So today the message is on letting go of busyness, which is kind of ironic since there's so many people away because they're busy doing something else today. So I thought that was kind of funny. So busy as a bee, and I was gonna ask Caleb and Jordan if they were here, have they ever even heard that expression? Is it— because it's— I don't think it's used very much anymore, but the saying is Busy as a bee. Is it?
You would say that it's still around? Yeah? You use it? Okay. Busy as a bee's been around for a very long time, almost 700 years, in fact.
It started in the 14th century, and it was first recorded in the Squire's Tale from the Canterbury Tales, which was written between 1386 and 1400. So it refers to someone who is exceptionally hardworking, highly productive, comparing them to the industrious female worker bees. I checked my information from the expert this week, so I hope I have this right. But, so the female worker bees are the ones who have the tireless work ethic. They spend their lives foraging, pollinating, and maintaining the hive.
And it was something one said to someone as something of a compliment. Right? You were acknowledging their work ethic, that they didn't slack off, that they were always hard at it doing something productive. But I'm not sure that it's used as much anymore. Maybe we still do when we're talking to a child, usually when they're being super active, and we'll say, "Oh, they're just always busy as a bee." But for the most part, life these days uses a vocabulary that has shifted.
To reflect a more fast-paced reality. So do any of these ring a bell in your vocabulary today? I'm swamped. I'm slammed. I've got a lot on my plate.
I'm tied up. I'm buried in work. My schedule is packed. I'm constantly on the go.
Any of those ringing a bell with anyone? These phrases carry a sense of urgency, but they often reveal something else too—not necessarily productivity, but the feeling of being overwhelmed by everything that is competing for our attention. So as we continue on in our series, "Letting Go This Lent," today we're going to discuss letting go of busyness. Now, a friend of mine and I have been attempting to find time to have a phone chat to catch up on our lives. We've been attempting this feat for over 3 months now.
Between our two schedules, we have yet to manage it. They also happen to be a pastor, and it's been crazy even trying to find time to have a phone conversation of any length. Mostly we send text prayer requests to each other and sign off with, "Talk to you soon." We're just not sure when soon might be. Simple— such a simple thing should not be as challenging as it has turned out to be. But all around us, busyness has become normalised.
It's used as a great excuse for everything from not serving in the church to not having time to invest in personal relationships to not being able to sleep sleep because the to-do list in our heads keeps us awake at night. In fact, busyness is actually worshipped in our culture. And despite the fact that we as followers of Christ know that time and presence with God is of utmost importance to our faith journey, we can still be guilty of falling into the busyness pit and finding it next to impossible to get back out of it. A pit where spending time with God becomes something that we try to fit into our schedules instead of investing in that time first and foremost. And the worst part is that we can allow busyness to consume us without really seeing it, because not all of our busyness is spent outside of the church.
We can in fact get so busy doing for Jesus that we stop spending time with him. We stop just being with him. We get on the ministry hamster wheel and we get so focused on running that we forget what and who we are running for, and we take our eyes off of who we are supposed to be running to. But it's not just serving the church that pulls us, it's also other aspects of our lives— our work, our families, even our leisure time. Busy has come to have positive connotations to it.
And we tend to equate the word with being productive. In fact, the thesaurus gives working, engaged, employed, having a full plate, having many irons in the fire, occupied, engrossed as some of the synonyms for busy. And they all sound positive, don't they? They also sound exhausting. And if those ones don't make you feel tired listening to them, then here are some other options according to thesaurus.
Saurus to mean busy: buried, overloaded, slaving, snowed, swamped. Do any of those describe your average week? So when I ask people how they're doing, and in this example I mean fellow Christians, the responses I get are usually about what's going on at work, what's happening that's overwhelming them there, Or they talk about events, um, that are happening at their kids' schools that they are helping with, or they talk about being stressed with serving in a ministry or feeling bad because they don't have time to serve. That life never seems to slow down, that they feel as though they have stepped onto a hamster wheel which keeps them constantly running and they can never get off. Interestingly enough, I rarely hear if ever, and this includes pastors that I talk to, do I hear a response to my inquiry as to how someone is doing that tells me of an amazing encounter they had with God that week, or about how they are digging deeper into their spiritual lives.
