Decided to post an old one today–wrote it six years ago, less than a month after I started writing poems. Seemed like a good one in our hurry and flurry culture.
It’s from Luke 10:38-42:
As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said.
But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made.
She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!”
“Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset
about many things, but only one thing is needed.
Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”
When he said “one thing is needed,” I think Jesus was doing his rabbi-thing where they are pretty much ALWAYS referring to things in the Hebrew scriptures to fill their teachings with multiple layers of meaning and goodness. In particular, I think he was making a reference to Psalm 27:4, to allude to that and really the whole Psalm (read it sometime soon if you’ve got time, it’s a potent one). I especially think that’s cool because though women wouldn’t have been able to study the Torah formally, as I understand it they DID receive instruction in the Psalms … so Jesus is deliberately referring to something that he knew Martha would know.
Anyway … the poem. See how it (and, really, the story above) hits you!
(As always, I welcome comments/questions/etc. at john@ichthusmhk.org!)
