What type of person are you? Has anyone ever asked you that question before? I wouldn’t be surprised if they have. For some reason it seems like people are increasingly obsessed with personality types. Back in the day the only type of person I heard of was a person who was said to be type A. As far as I knew either you were a type A personality, or you weren’t. But these days there seems to be so many different types of people that it is hard to know what they are and which one of them you most readily identify with. And you need to know what type of person you are because people are going to ask you and if you don’t know they will decide your type for you and the last thing you want to be labeled is “C” if you are really an “I”.
Thankfully there are no shortage of personality test that you can take. The Meyers-Briggs personality test has 16 personality types, from “responsible executer” to “strategic director”, that you can choose from. If that is more personality types than you want to sort through than you can give the Enneagram typology system a try. With that system there are only 9 personality types to choose from. However, I should warn you there are 27 subtypes in that system so if you are a number 7 personality that system isn’t for you. The system I have seen more and more pastors include on their pastor evaluations is Clifton Strengths Finder. I think that system has something like 34 different strengths to choose from. The first time I read a pastor’s evaluation and the guy had “WOO” listed as his strength I thought it was a mistake. When I asked him about it, he simply said yeah, I’m a “WOO”. I though he was messing with me till I learned that “WOO” is an acronym for Winning Others Over.
I have to say I don’t understand this obsession with identifying personality types. There is a large part of me that wants to mock it as just another trivial trend the secular world has embraced. However, we do it too. We don’t tend to label our brothers and sisters in faith as dominant lions or laid-back turtles, but we do label each other and ourselves. In the church it seems there are only two types of personality. Either you are a Mary, or you are a Martha. Today, as we take a closer look at Luke 10:38-42, I want to see if I can help you figure out what type of person you are. Are you a Mary or are you a Martha?
Let’s start by getting a better understanding of who Martha was. Because Martha, in my opinion, gets a bad rap. I have noticed that people usually speak of being a Martha as a negative thing. I suspect that is because of the way Luke describes her in chapter 10. Luke uses adjectives like “distracted”, “worried”, and “upset” to describe Martha. But I think Martha is misunderstood.
Take a look at what Luke writes in verse 38. “38 As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him.” Martha opened her home. Martha lives in a culture that values hospitality, but what Martha does here is above and beyond what was expected of her. Martha opened her home to Jesus, but not just Jesus she opened her home to all of the disciples that traveled with Jesus. Can you imagine how that invitation was extended? “Hey, Jesus, would you like to come over for dinner?” “Sure Martha, can I bring a few friends?” “Absolutely! How many of your friends can I expect?” “ Well… there is of course Peter James and John, but I can’t just bring them and not bring the rest of the 12, and there are also several women who have been traveling with us so let’s say… 20ish???” When Martha opened her home to Jesus it wasn’t a little thing. The amount of work that Martha would have to do to get the house ready for all those guests would have been overwhelming to most people. The entire house would need to be cleaned, furniture would need to be rearranged, food would need to be prepared. And speaking of the food, how much do you think it would cost to feed 20ish guests? Especially if those guests are Jesus and the disciples. You are not putting out peanut butter and Jelly sandwiches for Jesus. Martha likely spent a small fortune on feeding all these people. Finally, I am sad to say it, but Martha took a considerable risk welcoming Jesus into her home. Martha lived about two miles away from Jerusalem, two miles away from the place where people were currently plotting to have Jesus killed. To welcome Jesus into your home was to welcome trouble.
Martha gets a bad rap, but I think the church would be better off if we had more Marthas. Martha is a servant; she is the type of person who is hospitable, hardworking, generous, and fearless. Don’t you wish you were that type of person? I wish I was. More often than I care to admit, when I look in the mirror of God’s law, I see someone who is cold, lazy, stingy, and cowardly. Don’t you see something similar when you look in the same mirror?