I don't often hear about them taking time to be quiet and still with God, or even that they are taking more time to rest. So when you talk with people, with friends that attend other churches, What do you usually find yourself sharing? Do you talk about how you're growing in your faith, or do you tend to default to talking about what's happening at the church? Now, sharing about events and activities isn't wrong, and of course it depends on the relationship that you have with the person that you're speaking to. But even with a newer acquaintance, wouldn't a conversation about how God is shaping your faith be more meaningful than simply listing the things happening on the church calendar?
Now I realise that everything that we are doing here is so exciting, it's hard not to talk about it. I get that. But hopefully the most exciting thing about being part of a church community is how it is helping each of us to draw closer to God. And yet, talking about what we're doing often feels easier than talking about what God is doing in us. But I don't think convenience is the only reason that we default to those conversations.
Sometimes, maybe even without realising it, we worry that others may not think we're doing enough, that we aren't serving enough, we're not involved enough if we aren't talking about the things that we're busy doing in the life of the church. Yet Jesus, who gifts us and equips us and calls us to ministry, does not want us to live like this. Now, I've always loved Pioneer Village. I haven't been there since I was a kid, but I used to love that place, mainly because I think I always loved the TV show Little House on the Prairie. And as a kid, my desire to live in the days before cars and processed foods and technology had more to do with the family life that was depicted on the screen But when I think about how they lived day in and day out back then, I wonder if despite the fact that life was so much more labor-intensive in those days, does it not seem as though we have now become much busier, having less to do for our daily survival?
Unfortunately, the busyness has become normal in our lives, and it has the ability to slowly take away our appreciation for what is truly important. Vital, in fact, to our health mentally, physically, and spiritually. When our lives become filled with constant activity, we lose the space where we can be refreshed by encountering God. Busyness crowds out the quiet where we can hear God's voice and experience his presence. And I sometimes wonder if that's exactly why we bury ourselves in busyness.
Because if we're honest, slowing down often means facing the places where the Holy Spirit is nudging us. The work the Spirit does in us can be hard, and sometimes it's even painful. And our human instinct is to avoid pain whenever we can. So we fill our schedules, we keep on moving, we keep on doing, and busyness becomes a convenient way to avoid the deeper work that God may want to do in our hearts. In that sense, busyness has become one more way that we self-medicate.
And maybe some of us simply struggle to say no. Maybe we genuinely want to help. Maybe we want to feel useful or needed. Most of the time, the reasons that we fall into the busyness trap are rooted in good intentions. But regardless of the intentions, the result can still be the same.
A direct path to spiritual drought and burnout. And this is exactly where our text takes us today. So I'm reading from Luke chapter 10, verses 38 to 42.
As Jesus and his disciples were travelling from village to village teaching, he came to a place where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. Her sister Mary sat at the Lord's feet listening to what he said. But Martha was busy with all the preparations that needed to be made. Finally, she came to Jesus and said, "Lord, don't you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!" Jesus responds gently but clearly, "Martha, Martha, you are worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed.
Indeed, only one. Mary has chosen what is better." and it will not be taken away from her.
So this account in the Gospel of Luke takes place earlier in Jesus' ministry than the storey that we looked at last week that was in John 11, where Martha meets Jesus on the road after the death of her brother Lazarus. Here Jesus and his disciples are still travelling and teaching throughout the region, and Jesus stops in a village that is later identified as Bethany, and Martha welcomes him into her home. So although Luke does not explicitly say so, the scene suggests that this family already knew Jesus. Inviting a travelling rabbi and his disciples into your home in the first century was not something people usually did for a complete stranger. Mary's posture also tells us something.
She is sitting at Jesus' feet listening to him teach. In Jewish tradition, sitting at the feet of a teacher was the posture of a disciple. So Mary is not simply visiting with Jesus, she's learning from him. Meanwhile, Martha's doing something important too. She is hosting, she is preparing food, she's caring for guests.
In other words, she's doing good things, necessary things, faithful things, and yet she's overwhelmed. So the contrast between Martha's anxious busyness and Mary's choice to sit with Jesus and listen is a perfect illustration of the tension in our own lives. How we are consumed by busyness but in reality crave with our souls to sit at the feet of Christ, to spend time with him, to hear from him, to lean in closer, to be able to feel his presence, to touch him, to take in his scent, to be that close.
