I always felt a little sorry for Martha.
You know Mary and Martha’s story in the Bible, right? Jesus, the famous rabbi and Lord, and His disciples dropped by His friends’ house to share a meal and rest.
It’s easy to imagine how much Martha must have pushed herself to be the gracious hostess. After all, this was a short-notice dinner party for her renowned Friend and several – or many – of His closest followers. If she ever needed her sister to help with the cooking, it was now.
But Mary was sitting at the feet of Jesus, listening to the Master teach.
Can you feel Martha’s frustration and fatigue? “Lord, do You not care that my sister has left me to do all the serving alone? Then tell her to help me.” (Luke 10:40b NASB)
But Jesus surprised Martha not by nudging Mary back into the kitchen, but by gently telling Martha that Mary had chosen the better task and it wouldn’t be taken away from her.
And this is the point in the story where I wonder: What if Martha had dropped her kneading bowl and sat at the feet of Jesus, too? Would they all go hungry? Does this mean we should give up our household’s needs and seek only spiritual pursuits?
We need to be fed in body and spirit to flourish. So how can we prioritize spiritual growth, rest, and relationships on the Lord’s Day while also feeding hungry mouths?
(This article is for you if you want to prepare a full Sunday dinner. If that’s not a priority, then make life easier by prepping sandwiches or picking up a pizza and serving everything on paper plates.)
Some simple planning is all we need so we can spend less time in the kitchen like Martha and more time at Jesus’s feet.
Here are a few ideas that work for me and may help you, too, especially if you feel more like a Martha than a Mary on Sunday.
Write a meal plan for Sundays. Even if you don’t like to create meal plans for your weekly meals, considering planning your Sunday menus a month ahead. That’s about four or five meals per month. Doable, right? Knowing what you’re cooking for Sunday will give you the chance during the week to prepare meal components (see below), which will reduce your workload on the weekend.
Repeat the menu. Guess what? You can make the same four meals each month if you want. You’ll plan less, shop more efficiently, and perfect your recipes. Your family probably has a few favorite dishes anyway, and they’ll anticipate these unique Sundays when they glimpse your menu.
Plan “less work, more work” menus. Sunday dinner is an opportunity for a gorgeous gourmet spread, but it can be a lot of work. If you want to serve a few prize dishes, then sprinkle in easier sides or desserts to lessen your workload. Yeast rolls will keep you in the kitchen for a few hours, so prepare a simple yet delicious roast chicken for the main dish. Or if you’re craving a multi-layered, melt in your mouth lasagna, then heat a can of green beans and throw together a quick pineapple upside-down cake.
Don’t shop for groceries on the same day you cook. If you plan to cook most dishes on Saturday, then don’t shop for ingredients that day. It’s a recipe for exhaustion. Once you’ve created a menu for Sundays, then shop earlier in the week. I usually shop on Friday. If it’s hard for you to get to the store during the week, then consider using your grocery store’s guest services. Many grocery stores, such as my local Safeway, allow you to shop online and they’ll have your bags ready to pick up. (It also helps you stick to your grocery list or your diet.)
Stock up on bulk items you use regularly. Bouillon, canned diced tomatoes, rice, flour, sugar, etc. It’ll shorten your grocery shopping excursions and permit you to cook side dishes and meals that you may not have scheduled on your monthly menu. A little spontaneity is fun, right? Sometimes I crave rice pudding even when it isn’t on the menu and it’s nice to know I have ingredients available to indulge my taste buds.
Prepare ingredients during the week. Peel and chop carrots, dice potatoes (put them underwater in a sealable plastic tub so they won’t turn brown), dice celery, make yeast rolls and freeze them, boil chicken breasts and brown ground beef, steam rice and store or freeze it. Food preparation on Saturday will go much faster if you do a few tasks during the week, and you can use that extra time to ditch chores and have fun!
Your two best friends: freezer meals and the slow cooker.
Freezer Meals
You could make freezer meals for all of your Sunday dinners in an afternoon. Many – even most – foods freeze well (with a few exceptions). Soups, casseroles, breads, marinated meats, raw meats (such as hamburger patties) and most vegetables are good candidates. You can even freeze cake layers a few days ahead and frost your cake the night before for a crowd-pleasing dessert. I also fry French toast and whip up fresh waffles on a weekday and freeze them for breakfasts on the weekend. Freezer meals also mean that you’ll have extra food available if you have unexpected guests or hungry teenagers, or if you need a break from meal prep on Saturdays.
Here are a few great articles about how to prepare freezer meals:
https://www.laurengreutman.com/freezer-cooking-101/
https://happymoneysaver.com/freezer-meal-tips-beginners/
http://www.livingwellspendingless.com/2014/02/24/xx-tips-successful-freezer-cooking/
Slow Cooker
With a slow cooker you can prepare a fresh, hot meal rather than reheating meals made the day before (not that there’s anything wrong with that). If you want your meal cooked on low and still ready after you arrive home from church, then cook the meal halfway the evening before and refrigerate it. Before you leave, pop it back on the slow cooker base and finish cooking. Allow for an extra 30-40 minutes of cooking time to bring the cold meal up to cooking temperature. I usually do the halfway cooking method on pot roasts or steaks, but not with poultry because I’m just paranoid about food safety.