I want to be more like Martha, and I bet you do to, not because we are trying to earn the love and affection of our God, for goodness’s sake we are Lutheran, because of Jesus we already have the love and affection of our God. We want to be the type of people who serve others because that is the type of person Jesus is. Jesus is hospitable. I can’t think of a time He ever sent someone away instead I recall Him saying, “Come to me all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest”[1]. Jesus is hardworking. Think of how He spent His days healing the sick and His nights teaching His disciples or how he promised “In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you.”[2] Jesus is generous. To pay for the debt of sin you, me, and the rest of humanity incurred Jesus spent the most expensive currency of all; He spent the blood that flowed through His veins and the breath that filled His lungs. Jesus is fearless. He walked through the valley of the shadow of death and did not stumble; He looked the devil dead in the eye and did not blink. Jesus is the Martha type. He Himself even said, “the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”[3] Jesus was and is a servant to me and you. It is our gratitude for the service Jesus performed for us that makes us want to be more like the Martha servant type.
As far as I can tell Martha was an incredible person. I know how she comes across in this section of Scripture, but saint John pointed out in his gospel that “Jesus loved Martha”.[4] Martha is not a bad person. The only problem with Martha is she was too much of a Martha. She got so wrapped up in her service that she forgot to be a student like her sister Mary.
Between Martha and Mary, Mary is usually the type of person most Christians want to be, and understandably so. She is the one who gets high praise from Jesus who said, “42… Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”
We get an idea of what type of person Mary was in verse 39. There saint Luke tells us Martha, “had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said.” Mary was a listener. Mary was an attentive listener. She was so absorbed in what Jesus was saying that she completely tunes out everyone else in the room. It is likely she doesn’t even notice that there is a crowd of disciples in the room, she certainly doesn’t appear to notice her sister franticly trying to cater to all their guests. Mary sat at the feet of Jesus completely memorized by Him as though ever word that came from His lips was a matter of life and death. This, by the way, is not the only time we find Mary sitting at Jesus’ feet. It seems every time she is part of a gospel account, we find her sitting at Jesus’ feet. Here in our account, she sits at Jesus’ feet listening to the words of everlasting life. In the gospel of John[5], we find Mary sitting at Jesus’ feet. There she seeks and receives comfort as she mourns the death of her brother Lazarus. Later in John’s gospel we find Mary yet again sitting at Jesus’ feet. This time she is pouring expensive perfume on His feet and wiping it with her hair.[6] Finally, I suspect Mary was one of the women who sat at the nail pierced feet of Jesus as He hung on the cross. It seems no matter what the situation, no matter what is going on in Mary’s life, she is sitting at Jesus feet.
I wish I were more like Mary, don’t you? Mary is a student. She is the type of person who gives her teacher the attention and respect He deserves. She humbly submits to His authority and trusts that His words will guide her through this life and into the next. I wish I were that type of a person, don’t you? But again, when I look into the mirror of God’s law, I don’t like what I see, and I would be willing to bet you don’t like what you see when you stand before the same mirror. When we look into that mirror, we see people whose’ attention is divided, and respect is halfhearted. We see people who arrogantly challenge His authority and doubt His governance of this world and the next.
I want to be more like Mary, and I know you do to — Still not to gain the love and affection of our God, for we are still Lutherans and because of Jesus we have not lost the love and affection of our God. — We want to be the type of people who studiously sit at Jesus’ feet because from His lips come the words of everlasting life. His words are what call us out of darkness into His wonderful light.[7] Our faith comes from hearing His words[8]. His words are the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes[9]. His words guide us along the way, keep us in the truth, and lead us to those pearly gates. We want to be like Mary who studiously sat at the feet of Jesus because we want and need to hear His words.
Which type of person are you? Are you a Martha or are you a Mary? Martha was a servant. Mary was a student. Which type of person are you? Don’t you kind of want to be a little bit of both? I don’t know if that is really allowed in all those other personality test but since this is our test, I think we can and should allow it. Instead of labeling and being labeled a Martha or a Mary lets be both. Let’s be the type of person who studiously sits at Jesus’ feet and listens to the words of everlasting life and the type who serves others as Jesus has served us. Let’s be both Martha and Mary. Let’s pray for it. Let’s pray for it right now.
Dear Jesus, Make us the type of people that give you the attention and respect you deserve as we humbly submit to your authority and trust your governance of this world and the next. Then after we have sat at your feet make us the type of people who serve at your side with hospitality, hard work, generosity, and fearlessness. Dear Jesus, Make us like Martha and Mary. In your name we pray. Amen” Amen.
[1] Matthew 11:28
[2] John 14:2
[3] Matthew 20:28
[4] John 11:5
[5] John 11
[6] John 12:3
[7] 1 Peter 2:9
[8] Romans 10:17
[9] Romans 1:16