But there are 3 truths about letting go of busyness that we're going to look at. And the first one, as I mentioned, is that busyness often comes from good things. Martha is not criticised for doing something wrong. She's doing something good. Hospitality was an important cultural responsibility, and welcoming Jesus into her home was an act of devotion.
But Luke tells us that she was distracted by all the preparations. Her problem was not service. Her problem was being pulled in too many directions at once. And this is how busyness works in our lives as well. It rarely begins with something obviously wrong.
Instead, it grows out of things like responsibilities, ministry commitments, family needs, work demands. Each of these things can be good things, but when they multiply without any space for God, they begin to crowd out the very relationship that they are meant to serve. So busyness doesn't always come from bad choices, often it comes from good ones. But then busyness reveals itself through anxiety. When Martha finally speaks to Jesus, we can hear the strain in her words: "Lord, don't you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself?" She's overwhelmed.
The pressure she feels spills out in frustration, and even now her sister becomes part of the problem in her eyes. But Jesus responds tenderly, Martha, Martha, you are worried and upset about many things.
Notice the connection: busyness leads to worry. When we try to carry too much, our hearts become restless. We begin to feel responsible for everything. We begin to believe that everything depends on us. And sometimes that busyness becomes a way of avoiding what God might want to be doing within us.
So instead of sitting with God and allowing him to shape us, we stay busy doing things for him.
Being with Jesus is the better part, though. As Mary is sitting at Jesus' feet listening, she is doing what disciples do, learning from their teacher. And Jesus says, "Mary has chosen the better part, and it will not be taken away from her." Notice that he doesn't say that Martha's service is worthless. The issue is priorities. Mary recognises that this moment with Jesus matters most.
So Lent invites us to ask some honest questions: What fills my time but also empties my soul? What keeps me busy but also distant from God? So letting go of busyness is not about doing less for the sake of doing less. It's about creating space to be with Christ, because love grows where attention is given. And the Apostle Paul understood this as well.
In his letters to the churches, one theme appears again and again. His deepest desire is that believers would know God more and more. In Ephesians, he prays that believers would receive the spirit of wisdom and revelation so that you may know him better. In Colossians, he says that as we live lives that honour God, we will continue growing as you learn to know God better and better. And in Philippians, Paul goes even further.
He writes, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. Knowing Christ is more valuable than anything else. Jesus is more interested in who we are becoming than in how busy that we are. He came to free people from the exhausting work-based system that had grown around the law. Yet how quickly we slip back into measuring our faith by what we do.
So let me offer a small challenge this morning. The next time someone in the church asks you how you're doing, try answering in a way that reflects your real priority. Instead of talking first about everything that you've been doing, talk about how you have been being with Christ. What has God been teaching you? Where have you sensed his presence this week?
How have you seen him moving in your life? It is by being close to God, by intentionally spending time in his presence, by sensing him at work in us and through through us, by allowing him to mould us and refine us and chisel away all the things that do not belong. That's when we become more of who he created us to be, and that is the place that we are meant to serve from. But that raises an important question: how do we live with the tension that exists between being with God and serving him? As the church, how do we balance the call to serve with the need to stay rooted in God's presence so that we don't end up on the hamster wheel of constant activity that eventually burns us out?
How can we serve God's mission if we are also called to spend time simply being with him? That's a really good question. Thank you. And honestly, I'm not actually sure that I have an answer that really figures it all out. But one thing I do know is that burnout often happens when a small number of people carry most of the work.
You may have heard the saying that in many churches, 20% of the people do 80% of the work. But I would suggest that those numbers are off in most churches. It's more like 10% of the people do 90% of the work. And those numbers don't tell a storey of a healthy or balanced spiritual life. At the same time, one of the most common responses when help is requested is, I'm so sorry, but I'm really busy.
I have a lot on the go, or I'm feeling overwhelmed with work. And I want to be clear, I am not minimising those feelings. Life really is busy for many of us. But the reality is that we tend to make time for the things that matter most to us. When something is truly important, we often let go of other things in order to make space for it.
