So much more to life than just physical survival, says retired Sheffield minister

We had a big sack of garden rubbish and several odds and ends from a kitchen clear-out that needed taking to the recycling centre.

Such a trip couldn't really be described as essential, but on the other hand, it would all be outdoors.

Could it qualify as necessary exercise?

A search online assured me the recycling centre was open for business.

However, once the rubbish had gone, I began to wonder if I'd done the right thing.

I celebrated my 70th birthday a couple of months ago.

It may have been strictly within the law, but was the trip that important for someone of my age?

It got me thinking.

What makes something ‘essential’?

Some things are essential for survival: food, shelter and medical attention when we are ill, for example.

But by any reckoning, there's more to life than physical survival.

To thrive, we need more than merely to exist.

Human companionship, for example.

In the Gospels, Jesus told his friend Martha that just one thing was needed.

Her sister Mary had chosen to listen to what he had to say, rather than help with getting a meal ready.

“She has chosen the right thing," Jesus said.

Jesus was not saying that food was unimportant, but that if people are to have a good and full life, there are deeper needs to be met.

He claimed to be the answer.

“I have come”, he said, “in order that you might have life – life in all its fullness”.

There are different ways of thinking about what is essential.

Getting rid of garden rubbish comes pretty low on the list of priorities.

We have physical needs that are essential for survival, but for life in its fullest sense, we need more.

In Jesus, we find the essence of what it means to be truly and fully human.

The Reverend Peter Shepherd is a retired minister at Cemetery Road Baptist Church, Napier Street, Sharrow.