Fields United Methodist Church

Side by Side with Jesus.                                               Pastor Tom Joyce

January 6, 2021

“Martha, Martha, you are distracted by man things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.”

Luke 10:41-42

The story of Mary and Martha is a tale of 2 sisters; Martha, who never stopped working and Mary, who when Jesus visited their home, sat at the feet of Jesus and listened to what he had to say.  We live in a world that seems to be moving faster and faster and we seem busier and busier, even though the pandemic has slowed things down just a bit. We often take pride when someone asks how we are doing to respond, “really busy!!” We want to be busy and want people to know we are busy, but at what expense? For Martha, her busyness kept her away from the most important part of life; her faith.  Living a life of faith is all about priorities and using the time God has given to the best of our ability for the glory of God. For Jesus, the most important thing was his relationship with God and a close second was his relationship with all people. When we become so focused on what we are doing and what in our minds need to be done, we lose out on the “better part” of life. We may only have one opportunity to help someone, only one opportunity to witness our faith to someone who needs Jesus at a very critical time in their life. Jesus dropped everything to offer grace to people, always had time to offer the hand of grace and love to somebody. So what if instead of affirming how busy we are we actually took a moment to stop our busyness and took time to celebrate someone else, or to help someone who needed your help at that very moment. What is amazing about faith is that no matter how much time we spend serving the needs of others, those other things that we leave undone for that time seem to always get done. Take time to witness your faith; take time to slow down enough from all the stuff you are doing to witness the greatest gift you could give to someone else; your time and your faith.  You will be an amazing blessing to another even as you have blessed.

Rev. Tom Joyce