Page 9 9 What is this? This is a beautiful picture of a church meeting. When we come together as a church, we come into the presence of Jesus Christ. He is in our midst. And . . . He is speaking. In this story, Christ is speaking through His physical body. But today, He speaks through a different channel. We all know what that channel is, don’t we? It’s the pastor, right? No! He speaks through His body still–His spiritual body. Not through a pastor. Not through a group of elders. But He speaks through us–the Body of Christ. (Pastors are like His little pinkys. Christ has an entire Body through which He speaks.) We come together to adore Him, worship Him, and to hear Him speak His Word through one another. And by that Word we live. Now here’s a mark to hit: Every time you assemble together, when you walk out the door and leave the meeting, you ought to be able to say, “The Lord spoke to us afresh today and this is what He revealed of Himself to us.” That requires that each of us become a Mary. It requires that each of us sit at His feet during the week and learn of Him. And then when we all come together, we share what we have learned of Him with one another. I’m a strong advocate of Christians getting together in pairs during the week to spend time with the Lord before the corporate meetings. Note that Mary wasn’t sitting at the Lord’s feet alone. The Twelve were with her also. And Lazarus may have been present as well. So Bethany is the place where we sit at the Lord’s feet together, and we submit ourselves to His Headship. This is the first lesson that every authentic church should learn. Choosing the Better Part This story is usually interpreted to be an example of the tension that exists between those who are given to outward service and those who are given to inward worship. I think this way of looking at the story has some merit, but I don’t want to take that tack today. I think it misses the greater point. Let me give you some historical background which will throw fresh light on our story. In Jesus’ day, homes were divided into the male space and the female space. The kitchen was the domain of the women. (This is still the case in some countries, like Ethiopia.) Men do not enter the kitchen. The public room was for the men. For a woman to settle down in the public room with the men was considered very inappropriate. Scandalous even. The only two places where the men and the women shared was the marital bedroom and outside the house where the children played.