Mary is Different

I want to encourage you to check out two passages of Scripture that tell us about Mary and Martha. The passages are Luke 10:38-42 and John 12:1-8. Mary and Martha are sisters of Lazarus. You may recognize Lazarus' name as the man who was dead for four days, but then Jesus brought him back to life.
As you read these passages you may notice that both take place around dinner tables. And in both, Martha is serving the meal. In the Luke passage she gets frustrated that Mary is not helping serve the meal, but in the John passage we do not hear Martha complaining. (Maybe she is used to Mary's behavior by now.) In Luke Jesus stands up for Mary not serving. He says it is better for her to sit and listen to Jesus teach. Then again in John's Gospel Jesus stands up for Mary as she offers a generous blessing to Jesus. The disciple Judas was not pleased with Mary pouring a scented oil on Jesus' feet because the oil is worth a year's wages. (Think $45,000 perfume today.) Judas thought it could have been sold and given to the poor. Jesus said what Mary did again was good.
So in both of these passages Mary does what others do not think she should be doing. Mary is different. She does not hesitate to do what she feels God calling her to do, even when others think she is doing the wrong thing.
As I looked at the John passage and thought about the generosity of the gift Mary gave to Jesus I was challenged to be different by being generous. Recent statistics say that 70% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck. I think it would be tough to be generous when your money runs out before your next paycheck. Another statistic says Americans spend $1.22 for every $1 we make. How do we do that? Well, we go into debt as we spend money we do not have. Again, being in debt is not going to help us be generous.
So my suggestion to help us be different and generous like Mary is to plan and prepare ourselves to be generous. Have a written budget, so you can look over your income and expenses. Mary had to plan and save in order to have that expensive perfume to offer to Jesus. We too can plan and save, so that we can be generous when the opportunity arises. If you need help with a budget let me know or sign up for our Financial Peace University class that will begin in January.
Mary may not play a major role in the whole Scripture story, but she stands out to me as a great example of a follower of Christ.