The Gospels —especially Luke— recount many stories of Jesus eating at someone’s house. These hosts had the wonderful and unbelievable privilege of hosting a banquet with God as the guest of honor. On several occasions, Jesus went to Bethany and stayed at the house of some of his friends – Mary, Martha, and Lazarus. Many of us are familiar with Luke’s story because of the different responses of the two sisters. While Martha was slaving away to prepare the dinner for Jesus and his disciples, she was agitated that her sister, Mary, was not helping her. Mary was not found in the kitchen but was listening attentively at Jesus’ feet.

I and many others can sympathize with Martha. Hospitality was an extremely important virtue in the ancient world. Jesus was the most important guest anyone could possibly have in their house, and somebody had to make sure that dinner was a success. Furthermore, Jesus did not rebuke Martha for what she was doing, but rather for what she was not doing, sitting at Jesus’ feet. She forgot that as she hosted Jesus, Jesus also was hosting for her a feast from his instruction.

Let us remember that being “busy” is not a Christian virtue, but neither is passivity. We need to both work in the kingdom, but also take time to rest and commune with God. We need to be counter-cultural by being less “busy” in order to make time for feeding our families and ourselves from God’s word. I need to make this more of a priority and I hope you will too.