A Precious Rest

As if this should be any surprise, but there has been something I’ve discovered as I’ve gotten into preaching, and it’s that I may be working out some of my own theological and ethical conviction out as I’m writing and preaching to you. The fear and trembling doesn’t stop, and occasionally, my hopeful second and third person sermons bleed back into first person, and I’m exposing myself. Like Thursday, which is when I started writing.

Familiar story: I’m awake at six. I’m loading dishes in the dishwasher, fixing coffee. I have to get that coffee in - I need to be awake for a sermon. I’ve been thinking about it, but getting time to sit down and do something is hard, right? I’m trying to get to know folks. I’m reading old newsletters. Talking about the church - doing my job, right? The kids are going to be awake soon. Gotta be ready for them. I gotta sermon to write. Lindsey’s up, too - she’s got to run errands that are not the type you want to take kids to - background checks, physicals, getting ready to start her job - so the kids are I are hanging out. Oatmeal, cereal, no not that cereal, that one - I’m frustrated you can’t read my mind, dad, but I don’t know how to express that so I’m crying. It’s fine, kiddos, I love you. I’ll figure it out. Caffeine in the system, and obviously grab one more cup for good measure. After breakfast let’s go outside and play and I’ll think about my sermon. I read a book to think more about what to preach - the kids want to play ball. Sure, let’s play. Time goes by. We have some quick lunch, then I’m doing some more writing, but I can’t think - I forgot about all the ants in the yard. I forgot about the ceiling that needs its new dry wall taped. And the soft spot on the bathroom floor by the shower. When’s the next committee meeting? Am I doing okay? Am I already falling behind? I should go work at the church. I should stop at Tim Horton’s and grab dinner - what’s under 600 calories? Nothing. Okay, something with vegetables. Chips are vegetables. Why is it taking so long? Why can’t they get my order right? Why is there a big truck on William Street at 4:10 when I’m on the road? Why does the car keep beeping and flashing at me to brake? I’m not that close to the person in front of me why is everyone so slow today don’t they know I have a sermon to finish? Okay. Here. Getting work done. But I’m not finished on Thursday. I’m taking my day off to finish a sermon. Am I resting? Probably not. Am I stopping? No. And I don’t tell this story to you because I want pity, but I’ve realized that I’m not a great exemplar of what unfolds in the Psalm and John.

And here’s the thing, y’all: I know I’m a mild case. My kids are only signed up for one thing each. I’m still trying to figure out other things to do - it’s summer time, so most stuff isn’t meeting. We’re still new here. Some of y’all though, I can only imagine your testimonies. You’re balancing multiple work schedules, volunteering, getting your kids to things, you show up here. And did you know that really, it’s the American way? We work more hours than folks in the other six largest economies.¹ We, on average, get only 8 days of vacation - not even two weeks of time off a year.² And when we’re not working, about 25% of us are volunteering regularly, and we gave 126 hours to volunteering a year.³ And nevermind sleep - less than half of us get a 7-9 hours of sleep a night.⁴ And it’s not just adults: 73% of our kids are in sports. 60% in youth group. Half of our kids have jobs.⁵

Land of the free, home of the calendared. You might be like me and hear these statistics and start to panic a little. I don’t typically feel the weight of my schedule when I’m right in the middle of it. I just do. I’m guided by some unknown combination of commitment and ethics and honestly, fear of being perceived as untrustworthy and being embarrassed, and I moved by those invisible forces to not-too-early, not-too-late places and events one after another until I’m finally in bed just long enough to not collapse in exhaustion the next day of being led by my calendar that, coincidentally, I set up. I’m controlled by things I can control.

I wonder if that’s why we like Psalm 23 so much. We hear that we will be walked through the valley of the shadow of death and we will fear no evil, sure. But what I would give for someone to tell me to go lie down.⁶ I’m doing good things - you’re doing good things, sure - but, being made to dwell in pastures, refresh by waters. The Psalmist is literally describing the land around us - or maybe the land around us just as Spring blossoms in its fullness. The word we know as pastures is a word describing the first shoots coming up from the ground: Can you feel the soft grass brushing against your skin as the breeze quietly moves across the hillside, mottling the sun through the trees that we repose nearby? Do you smell the fresh clover? Hear the quiet stream babbling past you - it’s waters cool, crisp, life-giving and quenching. You have stopped for a moment. You are resting. The shepherd made you. Eventually, you may have to leave, traverse through dark places - so dark it is as though death is upon you - but the shepherd who made you stop is still guiding you.

Stop. Linger. Rest. Don’t move. Let’s try it for a moment. Linger.

Was that odd? I’m mean, sure, having a moment of silence in the middle of a sermon might be unusual, but I’m talking more about what happened in you. Did you have a chance to think of some soft, rolling place? Maybe not. Maybe you starting coming and going in the silence - no leisure: we’re on to the next thing before we’ve even finished the last. We gotta get to where we gotta go! A quiet, serene place is not our usual landscape, so it’s a bit harder to imagine. Our world looks like Mark’s world: he doesn’t tell us which “many were coming and going,” so I think it’s fair to imagine it’s just the hustle of getting to the good things done on the calendar. I won’t even ask how many of you have been so busy that you didn’t have time to eat… but you probably relate. 

