Martha was right, therefore, in seeing that a suitable meal was prepared for her guests. Her mistake was that she set an undue importance upon the matter. She represents that large class of Marthas which emphasizes fidelity to temporal cares and subordinates the devotional and spiritual. Mary represents that side which magnifies the devotional and spiritual, and which subordinates the temporal and physical things, making them subserve the other. The one is serving Christ in our own way and according to our own zeal; the other is humbly waiting at His feet for direction. Martha must needs get up a great entertainment. She must have a needless variety of dishes, show thereby the skill and resources of her art as a housekeeper. Instead of thinking mainly of what her distinguished Guest might do for her, of the infinite store of blessing that hung upon His lips, she was wholly intent upon what she might do for Him. While thus absorbed and fretted with cares of how she might give her table a more comely appearance, she was losing the heavenly manna which Jesus came to dispense, and which she so much needed for her soul. Not only did she throw away this priceless opportunity of hearing the words of eternal life directly from her Lord, but she was unreasonably vexed at Mary for not being as foolish as herself. The thoughts and purpose of her heart were as open to Him as were those of the gentle, loving Mary; and while one revealed care and anxiety for the perishing things of this life the other told of perfect love and trust in her adored Lord; of earnest longing for the knowledge of the truth, of deep humility, of self-forgetting devotion, of that quiet courage which fears neither ridicule nor opposition. There may have been some truth in Martha’s complaint against her sister. Very possibly Mary may have been so absorbed with the “good part” which she had chosen, as to be really negligent of her household duties, and to throw upon Martha burdens which should have been shared equally by the sisters. Had Mary, sitting at the Master’s feet and drinking in the precious doctrine that fell from His lips, been puffed up thereby, and said to Jesus, “Speak to my sister Martha, that she stop her household cares, and come and sit with me in this devout frame of mind,” very likely the rebuke would have fallen in the other direction.