Sunday in a row, imploring me, locking my eyes through his thick horn-rimmed glasses.
"Margaret, we absolutely will not take no for an answer this week. You will come and stay the afternoon and, if need be, the night with us. This is what "church" is : family!"
Off I went with him, back up to Harlem, where his wife, Rita, and their two children were already sprawled out on their tiny apartment floor surrounded by The New York Times and coloring books in radiant sunlit patches. Soup was on the stove, and classical music played in the background. I stayed there most of the day,
doing what families do—talking, resting, watching television I probably would never watch alone—intermittently bored and comforted. But that's what relationship is to some degree, isn't it? It's not all go-go-go! or whooo-who!! It was the first of many comforting/familial—as in God's community—afternoons I would spend with that family.
That was God's provision for me—to be set in a family. To belong. To be known. I didn't take it seriously enough.
Halfway back home from my run, the parade of overlooked provisions continues. There are names and opportunities and open doors I so insensitively pushed shut because I didn't see it as God's provision. It didn't look like what I was expecting.
Almost home, on stair number three, my guilt trip is a bit assuaged when I realize that better women than myself had made the same mistakes, and those mistakes were now the parables of generations. Like Mary and Martha, when they expected Jesus to come to their house (Luke 10:38-42). They both were believing that Jesus—their friend and the Son of God—would show up. But there was a difference in their expectation of how he would show up. Mary recognized him—the provision of his presence, the provision in him—immediately when he arrived, and she stopped everything—including "preparing" the house for him—to enjoy, experience, and learn from him.
But as it would be for any one of us if someone that important were expected at our house, there were certain "preparations" to be made, certain "tasks" to complete, and then God—his presence—would have the correct, conducive environment to show up. Martha didn't recognize that he had already shown up despite where she was in her own preparation for him. Despite Martha's conscientious efforts, Jesus bypassed the "traditions," the expectations that could possibly confuse the "expectant" Martha. Traditions or relationship? Law or love? My adherence or God's
benevolence? Which is it? Do we control God by doing things "just so"? Can we make him like us any better by doing it all "this way" or "that"?
Jesus spent most of his life here on earth being a breathing testament to never thinking you can figure God—or his systems—out. I am certain he wanted Martha's attention on him—his living, breathing presence in her immediate moment. I am also as certain he did not want her attentions on practices, social edicts, and "religiosity" instead. She missed God's provision in her own space—not because she was wicked or dull but because she had settled for someone else's definition of how he would come.
His words to her sting my own soul: "Martha, Martha … 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" (Luke 10:41-42).
I know I'm not an anarchist—I just don't want to miss God. I don't want to walk along the edge of his order. I don't want to miss him, because I trust his order more than I trust him.
So as I peel away my moist paint-spattered holy sweatshirt, I begin what is now one of my top six prayers: God, help me to see your provision and choose "what is better." Make me a Mary.
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