“Here a dinner was given in Jesus’ honor. Martha served, while Lazarus was among those reclining at the table with him.”
John 12:2
Hi, friends! It’s been a minute.
Over the past two weeks, I invested all my creative energy in preparations for my daughter’s last high school homecoming party. I attempted to write, but my mind consistently drifted toward punch recipes and photo backdrops.
I readily admit that I tend to overdo it regarding party prep. But for me, this is holy work. Let me begin to explain with a picture:
The story begins with this table: the one pictured above underneath the punch cups and green and black covering in my daughter’s high school colors. This table sits in my dining room, a stalwart anchor amid the ever-changing fixtures, furnishing, floors, and people around it.
This table has served my family for five generations. My great-grandmother purchased it sometime in the 1940’s and brought it to my grandmother’s house when she moved there in the late 1950’s.
My mom grew up around this table. She has a full set of memories featuring it: from eating turkey legs at Thanksgiving with her brother to setting her wedding gifts on it for display to wrenching her back while moving a chair over it when she was my age.
I also grew up around this table. My memories include helping Grandma set this table for Christmas dinner, talking about boys and heartbreaks with my cousin as we cleared its dishes, and sitting here beside my future husband as we celebrated our first Christmas together.
When Grandma moved to assisted living, she gave me this table, so my children are growing up around it too. We walk past it daily, and it routinely holds our odds and ends as its centerpieces signal the change of seasons.
During the pandemic, this table gave my family of four a sense of space to celebrate when we could not be with our extended family for Thanksgiving and Easter. And then, on the best days, I dress it up for a celebration and invite new friends to create memories around it, too.
This table is imbued with history and legacy. In a world that changes constantly, it anchors my sense of place: a reminder of where I belong. However, this table also grants me a sense of awesome responsibility. For me, this table stands on holy ground. Its presence calls me to serve.
I think our friend Martha realized the same sense of holy space around the table in her home. In the pre-Passover days after Jesus raised her brother, Lazarus, from death, Martha hosted a celebration in Jesus’s honor. One verse in John 12:2 summarizes her efforts: “Here a dinner was given in Jesus’ honor. Martha served, while Lazarus was among those reclining at the table with him.”
Martha served. This phrase is easy to overlook, but we know all about Martha and her feelings as the hostess from Luke 10:38-42. In Luke’s narrative, Martha is “worried and upset about many things” (Luke 10:41). But, in John’s story, Martha simply serves.
The word used for “served” here is diakoneo.[1] meaning to serve under the command of another. The same terminology is used elsewhere in the New Testament to describe the ministry of a deacon. The use of this term tells us that Martha opened her home, prepared a meal, and served to honor and obey Jesus. This connection between service and obedience holds because we know that Martha just acknowledged Jesus as the Christ in John 11: “Yes, Lord,” she told him, “I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who was to come into the world” (John 11:27).
In John 12:3, Martha’s sister, Mary, also serves when she anoints Jesus’s feet. Clearly, this meal was holy work for both Mary and Martha. Each woman gave the best of her gifts to honor Jesus as Lord at this meal.
Knowing this explains my sense that the activities around my dining room table are holy work. It is not because of the history or legacy of a piece of furniture, but because of the One I seek to serve there.
I am presented with a choice each time I set this table. I can approach the work as a worried and upset hostess, striving to impress my guests, or I can approach the task of hosting as a deacon who sets her dining room table to honor and obey Jesus.
Like Martha in Luke’s narrative, I’ve made the mistaken choice to strive and worry over my table many times. That changed for me when I hosted my daughter’s 14th birthday party. She had a challenging year socially, and I strove to compensate with the scale of her party in a frustrated and frantic effort to make everything better.
When the day came and the table was set, I sensed the Lord asking me to step back and consider the girls coming to her party as a gift meant for their mutual growth, opportunity, and blessing. He reminded me that this was His table, and my responsibility was to serve as its deacon: to set it and love each person seated here in honor and obedience to Him.
In that moment, the Lord revealed this as holy work, and my view changed.
Now, each time I set this table for a celebration, I marvel at the blessing of family and friends. And, when I add a leaf, a new tablecloth, or a bench to seat more people, I remember that this is the Lord’s table: a place to show hospitality to strangers.
This table connects me to its deacons before me: from my great-grandma all the way back to Martha. However, it also points me forward to my children and future guests. As I consider the celebrations to come and anticipate all that the Lord has yet to reveal, I wonder who He will invite to sit here next. I cannot wait to serve them.
© 2023 Lori Myers Berry
[1] James Strong, The New Strong’s Dictionary of Hebrew and Greek Words, (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1996), s.v. “G1247.” Logos software.
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