And sometimes, if we're honest, serving God can slowly slip down on our list of priorities. And I understand busy. I really do. I put myself through school working 3 jobs, 6 kids on my own. I get it.
I get busy. Not a place that you want to go. But imagine how different things would be if every person in the church simply did one thing to serve. Just one. If everyone shared a small part of the work, the load would be spread out and no one person would feel like they had to carry everything.
There's a church I once went to for a leadership conference, and they live out this idea in a really intentional way. They have a saying that, "We count people because people count." Sounds weird, right? But what they mean is, is that when someone begins attending church regularly, and by regularly I mean once you've been there 3 times, you are then connected into a small group where they are then invited to choose a way to serve. In that community, serving isn't treated as optional, it's simply understood to be part of belonging to that church. Now, your first reaction might be, well, if that was me, I'm not Gotta stay at a church like that.
But interestingly enough, that church is actually one of the fastest-growing churches in its area. It's a city church in Moncton, New Brunswick, and it has developed some remarkable ministries. They run a daycare, they have an active ministry for seniors, a large youth group that focuses on serving the community, and as a congregation, they sponsor more than 100 children through Compassion Canada. Now, I am not suggesting that they are a healthy church simply because of everything they do. But the reason that they are able to do so much is because the work of ministry is shared by the whole church.
Everyone contributes something, and because the load is shared, it actually allows the church to create space for people not only to serve but also to spend meaningful time with God, to live out a balanced life of faith and in service. And something else happens when people serve together. Community deepens. Serving often brings people into teams where they feel part of something bigger than themselves, something that blesses others. And in those shared experiences, friendships grow and relationships deepen.
So, when we say, "I'm too busy right now," we sometimes assume that others must be less busy than we are. And it can quietly turn into a bit of a competition of who feels more overwhelmed. That is not the competition we want to be in. Because the truth is, most of us are very busy in different ways, and yet we all want the church to continue to function. We want a place where we can gather for worship, to learn, to grow in our faith, and to deepen our love for God.
And sometimes there's people that will think, well, if this church can't keep going, I'll just go somewhere else. But the reality is that the same challenge exists everywhere— big churches, small churches. Every church wrestles with the same issue: not enough people sharing in the work of ministry. So serving in the church was never meant to be carried by a few exhausted people. It was meant to be shared, the shared calling of the body of Christ.
And when we serve out of a life that is rooted in God's presence and not out of guilt or pressure but out of love and gratitude, service stops feeling like a burden and instead becomes a natural expression of our faith lived out together. So when we live that way, our conversations begin to change. Instead of only talking about everything that we have been doing, we begin sharing more about what God has been doing in us, how he is shaping us, teaching us, and drawing us closer to himself. Those kinds of conversations strengthen our faith and encourage one another. Because believe it or not, this message is not an attempt to try and get you to do more.
Absolutely not. Rather, it is intended to help each one of us think how we can help and encourage one another to spend more time with just being with God, because that should be the priority for each one of us. And personally, I would much rather hear less about our doings and more about our beings, because when we learn to let go— letting go of fear, letting go of the need to control the outcome, and even letting go of busyness that fills our lives— We begin to rediscover what Mary discovered as she sat at Jesus' feet. That's the one thing our souls need most, and that is to simply be with him. Let's pray.
God, you are our God, and you are a God of all things beautiful and and good. And we love you. And God, oh, how we need you. We know how easily our lives become full, full of schedules and responsibilities and expectations and the constant pull to do more. But in the midst of all that busyness, we sometimes lose sight of what matters most.
We rush ahead without pausing to listen. We fill our days so completely that there is little room left to simply be with you.
Forgive us, Lord, for the times when our doing has crowded out our just being with you. God, we thank you for the invitation that we hear from you today, the invitation to slow down, to let go of the things that weigh us down, and to remember that our worth is not found in how much we accomplish. But in being your beloved children.
Help us, God, to make space for you, to release the pressure that we carry and the unhealthy need we may be carrying to always be busy. Give us wisdom to recognise what truly matters, courage to let go of what does not, and confidence to rest in your presence. Help us to become a community that encourages one another to sit at your feet, to listen for your voice, and to walk faithfully in the ways that you lead. We pray this in the name of Jesus, who invites us to come and find rest in him. Amen.
