already what I’m still trying to learn.
To be still.
To unfold.
To bloom.
There is a role they play, though they didn’t choose to be planted here.
Can you perceive what it must be like?
To spend a lifetime
warmed by the sun,
washed by the rain,
well nourished by the earth.
Until one day, your non-anxious waiting
leads to the miracle of little boy laughter
as he swings between you and another lucky rose.
The Roses know already what I’m still trying to learn.
To be still.
To unfold.
To bloom.

Mary is a student of roses. And what we can celebrate in Martha is not how she got it wrong, but how Jesus invites her to get it right. Every day, we have this same hope that Jesus will stop us in our hurried tracks and point us to the roses.

“Look at how they wait, look at how they unfold, look at how they bloom. It is in this very way, that I care for you, too.”

Thanks be to God.