We are all a mixture, people who are capable of falling into wisdom and folly. One minute, we’re serving, giving, showing kindness, patience and faith - and then in turn we become irritable, faithless, foolish. We see this in the stories of Martha and also Peter.
Martha’s story is recounted in Luke 10:38-42
Jesus and his disciples went on their way. Jesus came to a village where a woman named Martha lived. She welcomed him into her home. She had a sister named Mary.
Mary sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. But Martha was busy with all the things that had to be done. She came to Jesus and said, “Lord, my sister has left me to do the work by myself. Don’t you care? 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.”
Martha’s story is not just about busyness and being distracted - her sister Mary was assuming a posture usually only taken by a man as she sat at the feet of her rabbi Jesus.
But we are wrong to only remember Martha for her fussing in the kitchen!
She is the author and verbalizer of one of the two great confessions of Christ in the New Testament, as in John 11 she declares, 'I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God. I believe that you are the One who was supposed to come into the world.' (Jn 11:27).
A similar pattern emerges with Peter. He is over-confident, impetuous, ready sometimes to jump to false conclusions, and capable of incredible ineptitude, for example, his rebuke of Jesus:
'From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples what would happen to him. He told them he must go to Jerusalem. There he must suffer many things from the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law. He must be killed and on the third day rise to life again. Peter took Jesus to one side and began to scold him. 'Never, Lord!' he said. 'This will never happen to you!' Jesus turned and said to Peter, 'Get behind me, Satan! You are standing in my way. You do not have in mind the things of God. Instead, you are thinking about human things.' (Mt 16:21–23)
But in this episode, where Peter declares that because of who Jesus is and what He offers, there is nowhere else to go, he shows that he has correctly understood what Jesus said about having ‘words of eternal life’.
'In his straightforward way, Peter answered for all of us—there is no other way. Though there are many philosophies and self-styled authorities, Jesus alone has the words of eternal life. People look everywhere for eternal life and miss Christ, the only source. There is nowhere else to go. The true disciples had found the only one who spoke the words that give eternal life (1)' - B. B. Barton
Peter also uses the term, ‘Holy One of God’ - a remarkable statement.
Leon Morris:
'The Holy One of God' is an unusual description of Jesus; in fact, it is applied to him on only one other occasion in the New Testament, when the demon-possessed man addressed him in the synagogue in Capernaum (Mark 1:24; Luke 4:34). It is rare in the Old Testament (used of Aaron in Ps. 106:16, and cf. 'your Holy One,' Ps. 16:10), but it does remind us of the frequently occurring 'the Holy One of Israel.' There can be not the slightest doubt that the title is meant to assign to Jesus the highest possible place. It sets him with God and not man (2)'
We are all a mixture, like Martha and Peter. Thank God for His patience and grace!
1) Barton, B. B. (1993). John (p. 144). Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House.
2) T Morris, L. (1995). The Gospel according to John (pp. 344–346). Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.