Scripture: Luke 10:38-42 (NIV)

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 few things are needed—or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”

Standing just out of sight of the stormtroopers, Obi-Wan Kenobi pondered his situation. He had shut down the tractor beam, so the Millennium Falcon could now escape the Death Star. However, he didn’t have an obvious way off of the narrow ledge he was on. In his younger days, he might have come rushing off the ledge, deflecting blaster bolts before cutting down the troopers without hesitation, escaping to find those he came with. However, as he said to Luke Skywalker before they left Tatooine, he was getting too old for such maneuvers. There had to be a better way.

Instead, Obi-Wan went the subtle route. Using the Force, he created a noise behind the troopers, getting them to turn around. Then, while they were distracted from their guarding task, he slipped out the other way, getting away from the terminal before they could see him. They never even knew that they had failed in their task.

The story of Mary and Martha is a familiar one. As I noted when I wrote on this passage six years ago, I have always identified with Martha. I’m often the one scrambling around to make sure that others are either having a good time or, in a church setting, having the chance to worship. Martha wasn’t doing anything wrong–food needed to be prepared, arrangements needed to be made–but that wasn’t necessarily the highest and best use of her time when the Creator of the universe was under her roof. There would be time for that later, after He spoke.

All the work pushed Martha’s focus away from the Source and onto less important things. She also thought that she should have some help doing it. However, Mary’s focus was completely on Christ. She wasn’t budging from His feet because she wanted to hear His words. She wasn’t going to be distracted from the most important thing.

There’s a lot going on in the world–it seems like more now than in some decades. We can start to get overwhelmed by violence in the streets, financial instability, wars and rumors of wars. Social media and being online can consume our time. Our focus isn’t where it should be and it tends to show in the rough, tiring lives that we lead. When we are disconnected from the Source, our power drains and our minds wander.

We have to let all those things drop off and not lose focus on what our mission is. We are to hear His Word and go make disciples. The world is going to try all it can to get us to turn our back on Jesus, to start chasing down this road or that thinking we are doing good when all we are doing is getting farther from Christ. We don’t need to worry about the right politics or the right public image or anything like that. Just stay with Christ and all those things will sort themselves out. They are distractions and we need to treat them as such!