At the Feast of Tabernacles

162:8.1It had been ar­ranged that Je­sus should lodge with Laz­a­rus and his sis­ters at a friend’s house, while the apos­tles were scat­tered here and there in small groups, these pre­cau­tions be­ing taken be­cause the Jew­ish au­thor­i­ties were again be­com­ing bold with their plans to ar­rest him.

162:8.2For years it had been the cus­tom for these three to drop ev­ery­thing and lis­ten to Je­sus’ teach­ing when­ever he chanced to visit them. With the loss of their par­ents, Martha had as­sumed the re­spon­si­bil­i­ties of the home life, and so on this oc­ca­sion, while Laz­a­rus and Mary sat at Je­sus’ feet drink­ing in his re­fresh­ing teach­ing, Martha made ready to serve the evening meal. It should be ex­plained that Martha was un­nec­es­sar­ily dis­tracted by nu­mer­ous need­less tasks, and that she was cum­bered by many triv­ial cares; that was her dis­po­si­tion.

162:8.3As Martha bus­ied her­self with all these sup­posed du­ties, she was per­turbed be­cause Mary did noth­ing to help. There­fore she went to Je­sus and said: “Mas­ter, do you not care that my sis­ter has left me alone to do all of the serv­ing? Will you not bid her to come and help me?” Je­sus an­swered: “Martha, Martha, why are you al­ways anx­ious about so many things and trou­bled by so many tri­fles? Only one thing is re­ally worth while, and since Mary has cho­sen this good and need­ful part, I shall not take it away from her. But when will both of you learn to live as I have taught you: both serv­ing in co-op­er­a­tion and both re­fresh­ing your souls in uni­son? Can you not learn that there is a time for ev­ery­thing—that the lesser mat­ters of life should give way be­fore the greater things of the heav­enly king­dom?”