Ministry
This week at Chapel, some of our secondary students were confused as they entered to us playing Surface Pressure from this year’s Disney movie Encanto.
You may have heard it – or heard your child singing it…
“Pressure, like a drip, drip, drip that'll never stop, whoa Pressure that'll tip, tip, tip 'til you just go pop, whoa, oh, oh Give it to your sister, your sister's older Give her all the heavy things we can't shoulder Who am I if I can't run with the ball?”
My first exposure to this song was through social media, with a number of my Mum friends saying that it felt like an anthem for modern parenting – with the juggle of such things as kids, work, and activities; plus, the pressure of social media encouraging us to have Instagram worthy lives, wardrobes and homes. Of course this isn’t unique to parents - such pressure can also be felt by our kids, and has been felt in different ways across time.
To help us reflect upon this in Chapel, we turned to an ancient story of two other sisters, Mary and Martha, one of whom was feeling the pressure. You can read it in Luke Chapter 10. Jesus comes to Martha’s house and, understandably, she busies herself with all the preparations required.
Her sister Mary, meanwhile, sits at the feet of Jesus and listens to his teaching. This frustrates Martha, who asks Jesus to get Mary to help her. Instead Jesus tells the pressured Martha, that her sister has chosen what is better.
This isn’t a story about shirking our responsibilities, but it is a story about priorities. Prioritising time to stop in the midst of pressure, can itself be like a release valve. Yet Jesus offers something even more – a relationship and identity based not on what we do, but on who we are; and the invitation to “come to me all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). This invitation is still made for us today.
If you would ever like to speak more about this, or any other aspect of the faith life of the College, feel free to contact Chaplain Fiona or Pastor Eugene.