I seem to apologize a lot for my sermons. Like today’s sermon, I feel this need to apologize because it just seems way to personal for me. But I guess that is the way of scripture; they speak to us, no matter where we are in life. Even the same passage of scripture can have new depth depending on what is happening in life.
So we have the gospel reading for today. Jesus and the disciples were out and quite busy. The disciples were in need of a rest so Jesus tells them to go out and get away. Take a break.
I am sure that taking a break sounded pretty good to the disciples, they had been working hard! But there was a problem; the hassles of the world would not leave them alone. As whey went away to take a break, the people continued to follow them. The people, with their needs, wants, and desires, would not leave Jesus and the disciples alone.
I don’t think that I am alone when I say that often I feel like the disciples. Often life just seems to be too much. There is always something that needs attention. There is always another fire to put out. We try to get away from it all, but, unfortunately, all of the problems just seem to keep following us!
The thing that we need to remember about this story from the gospel is that even thought the crowds were pressing in, Jesus still wanted the disciples to rest. He didn’t see the crowds and then decide to tell everyone to get back to work. No, when the crowds continued to press in, Jesus took care of the needs himself. He knew that rest was important to the disciples so Jesus himself continued to heal when the disciples went off to rest.
Granted, we need to pay attention to life, but we also need to remember that even if we weren’t around, the world would continue to spin. God uses us to carry his love into the world, but we are not alone in the work. We aren’t even the chief managers. God wants us to do what we can, surely, but God is not going to expect us to carry the weight of the world on our shoulders. We may feel like it is up to use to make sure that the crowds are cared for, but quite often, Jesus is telling us to rest.
As we can see in the gospel reading, the one who does carry the burden of healing those who come is the one who will later carry the weight of the sins of the world on his shoulders. We see that when the disciples are told to relax, Jesus continues to heal. Any good manager knows that wearing your workers to a frazzle is not a good thing. Jesus would know this too! Actually, God knew this to be true and that is why one of the Ten Commandments tells us to keep holy the Sabbath. The purpose of this commandment is to not only provide a time to worship and to thank God, but also to provide a time for rest. This is a time of renewal, a time to be restored, a time to regain our strength and health.
This time of renewal is a gift of a caring God! Far too often I think we look upon the Sabbath commandment as a burden and not as a joy. So many stipulations have been placed upon the Sabbath that is had become another form of work! It would be like saying you need to sleep but then saying that you had to go to bed at 10:30 pm, even if you were tired earlier or even if the movie wasn’t over until 11 pm. Sleep is good, but so is finishing your movie! We can see that if we place too many stipulations on even a good thing it can become a burden. Unfortunately, for many people, this is how keeping holy on the Sabbath has been interpreted. So many rules have been placed on it. We feel we cannot keep all the rules so we pitch the whole thing.
But keeping holy is about worship, rest AND knowing our place in the world. Resting keeps us happy and healthy, but it also lets us know that ultimately it is not our place to hold the problems of the world. We can only do so much and then the rest we must leave up to God. In the gospel, there was only so much the disciples could do, to ask them to do more would be to wear them out. So Jesus told them to “come away.” Even though there were people who still wanted to have their needs healed, Jesus told the disciples to rest.
I often feel that I can’t rest because things will not get done. And I am pretty sure I am not the only one who feels this way. Those of us who feel like the work of the world has been placed squarely on our shoulders need to pay special attention to this week’s scripture. We are called to head the commandment to rest just as the disciples were expected to rest. We need to do what we can, but then we need to back off and allow Jesus to continue with the crowds.
The crowds will always be there. The needs will always be present. We could wear ourselves to a frazzle. But wearing ourselves to a frazzle is not how we show our faith in Christ. Faith is being able to back away when we hear the call to rest, knowing that our Savior continues to work.
This is a hard thing for us to do, but then again, no one ever said that faith was going to be easy! But that is the way of God. We are called to go out and to work among the people, but we are also called to take time to rest and to restore. We are called to lead, but we are also called to follow. We are called to use our strength to work for the kingdom, but we are also called to take time to back off trusting that God will provide as is needed.
Sometimes I think it would be nice if the Bible just gave us hard and fast rules, but it doesn’t; life is not hard and fast and the Bible helps us to survive in the world. God would not insult us by giving us a schedule like having to go to bed at 10:30 pm every night. The Bible gives us tools for dealing with the world. We are told to give, and we are told to receive. We are told to be in community and we are told to be alone. We are told to be workers in the vineyard and we are told to be at rest. How we grow as Christians is in working through these situations and finding the fit that works for each of us. And that fit will be different for each of us. But part of our life is finding how we deal with these ebbs and these flows.
The one thing that we can be sure of is that whether we are working too much or resting too much or whatever, Jesus is there with us. We can trust that Christ will continue to work on into the night, even when we may be too tired to go on. Ain’t it great we have a God that loves us enough to send us to bed when we don’t have the sense to go there ourselves?
No comments:
Post a Comment