Jesus saw that with his disciples. Remember a couple weeks ago? He sent them out two by two, and told them to stay if they’re invited, but if they’re not invited, they should shake off the dust from their sandals and take nothing. They were supposed to heal. As far as we can tell in Mark, this is the first time they’ve done this on their own - and they were given “authority over the unclean spirits.”⁷ They did it, and Mark tells us “they cast out many demons, and anointed with oil many who were sick and cured them.”⁸ Good, powerful actions. And you imagine that the disciples came back to Jesus and told them what happened: James and John healed someone of their leprocy. Simon Peter cast out a couple demons. Some folks loved having them there! Thomas, always the doubter, tells about the few times he had to shake his sandals off. 

Jesus listens intently, like a parent hearing children tell the story of their day. And then he commands them to go away and rest, not a suggestion to take a break, not a Dr. Oz tidbit, not a chance to get buried into phones or video games or hobbies, but instead the call of a shepherd to go rest.⁹ But this time, the image that we get is a desert space. 

I think we might be tempted to think of the desert and the pastures to be different, but this is one of the moments our translations may fail us. This word used to describe the desert place¹⁰ is the same place where Jesus went after being baptized. It is where he would withdraw to pray before ministering again - a divine inhalation before his healing exhalation. A place of meditation, of consideration, of deeply reflecting, prayer and wonder. It is at the same time both a place of testing but also of sustenance. A uncontrolled environment that does not abide by the controllable boxes of time delineated on our calendars, nor inundated by the distractions of all the things we do - good, bad, or indifferent. 

It is the place where we are no longer enslaved by the tyranny of the urgent, but instead give ourselves to the rhythm and direction of the Shepherd. In Mark as the disciples move to rest, people see them and meet them. Jesus has not just compassion for them, but a gut-wrenching feeling to care for them. He saw them in the movement and saw them wandering, sheep without a shepherd, held by the nose and drug along by any variety of things, and he taught them. He healed them. He shepherded them. In the wilderness, the uncontrolled pastures, we witness where Jesus’ deep compassion is, and we witness the power of Jesus Christ. 

I think of my day on Thursday. Did I miss a chance to meet Jesus in the tears of my children, or in their play? In loving and supporting Lindsey in the midst of the hurried moments of her life? Was I so concerned about my schedule and getting the things I need done - even the good things - that I didn’t consider the lives of the workers at Tim Hortons, the truck drivers, and the realities of their lives in an economic system that provides the least rest to the ones who labor most? Did I brush off one of you? Did I brush off a moment to sit in green pastures with you, wander in wilderness together? Did I miss my chance to ride the boat to Gennesaret? To meet others who Jesus desires to shepherd?

Like I said, this sermon might be as much for me as it is for anyone else. But truly, I think I’m just one of many that might only have to play the fill-in-the-blank Mad Lib version on any given Thursday afternoon in north-central Ohio. What do we lose in our own urgency and our own control? What can we gain by trusting the shepherd in our journeys?

As we walk forward as a congregation, there are going to be moments when we together must walk through dark valleys, through the pleasant places, and times when we must retreat to our wilderness. That we must discern over and over again where God has called us, and not allow ourselves to stay one place longer than we should, longer than what the Shepherd beckons us to do. At times, it will mean for us to take a moment away from the good healing work that we have done and to rest. At other times it will mean to walk into pitch black valleys with shepherds who have helped us rest well. And, at times, it means we come out of our rest with a deep and passionate compassion for those of us coming and going, not eating or relaxing, untaught and unhealed - those of us who live like sheep with no shepherd, where our checkboxes may be full, but our spirits empty. Those folks are you. Those folks are me. They’re on the south side of Delaware, eastern Richwood, northern Waldo. They’re here now, they’re too scared to come here. But they need to know there is a place to rest and be restored.

Thanks be to a God who guides us, shepherds us, and brings us to who needs to hear that they do not have to wander this world alone. Amen.

1. https://data.oecd.org/emp/hours-worked.htm ↩︎
2. https://www.bls.gov/ncs/ebs/benefits/2017/ownership/civilian/table33a.htm ↩︎
3. https://www.nationalservice.gov/vcla/national ↩︎
4. https://news.gallup.com/poll/166553/less-recommended-amount-sleep.aspx ↩︎
5. http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2015/12/17/5-childrens-extracurricular-activities/ ↩︎
6. The word here (יַרְבִּיצֵנִי ) is literally, “he causes me to lie down” ↩︎
7. Mark 6:7b ↩︎
8. Mark 6:13 ↩︎
9. There’s two words here that I think raise the emphasis that this isn’t a suggestion, but a command. δεῦτε (come!) tends to be used in an exclamatory way, and ἀναπαύεσθε is an imperative. ↩︎
10. ἔρημος ↩︎