July 19, 2015: May God’s words alone be spoken, may God’s words alone be heard. Amen.

“Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.”

I think these are perhaps some of the sweetest sounding words our Lord and Savior may ever have said. “Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.”

How many of us wish we could hear this said to us? And, then we must ask ourselves…how would we respond? How would we respond? See, the funny thing is, most of us feel that need, but likely most of us would say – “Well, I would, but I just can’t right now – there’s too much to do.” Maybe some of you are already saying it. Maybe some of you are laughing at the prospect that the invitation would happen in the first place. And sometimes, even if we accept the invitation, we find a way for it to mean more work. How many of you have had the experience of needing a vacation from the planning for the vacation, not to mention, the needing a vacation from what waits for you when you return from vacation? Sound familiar?

I was fortunate enough to be invited to participate in a two year program of CREDO consisting of two 8 day conferences in late September this year and next. CREDO conferences are offered by the Church Pension Group to clergy by invitation only, and then approval by your bishop. These are sought after opportunities, so I was so excited to be invited. According to the CREDO website, “When you attend a CREDO Conference, you’ll have the time and luxury of focusing on yourself for a few precious days, so that you’ll be better equipped to serve those back home—to be “fit” for ministry.” That sounds great, right! And, according to others who have gone, it is great…but then comes all the pre-work: Financial reports, health reports, personal reflection responses…all due before you get there, and all in addition to what we are already doing as pastors. Great. Even the church is having us work hard to rest. But, at least rest is the goal.

Imagine rest being a goal – not a luxury – but an actual goal. Part of what is expected of us. What we need to do.

There is a Greek legend that says that in ancient Athens a man noticed the great storyteller Aesop playing childish games with others in a field. He laughed and jeered at Aesop, asking him why he wasted his time in such frivolous activity. Aesop responded by picking up a bow, loosening its string, and placing it on the ground. Then he said to the critical Athenian, “Now, answer the riddle, if you can. Tell us what the unstrung bows implies.” The man looked at it for several moments but had no idea what point Aesop was trying to make. Aesop explained, “If you keep a bow always bent, it will break eventually; but if you let it go slack, it will be more fit for use when you want it.”

People are also like that. That’s why we all need to take time to rest. In today’s Scripture, Jesus prescribed time off for His wearied disciples after they had returned from a prolonged period of ministry – their work in the world. It helps to remember that the concept of Sabbath rest to the people of the Ancient Near East was different than for us. Many were slaves or worked slave hours. Life was not easy, to be sure. The idea that there would be a prescribed day of rest was for both humans and work animals alike, something so very precious. Maybe not so different afterall?

There was an article in the Boston Globe back in 2012, in which a research team describes the results of “observing the typical week of thirty-two middle class families in the Los Angeles area. The idea was to take a detailed snapshot of American family life early in the 21st century. The results, according to one researcher, were “disheartening.” So consumed with working, collecting, amassing, and generally “getting ahead,” they actually spent very little time together enjoying what they were working for. As reported by the Globe, Jeanne E. Arnold, lead author and a professor of anthropology at UCLA, shared her particular dismay at how little time family members spent outside: “Something like 50 of the 64 parents in our study never stepped outside in the course of about a week,” she said. “When they gave us tours of their house they’d say, ‘Here’s the backyard, I don’t have time to go there.’ They were working a lot at home. Leisure time was spent in front of the TV or at the computer.”

So, who are the slaves now?

It would seem that we are not too much different from those weary people in the time of Jesus, “…except our slavery is self-constructed, self-imposed, and therefore far more difficult to detect and in some ways, to overcome. We are enslaved to notions of success, and therefore put few limits on work. We are enslaved to ideas about our children having every opportunity possible, and therefore schedule them into frenetic lives and wonder why they have a hard time focusing. We are enslaved to the belief that the only thing that will bring contentment is more — more money, more space in our homes, more cars, more things to put on our resumes or in our closets, more….”[1]

“Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.”

