Martha, Mary, and Mahalia?

There's a balance; I know it's out there but for the life of me I can't find it. I'm a Martha, I admit it. But The Martha had it easy in a way. If she stopped working in the kitchen, or serving, or whatever for a little while; it probably wouldn't have bothered anyone or disrupted the time spent with Jesus.

But, what if the task(s) she was doing were necessary so people could sit and listen to Jesus? No that's not right. What if Martha offered to help (like she did) and then the apostles said to her; "Look Martha, we need some mats set out for people to sit on. And it might be hard for people to hear the boss's message so maybe you can set up a bench for him to stand on. Oh, and we're probably going to sing a few songs so we need to make room for the special singers and musicians. That should do it. Oops, almost forgot; we'll have to do something with the kids. We can't have them sitting here all bored. Do you think you could get your other sister Mahalia to watch and entertain them? Oh yeah, and when you get a chance put up these decorations will ya? The place is a little drab and these should help. Great babe. Thanks, we love ya!"

Martha would have been beat! Do you think she would have even heard a word that Jesus said? And what about poor Mahalia, she wasn't even in the freakin' room?

I know, that's way overboard. But some of that is what we do today isn't it? If you have your own building I'm sure there are somethings that "need" to be done each week. Personally we do church in a box - rented space, stuff in a trailer, need to set up and tear down each week.

Question 1: What do we really need when we gather together?

Question 2: How comfortable do we really need to make people?

Question 3: If what we are doing is what we really need, how do we get help for Martha so she doesn't go off the deep end?

Question 4: Where do we draw the line between doing something for God and doing something for others (turning it into a show)?

What's a Martha to do? We want to serve - we can't help it; God made us this way. How can a Martha say "no" when something "needs" to be done and no one else wants to do it? What do we really need to do?