Double a meal during the week. If you don’t want to plan a month in advance for Sunday meals, then just double a weeknight dinner once or twice and freeze it. Making extra portions of dinner or breakfast will give you multiple meal choices for Sunday. Or serve them all buffet style! Although I’ve discussed main dishes, there are two other meals in a day. If you want a hearty breakfast on Sunday, instead of cereal or toast, then double up on pancakes, waffles, French toast, and even scrambled eggs and freeze them. They’re also tasty snacks on Sunday and during the week.
Make extra. It bears repeating – prepare more food than you think you’ll need. Do this for two reasons: to feed unexpected guests and to munch on Sunday evening when the big meal wears off and you’re poking through the cupboards for a snack. It’s no fun to assemble new snacks or cook a fresh meal when you’re supposed to be resting and enjoying your family. Okay, three reasons: if you have extra food then you might be more willing to throw out a dinner invitation to someone who needs a little extra love. It’s a chance for you to show Christ’s love to someone, and it need not cost you extra time in the kitchen.
Sample Week:
Monday: French toast (destination: freezer); slice raw carrots with dinner (destination: sealed plastic container in refrigerator)
Tuesday: Waffles (destination: freezer), dice celery (destination: sandwich bag in refrigerator)
Wednesday: Yeast rolls (destination: eat half for tonight’s dinner, freeze the rest)
Thursday: Peel and dice potatoes (destination: submerged in water in sealed plastic container, refrigerator); chop 12 slices of bread into cubes (destination: plastic bag in pantry)
Friday: Grocery shopping
Saturday: (Scarf down waffles with butter and maple syrup for breakfast) then…Bake pineapple upside-down cake, prepare chicken and set in pan and cover with foil, make mashed potatoes, bake stuffing (that’s where we use the celery and cubed bread), boil carrots and glaze with brown sugar, mix iced tea and lemonade, set out frozen rolls, whip up gravy from a packet or wait until tomorrow to make gravy with pan drippings (it should take about 90 minutes to 2 hours to prepare everything and a lot of it is hands-free baking/boiling time).
Sunday: (Stuff French toast in mouth for breakfast) then…Before church: Put mashed potatoes in slow cooker (add a little milk) on low to reheat 2-3 hours before serving, put chicken in oven before leaving for church. After church: remove chicken from oven, heat rolls in oven, microwave carrots and stuffing to reheat, warm gravy on stove top or make fresh gravy from pan drippings. Eat, fellowship, and rejoice in the Lord! And sit on your behind.
Why does it matter?
What is the purpose of all this cooking, not to mention the cleaning that goes along with it?
- Make Sunday special.You set apart this day to honor the Lord (the Bible often uses the word sanctify to mean “setting apart”). But it’s also a day for your pleasure and relaxation, so make the most of it!
- Eating and food prep are not the purpose of the Lord’s Day. When your house is just clean enough that you can relax in it, and everyone is fed and happy, then your mind is free to let the important things take their proper place: worship and time with the Lord, rest, and fellowship with your family and friends.
- A special meal means a special day.We all celebrate holidays and special occasions with food: Thanksgiving is a feast of our favorite dishes, birthdays mean party food and cake, and many a man has knelt to ask a lady’s hand in marriage over a candlelight dinner. In the Bible, the Lord instructed the Israelites to observe feasts to commemorate the great things the Lord had done. Passover, the most holy day of the Israelites’ calendar, was observed by honoring the Lord with a very specific meal. Take a little extra time to make something yummy for yourself and the people you love so that everyone sets apart the Lord’s Day with joy.
- You’re modeling a reverent attitude to your children and everyone around you.If you view Sunday as another work day – mild annoyance at the effort it takes to get a family to church, irritation at unfinished chores – then your attitude will become part of the subconscious attitude of the people around you, especially your children. Sunday will be a day they tolerate and plod through, just a buffer day between fun-and-free Saturday and back-to-real-life Monday. But if you make Sunday a day of joy and fellowship, then your children and family will, too. A special family meal is a small part of that joyfulness. And they’ll bring that happy reverence for the Lord’s Day into their future marriages and they’ll teach it to their own children (your grandchildren). It can have a generational effect. Kind of a scary responsibility, isn’t it? Scary wonderful. What a way to love the Lord and model obedience! “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.” Exodus 20:8 NKJV
If you feel more like workhorse Martha than spiritual Mary, then take courage. Jesus’s wasn’t telling Martha that she was wrong to whip up hummus instead of hanging out with Him. Instead, I believe He was talking about priorities. Our relationship with the Lord always takes precedence over the practicalities of day-to-day life (even though those things are important). Prioritize the relationship and let the practical stuff – like Sunday dinner – support our relationship with the Lord and with our loved ones. And I hope these meal prep tips will help you do just that!