One thing

 

From The Rectory

 

I wonder if you sometimes feel there’s just too much to do? And the to do list never seems to get any shorter – more things get added as quickly as you can cross things off. Perhaps you feel you have too much on your mind? You’re running from one thing to the next, pulled in multiple competing directions.

 

I have been reading a business book by Greg McKeown, Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less (Virgin Books / Ebury Publishing / Penguin Random House, 2014). McKeown describes two experiences that caused him to rethink how he was living. As a young man, he sat down with a blank sheet of paper and brainstormed for twenty minutes about what he might like to do with his life. He had filled the paper. But he noticed that nowhere did it say “Go to Law School.” Which he says was awkward, as he was currently pursing legal studies.

 

Second, he tells of an email which he received from his boss while his wife was pregnant. It said, “1-2pm on Friday would be really bad time to have this baby.” He sort of assumed it was a joke. But sure enough the baby was born on Friday. After being with his wife in the hospital, McKeown headed off to the supposedly crucial client meeting. His boss claimed the client admired him for being there at such a time, but McKeown wasn’t sure he did. And in fact nothing ever came of the meeting, even though McKeown had managed to upset his wife by going to it. McKeown concluded he’d got his priorities wrong. What seemed essential, really wasn’t.

 

In fact, McKeown points out that for 500 years the English word “priority” was only ever used in the singular. It meant the prior, the first, thing. But since 1900 we can speak of “priorities”. He describes working for a company which listed its ten top priorities. Of course, if we are trying to focus on ten first things, it is very hard to do any of them really well.

 

We would each do well, perhaps, to pause and ask what few things really matter to us the most.

 

Jesus was asked which was the most important commandment. He said it is to “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.”. And the second most important commandment was like the first: to “love your neighbour as yourself.” (Mark 12:30-31)

 

But if we wanted to get it down to just one thing, Jesus in fact once said that only one thing was needful. It’s in a story about Martha and Mary, sisters who seem to have been very different characters. Jesus and his disciples were coming to their house. Martha was conscious there was so much to do! She was busy and distracted, anxious about many things, serving, working hard, getting things ready. While her sister bustled about, Mary sat at Jesus’ feet listening to him, in the classic position of a disciple (a learner or apprentice) attending to a Master-Teacher (a Rabbi). Jesus says only a “few things are needed—or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.” (Luke 10:38-42)

 

Whatever else we do, the one great essential thing is to take the time and space we need to listen to Jesus, to receive his words and to put them into practice. I don’t want to give you another thing for your already lengthy to do list, but loving Jesus and living as his disciple in friendship with him really is the most important thing which would transform everything else. Taking some time consciously most days, as it were, to sit at Jesus’ feet and learn from him, to pray and read the Bible would be transformative. We may even find that a bit of peace and quiet, with casting our anxieties on to Jesus, knowing that he cares for us, might make us rather less stressed (see 1 Peter 5:6-7). We might see our way to crossing a few things off the to do list. And to facing our responsibilities knowing that Jesus only wants us to do what we can, not what we can’t. Let’s pray that we might not neglect the one essential needful thing for the sake of so many other good things (some of which we no doubt ought to do!).    

The Revd Marc Lloyd