Oh what a sweet sound that is, isn’t it?

‘There is a story that Hebrew families tell their children to help them understand the fourth commandment. It is the story of King Ruben, and it goes something like this:

King Ruben was always asking questions. “Where is the hottest place on earth?” (ummm…right here – today?) “Where is the place that the snow falls deepest?” (well, come to New Jersey at winter – any winter – seriously) One day he asked his advisors, “What is the sweetest melody of all?” His advisors rubbed their chins and searched their books of wisdom, but they could not find the answer. “Why not have a contest to find the sweetest melody?” they suggested. So the king called all the musicians of his kingdom to come to the palace.

Early in the morning, they gathered under the king’s window with flutes, harps, violins, horns, bells, drums, banjos, bugles, chimes, cymbals, gongs, triangles, lutes, lyres and trumpets. Their tuning and scraping and testing awoke the king. Smiling, King Ruben jumped up, believing that today he would discover the sweetest melody in all the world. All day long, the king sat on his balcony and listened. He listened to the cacophany of sounds coming from below – loud, soft, fast, slow. Then the advisors asked their king, “To your ears, which melody is the sweetest?”

King Ruben had listened, but he could not tell which sound was the sweetest. One of his advisors suggested that he should have all the instruments play together, at the same time. “A wonderful idea,” said the king. All of the instruments rang, bonged, blared, pealed, strummed and whistled together. King Ruben wrinkled his face and listened with all his might. The noise was so great he could not think.

Just at that moment, a woman dressed in her Sabbath best pushed to the front of the crowd. It was now late on Friday afternoon, and the sun was setting. “O King, I have the answer to your question,” she said. “Stop!” the King said to all the musicians still playing. Motioning her forward, the woman took two candles and placed them on the balcony railing, and then she lit them. As the flames of the candles glowed, the woman lifted her voice and prayed, “Blessed art thou, O Lord, our God, King of the universe, who sanctified us by thy commandments and commanded us to kindle the Sabbath lights.” Then she took her hands away from her face. “He that has ears to hear, let him hear,” she said.

The king raised his head; and the people in the crowd stood still. The king was whispering, “What? What is that?” She answered him, “What you hear is the sound of rest. And isn’t the peace that the Sabbath brings the sweetest melody of all?”[2]

Indeed.

And yet, so often, we can begin to look at going to church on Sunday mornings as yet another thing we “do” as well. Another part of that insane life. But what it really is, or at least it should be, if it is not, is an acceptance of Jesus’ invitation to rest. Here, the world is different – it looks, sounds, feels different – I mean, does this LOOK like your office? And that is why I love the Episcopal Church. The liturgy is transformational – moving across centuries and soaking my very soul. The leaders of worship dress differently, we light candles, we sing songs not usually heard on the radio, and we humble ourselves. We give physical acknowledgement through crossing, bowing, kneeling, singing, and the taking of the sacrament (all of which is a form of prayer), that there is something greater than ourselves and our busy lives. Here we can’t answer cell phones (or we shouldn’t have them on anyway), we can’t attend to the “honey do” list, grocery shop, or any other chore on our weekly grind. We can only sit and rest for a spell, being nourished in word and sacrament. Now, I know, many of you put a lot of labor into making church happen for everyone else, but I do hope that this labor of love that you do is something that feeds you, not drains you. But despite what this Sabbath rest offers, we often seem to find reasons to not give ourselves even this small two hour respite from the world (and it is 2 hours because of the third great sacrament – coffee hour).

