Luke 10:38–42 (NIV)

38 As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. 39 She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet listening to what he said. 40 But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, "Lord, don't you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!" 41 "Martha, Martha," the Lord answered, "you are worried and upset about many things, 42 but few things are needed—or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her."

When we hear the word worship, most of us think of songs. When we hear missions, we think of another country, a gospel carried to people we have never met. So we keep the two apart. Worship is what we do here on a Sunday. Missions is what happens somewhere far away.

But in the Bible they are not separate. Worship is the goal of missions. It is the reason we are sent at all — that people who do not yet know Jesus would come to see His worth and give Him their lives. And worship is also the fuel. We go because we have met someone worth knowing. Missions happens when people see the worth of Jesus and can no longer keep Him to themselves.

The whole thing starts low, at a pair of feet, and travels out to the nations. To see how, we can watch one woman. Mary of Bethany shows up twice — once sitting at the feet of Jesus, and once kneeling to pour something precious over them.

Luke tells us about a visit. Martha opens her home. She is busy serving, doing what needed to be done. Meanwhile "Mary... sat at the Lord's feet listening to what he said." Martha grows frustrated and asks Jesus to send her sister to help. And Jesus answers her gently.

"Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her."

To sit at someone's feet was the posture of a disciple. A learner. Mary was receiving His word and letting it shape how she saw God and the world. That is what Jesus calls the one necessary thing.

He is not scolding Martha for serving. Someone had to serve. The problem was that she had become distracted by the serving. She was doing something for Jesus but forgetting to be with Jesus. Outwardly busy for God, inwardly anxious and stretched thin. And you can see it in how she treats her sister. When our heart loses its place of rest, service quietly turns into control.

Only one thing is necessary. Not because work does not matter, but because Mary had chosen the thing that will remain. She was coming to know Jesus. That is where worship begins.

Worship is our response to who Jesus is. We worship to the level that Jesus has been revealed to us. The more clearly we see Him, the more naturally our hearts rise to Him.

Which means most of us do not really have a worship problem. We have a revelation problem. When worship feels flat, the answer is not to try harder to feel something. The answer is to see Him more clearly. Worship grows in us as Jesus is made known to us.

This is why sitting comes before sending. We are not inviting people to a program or a set of ideas. We are inviting them to know a person. And we cannot bear honest witness to someone we barely know ourselves. The best preparation for mission is knowing God. Before there is a going out, there has to be a sitting at His feet.

The second scene is heavier. Jesus is reclining at a table in Bethany, in the days before the cross. Mary comes in with an alabaster jar of pure nard, an expensive perfume. She breaks it and pours all of it out.

This was worth about a year's wages. Not something easily replaced. And she does not hold any back. She breaks the jar and empties it. The room reacts the way rooms do.

"Why this waste?"

We call something a waste when the cost is greater than the thing it was spent on. So the real question underneath their complaint was about worth. They were saying, without saying it, that Jesus was not worth a year's wages to them.

It is worth letting that question turn toward us. How much of our time can He really have? How much are we willing to be interrupted when He asks? The hesitation we feel is a quiet measure of what we think He is worth.

But Jesus sees it completely differently. He calls it a beautiful thing. She was preparing His body for burial, and she seemed to grasp something the others in the room had missed. That is not an accident. Mary was the one who had sat and listened. Sustained attention had taught her how to respond in the moment. She knew, when no one else did, exactly what this was for.

Here is the thing to hold onto. Worship is not measured by how much we give up. It is measured by how much we value Jesus. The perfume was valuable, but she poured it out because He was worth far more. The gift only made sense in the light of His worth.

So the question the passage keeps asking is simple. What is He worth to you? Take something precious to you and give it to Him.

Then Jesus does something surprising with this small, private act. He connects it to something huge. He says that wherever the gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told, in memory of her.

Her story would travel to the nations. The very people in that room who first saw only waste would go on to stake their lives on the truth that Jesus is Lord. What began at His feet did not stay there.

This is the shape of the Great Commission. Matthew ends his gospel with Jesus saying, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations." Notice where it starts — not with our effort, but with His authority. Every nation already comes under His rightful rule. We go to make disciples, people who will sit and listen to Him the way Mary did. And He does not send us out alone: "And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."

From His feet to the nations. Worship at the feet of Jesus becomes a witness that reaches the ends of the earth.

It is easy to think we need a bigger heart for missions or more discipline in worship. But both of those grow from the same root — seeing Jesus more clearly and valuing Him more truly.

So maybe the honest questions for today are these. What has quietly taken the place of sitting at His feet — even good, busy service done in His name? And what is the one precious thing you have been holding back, unwilling to pour out, because some part of you is still deciding whether He is worth it?

He knows His own worth. The question is whether we will let it change what we do with ours.

All glory to God — forever and ever. Amen. 🤍

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