Depp, Bieber and Jesus...

I've witnessed my daughter adoring Johnny Depp from afar, and even Justin Bieber for a season (though she probably wouldn't admit that now).  When she was much younger she would just gaze at Johnny in Pirates of the Caribbean, lovestruck.  Her Bieber phase was brief, but I'm pretty certain she still adores Depp.  

A couple of years ago, when we were taking her on trips to colleges and preparing for her next phase of life, one of the schools we looked at was in Evansville, Indiana - just across the river from Johnny Depp's boyhood home in Owensboro, Kentucky.  Rachelle's mother and she made a point of finding the address online, driving by and taking a picture of the home little Johnny Depp lived in 35 years ago, or so.  She adores him, I tell you.

On Sunday we launched our new series on Apprentice[ship] in which we will explore passages on several words (all ending with the suffix, ship - because it's cooler that way) that describe some of what it means for us to apprentice ourselves to Jesus and BECOME all that he hopes we can become.  Our passage on Sunday was Mark 3.13-19, Jesus' calling of the first disciples.  One of the points we considered was the importance of being with Jesus - a phrase Mark actually uses in the passage describing Jesus' purposes in appointing the disciples.  We talked about being with Jesus as nothing new in terms of how it's done, however.  It is spending time in Scripture, in prayer, in disciplines that make for spiritual growth and even in community with others.

In Luke 10.38-42 Jesus is in the home of Mary and Martha.  Martha is busy getting things ready for dinner and her guests, while Mary sits at the feet of Jesus, adoring him as if he were Johnny Depp.  Martha complains that Mary is not helping with all of the work and Jesus says to her,  “Martha, Martha, 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.”

We might want to chime in that what Martha was doing was important too.  I mean, someone’s got to get dinner ready for crying out loud.  And that would be true, but that’s not why this story is in the Bible.  This story is in our Bibles because God wants us to know that what is most important is not our service for Jesus, but our devotion to him.  What is most important is not that we do things for Jesus, but that we learn to be with him first of all - and know that he wants to be with us.  When we practice being with Jesus everything else begins to fall in place.  

I think it’s fascinating that Jesus says, “few things are needed – or indeed only one…”  What happened there?  Did Jesus mess up?  Did he forget what he wanted to say and correct himself?  Or did he simply speak in such a way in order to emphasize the reality we need to hear: being with Jesus is the single most important calling on our lives.  “Only a few things are truly necessary, Martha – in fact only one.  Learn to be with me as Mary has."  That’s where true apprenticeship begins.

What about you?  Are you spending time at Jesus' feet these days?  Watching him as he interacts with people in the gospels?  Listening to his teaching, going over it several times in one sitting, mulling over its truth?  Jesus is not, thankfully, Depp or Bieber.  He's far more interesting than that.  Be with him.