Maybe part of what keeps us tied to the yoke is that we think we have to “do” something – we even make rest a chore. What I mean by that is that we think rest means we have to go on a vacation. It requires planning, and money maybe, and coordinating schedules, and… wow – way too much work, soooo, we just keep stepping to the insanely fast paced and unending rhythm of the world. Or, if not that, we feel a bit guilty doing “nothing,” forgetting that rest, in all its forms – playing, sitting, laying about…is doing. It is doing what we need to do, perhaps more than anything else we do, if we are to ever do all the other stuff well, and for any length of time. We are like Aesop’s bow. We must unstring ourselves from the yoke or we will indeed break. Or, think of it this way… “One man challenged another to an all-day wood chopping contest. The challenger worked very hard, stopping only for a brief lunch break. The other man had a leisurely lunch and took several breaks during the day. At the end of the day, the challenger was surprised and annoyed to find that the other fellow had chopped substantially more wood than he had. “I don’t get it,” he said. “Every time I checked, you were taking a rest, yet you chopped more wood than I did.” “But you didn’t notice,” said the winning woodsman, “that I was sharpening my ax when I sat down to rest.”[3]

“Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.”

Yes, come and rest, here – in this place. For there is work to be done, and in being nourished here, your axe will be sharpened, your bow stronger. See, earlier I said wouldn’t it be nice if Jesus were to say those words to us…and the thing is – he does. All the time. We just don’t or can’t hear the invitation. We are working too hard to stop.

We have food to put on the table of our families, and that is important work. And we need rest and nourishment to do it.   But one thing to always remember as we labor on, as I said to a young couple this week who are planning to be married, no one ever said at the end of their lives “I wish I had spent more time in the office.” As important as that work may appear to be in our lives now, it is good to remember this, and perhaps this little quip can help: “A man returned to an office party after retirement. A friendly young office worker, who had come to the company after he had retired, greeted him warmly and said: “And who did you used to be?””

But your family, your community of faith, God…knows you, loves you, and will not forget you. And we, as a community of faith, have important work to do in the world as well – To put food on the table of the lonely, the hungry, the forgotten, the marginalized, the oppressed. It is this job, this work, that the apostles were doing. And it is here that we are given the rest Jesus begs us to take, so that we may continue our call to love and serve.

We live in a world of self-imposed slavery, and we are called to help those actually enslaved around the world – physically, emotionally, spiritually. We are invited by Jesus to discard our the yoke that has started to become a part of our souls, that we might, through him, remove the very real yoke from our brothers and sisters around the world. God desires an abundant life for all of God’s creation, but we have turned the idea of abundance into a never ending pursuit of more things, rather than a receiving of the abundance that is already there for each of us – love, joy, forgiveness, reconciliation, and peace, and bringing that abundance out into a world in need.

So this week, perhaps today, take out a piece of paper, and after a moment of reflection – write down one thing you will NOT do this week – one evening you will shut down your computer or turn off your cell phone – one appointment you will refuse to make, one obligation or opportunity you will forgo. Just one thing…don’t turn this into yet another list you must somehow add to your lives. But do honor your commitment to yourself.

The next week, look back at your note. What was the experience of letting that one thing not happen? And if you can, try this every week, make rest a goal – it is likely the change will not only affect you in wonderful ways, but will also positively impact those around you.

And yes, I will commit to doing the same as I have asked of you. You see, there is a reason that CREDO is offered to clergy, because we can often be the worst offenders at this not taking Sabbath rest thing. Perhaps partly because the Sabbath for all of you is a working day for all of us, and many fail to get more than one day off a week. But whatever the reason, we too must answer Jesus’ invitation.

“Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.”

And to that I hope we can all say, “Yes, and thank you Jesus, that is just what I needed.” Amen.

[1] David Lose. http://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?post=1494

[2] John A. Stroman, Thunder From the Mountain (Nashville: The Upper Room, 1990), 53-55.

[3] Source unknown.

[Sermons as written may not be as delivered on any given Sunday]

The Rev. Diana L. Wilcox
Christ Church in Bloomfield & Glen Ridge
July 19, 2015
Pentecost 8 – Year B – Track 1
1st Reading – 2 Samuel 7:1-14a
Psalm 89:20-37
2nd Reading – Ephesians 2:11-22
Gospel – Mark 6:30-34, 53-56