Eighth Sunday after Pentecost

Proper 11 Year B

A sermon preached at Woodstock Reformed Church

July 17, 2021

Mark 6:30-34, 53-56

I tend to be attracted to the little transition passages which often precede or follow the main events of Jesus' life story in the Gospels. Passages such as: "But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed." (Luke 5:16) Or: "The next day as they were leaving Bethany, Jesus was hungry." (Mark 11:12) Or: "Jesus was sleeping." (Matthew 8:24) Or: “He looked around at them with anger; he was grieved at their hardness of heart” (Mark 3:5) Or "He didn't want anyone to know which house he was staying in." (Mark 7:24)

To me these easy to overlook passages are important because they remind me that Jesus, our Lord and Savior, was truly human. Jesus got hungry and sleepy and yes, angry, and had an inclination to hide. There were times when Jesus needed to withdraw. There were times when he desired to pray alone.  Does any of this take anything away from Jesus' divinity? NO! I believe it makes the mystery of the Incarnation the most loving gift to humanity- to know that we hunger and sleep and eat and grieve and withdraw and rest because God incarnate hungers and sleeps and eats and grieves and withdraws and rests.

In today’s Gospel lesson, we find one of those easy to overlook passages. The disciples return to Jesus after their first exciting and successful missionary journey during which they have cast out demons and cured the sick. They excitedly report to Jesus what they have accomplished. And Jesus responds by saying: “Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.” Or as Eugene Peterson's The Message translation puts it: “Let's take a break and get a little rest.” For, as the passage continues: “...many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat.” Jesus recognizes that the disciples need a break.  They're tired, overstimulated, underfed, and in need of solitude.

One of the most common themes about the problems of modern society is busyness. It is a delicate and complicated topic to talk about because it involves issues of social class. Consider, for instance, what’s a typical response when you ask someone how they’re doing? “Oh, I’m so busy!” or “I’m crazy busy!” or even, “I’m doing great- super busy, no time for anything!” I used to be one, and my response tended to be a way to inflate a sense of self-worth. “I’m just such a workaholic!” was my boast disguised as a complaint, as if I had the admirable problem of workaholism! It is not the complaint of a person who has to work three jobs to make ends meet. Their response is more likely to be, “I’m tired!” That has more do with being overworked than self-imposed busyness.

Whatever the case may be, we know that Jesus and his apostles were incredibly busy, too. The Gospel of Luke also tells us about Jesus and his apostles going through all the neighboring villages preaching and curing diseases. From the Gospels of both Luke and Mark we know that after a whole day of preaching in the synagogues, Jesus cures Simon Peter’s mother-in-law, to then come out of the house to what is described as the whole city bringing people sick with various diseases to him. Later on, Jesus is so exhausted, that he is sound asleep in a boat in the middle of a storm at sea.

It’s easy to imagine an efficient and full of purpose Jesus going from village to synagogue and from hilltop to seaside, healing and teaching and performing miracles. And consider all that Jesus has gone through in the entire sixth chapter of Mark’s Gospel. He has been rejected in his hometown. He sends the apostles on a mission. John the Baptist, his beloved cousin and prophet who baptized him and spent a lifetime in the wilderness preparing his way has been killed. He has walked on water and has fed five thousand. Jesus has plenty of reason to feel weary himself, not to mention heartbroken.

We know from the Gospels about Jesus’ pattern of busy ministry followed by solitude and rest. He would leave all the demands of his ministry behind to go to desolate places and pray. From the Transfiguration story, we know how he took time off with Peter, James, and John, leaving the anxious crowds behind to take Sabbath time up on the mountain. So, in today’s Gospel reading, we encounter a Jesus who perceives his disciples’ exhaustion, and responds adequately. We encounter a Jesus who recognizes the need for space, reflection, and solitude. We encounter a Jesus who wants to provide a time of rest and recuperation for his friends, and for himself.

