the one thing I need

Mondays I'm usually along at the lunchtime SU group at the local primary school. Today was no exception.

They're interesting, children! You never know quite just what to expect. Today they were high as kites. Maybe that explained the sort of answers they were giving.

We were playing a game at the start of the time where they had to choose whether something that I mentioned was a thing they'd need, a thing they'd want or a thing they couldn't really care a toss about.

Some interesting answers. Like, a large, expansive (and expensive) flat-screen TV is a thing they'd need.

While water is a thing they'd want but wouldn't need. On the basis, they said, that people in Africa didn't have water, so .. a shrug of the shoulders, presumably you can get by without it.

An interesting observation. I'm not sure how the same logic follows through with the flat-screen TV sets. But then, that's children for you!

The basic question, though, is one that's fairly challenged me these past few days. What do I really need?

I touched on it on Sunday night. How Jesus once spoke to a friend of his named Martha. Martha was basically stressed out. Domestic life can often be like that, I guess.

And Jesus simply told her as it was and said she was pretty much missing the point. One thing is needful, he said. The subtext being that being busy round the house like that was not the 'one thing needful'.

Martha's sister Mary had it right. She was merely sitting there with Jesus, simply listening as he spoke, enjoying his being there with them in their home.

That's what you need. Jesus could happily live with a cobbled together meal on plates that didn't match. It's the time with the people that mattered to him - not the standard of cuisine displayed or how the thing's presented.

A pig's breakfast would have suited him fine, as long as he'd time to be sitting and chatting with friends. (Except, of course, I realise, being a Jew himself, a pig's breakfast would not have been that 'kosher')

Sitting and listening to him.

I tried to do some of that today. The one thing needful.

This coming Sunday night I'm going to preach on sixteen chapters of the book of Deuteronomy. Seventeen, thinking about it (my maths is not that great!).

Chapters 12-28 of this remarkable book contain a whole long list of down-to-earth instructions for the Israelites: instructions on the nitty-gritty business of ... well, getting on with others in the land they're going to settle in together when they cross the river Jordan.

Life lived in community is complex and frustrating. We know that here. Most folk know it - either with their families, or in their place of work, or with their next door neighbours or the like.

Hence this comprehensive package of instructions Moses gives.

Anyway, that's my 'text' for Sunday night this week.

So I spent some time today just reading through these chapters in a 'one-er', then re-reading them, reflecting on the lessons they point up. Sort of sitting and listening to Jesus.

It didn't seem like a waste of time. Slowing down, listening in at length and then, I guess, 'digesting' what this whole large chunk of Scripture has to say to us today.

(Loads of it, of course, is pretty much related to a rather different culture from our own, so there's quite a bit of sifting to be done to figure out its lessons for ourselves).

The evening was sort of the same. Except this time joining with others. 'Mary and Martha together' sort of thing.

The five of us who met last week, we met again. Seated round a table, coffee and sweets and shortbread to hand. Six of us really, since Jesus himself is always around. Which is why we're really there.

The time seemed to fly. Listening and learning. And being there together with him.

The one thing we need.