Christian monasticism has a long tradition of speaking of “holy leisure.” Benedict’s Rule shapes a way of life that is regularly punctuated by the rhythms of the calendar year and of the liturgical and agricultural seasons, and of Sundays and Holy Days. It is a rich menu of activity and rest with the aim to live a balanced life in such a way that all needs, spiritual, psychological and social, are met.

At the monastery where I live, our Sabbath begins after Vespers (Evening Prayer) on Sunday, which on that day is at 4PM instead of 5PM, with the following prayer:

Gracious God, you have sanctified days of rest for all your people and have called us to bear witness before the world to the graciousness and wisdom of the Sabbath: be with us now as we lay aside our work; hallow our rest, our recreation and our leisure, and bring us again to our work refreshed and restored in body, mind, and spirit. We ask this in the name of Jesus, in whom we find our true rest and who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen

There is no meal service in the refectory on Sunday evenings, so brothers casually come into our enclosure’s kitchen to heat up leftovers for supper. Those of us who are a little younger may help the older brothers to get things out of the refrigerator and make their plates. There may be two or three brothers in the seating area having a glass of wine and conversation. It is a scene of relax fellowship and a celebration of the beginning of our Sabbath.

Mondays at the monastery are very quiet. There are no church services. Brothers may sleep late, read, watch a movie, go for a walk or a hike, have a picnic, do what we like to call “light shopping”. Whatever we do, we are strongly discouraged from doing any work or engaging in any form of ministry. Our Sabbath ends when the bell calls us to church for Matins on Tuesday, which on that day is at 9AM instead of 7AM. Our Sabbath closes with the following prayer:

God of all creation, we give you thanks for the gift of our Sabbath rest: Keep company with us as we take up our work again, and help us to know that even in the midst of busy lives, our hearts rest in you. We ask these things in the name of Jesus, who is himself our true Sabbath, and who abides with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen

In addition to our weekly Sabbath, Contemplative Days at Holy Cross Monastery are three or five days (depending on the time of the year) spent in silence with a reduced liturgical schedule and no work. It is a time for study, personal reflection, and rest- a form of extended Sabbath. Contemplative Days are scheduled approximately every two months. These disciplines of rest were not easy for me when I entered the monastery. In my former life I tended to forget to take breaks and tended to resist rest. When talking to my Superior at the time about my not knowing what to do with myself and finding it difficult to slow down or even do nothing, he was reassuring, saying it would get easier the more I practiced the discipline. He also told me that in order to work well, we must rest well.

The importance and benefits of rest, which is generally defined as any behavior aimed at increasing physical or mental well-being, have been well documented by health professionals. Rest can be active, such as going for walks, or passive, such as spending ten to twenty minutes in Centering Prayer or Meditation. Regardless of how we choose to rest, these behaviors help us recover and recharge from physical and mental effort. That’s why rest is linked to better physical and mental health, and it is indispensable to our soul because it allows us time to evaluate and rejoice in our work as God evaluated and rejoiced in God's work. Like prayer and other spiritual practices, rest changes us, so that we can then change the world by being the change we want to see in the world. Of course, the idea of rest is not new. We find it throughout the Scriptures from its earliest pages. In the Book of Genesis, God rested on the seventh day, and called the Sabbath holy.

So, in today’s Gospel lesson, Jesus is inviting his disciples (and us) to take a break- the kind of holy break that sanctifies a period of work well done. The kind of break of just being, that helps us catch our breath. BUT… what happens when our well laid out plans to take a break go awry? According to Mark, Jesus' retreat idea fails. The crowds anticipate his plan and beat them to their destination. By the time he and his disciples reach their destination, the crowds are waiting, and the quiet sanctuary Jesus seeks is not there. And Jesus doesn’t turn the boat around and sail away. Mark tells us that "he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd…”

On the one hand, Jesus was unapologetic about his need for rest and solitude or retreating when he and his disciples needed a break. On the other hand, he never allowed his need to take a break to take away his compassion. Balance remains the ideal but is not always available in the short-term. There are times we have to bend out of balance. Seek rest, yes. But like Jesus, may we always err on the side of compassion. ¡Que así sea, en el nombre del Padre, del Hijo y del Espíritu Santo! ~Amen+