July 21, 2024 – The Ninth Sunday After Pentecost
The Rev. Mary Davis
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my strength and my Redeemer. Amen.
In today’s Gospel Jesus dares to step away from the persistent need which follows him everywhere he goes, from all the do-ing, from the all the acts of love and healing, and he rests. And Jesus asks his disciples to do the same.
“Come away with me, to a quiet place and rest awhile,” he says to his disciples. It almost seems like a throw-away line, filler, in comparison to Mark’s remarkable accounts of Jesus feeding the 5,000, or healing paralytics, or walking on water. But the folks who created our Lectionary calendar – who assign our weekly scripture readings – know that, in Mark’s Gospel, there is no such thing as a throw-away line. Sure, Mark’s writing style seems hurried, abrupt, but at the same time, he was very much a skillful writer and master storyteller. Trust me, there are no throw-away lines in Mark. And even 2000 years ago, before today’s electronics, google searches, and constant texting, Mark knew that “busy” was contrary to the Gospel of Jesus.
Sure, make no mistake about it, at times, Jesus was busier than a vacation bible school volunteer. Healing, teaching, exorcising demons, looking for food and traveling from place to place. But Jesus knew and was teaching his disciples that, after returning from a tour of ministry they all needed a break. Jesus is unapologetic about this need for rest, reflection and prayer, and he is not ashamed to drop the word “busy” for a while.
Eugene Peterson, who wrote a book called “The Contemplative Pastor,” picks up on this theme and goes so far as to say that the word “busy” is an offensive, four-letter word. To be chronically busy, he writes, is not a symbol of commitment but of betrayal. It is not devotion but defection. And Peterson goes even further than that by calling our busy-ness an outrageous scandal, a blasphemous affront.” (pg. 17)
Jesus’ call to “come away with me and rest awhile” is one of the most counter cultural and radical messages of the Gospel. But for context, this message doesn’t just start with Jesus. It doesn’t even begin when Moses presents the Ten Commandants to the Israelites. It begins with CREATION. In 6 days, God creates day and night, the stars and the moon, plants, animals, man and woman, and on the 7th day, God rests. In that day of rest, God was actually creating, but not in the same way that God was creating during the other 6 days. On day 7, God created a “system of meaning” which is based on pausing and looking back over what God had created. And this was very good.
So, repeatedly throughout the history of our faith, we are called to rest – to reorder our lives, to place God at the center, and to prioritize everything else according to that focus. It’s not just a suggestion. It’s a commandment.
But I think it’s important to note – and this is a new revelation for me that I discovered through a podcast called “Sabbath and the Art of Rest,” on The Ezra Klein Show, that the importance of rest is not simply a matter of being a better person, or something that helps our individual well-being or our individual relationship with God. Yes, of course, it does all of that. But it’s also vital for a community’s ability to serve others.
Let me explain by using the example of what’s called the “Good Samaritan Experiment.” In 1973, two social scientists wanted to answer the question, which of three attributes would compel someone to stop and help when passing by a stranger who is in obvious need. Was it someone’s innate compassionate personality trait? Was it a factor of cultural conditioning, and how you were raised? Or was it simply a situational roll of the dice?
And to test their question, the researchers gathered a group of students from Princeton Theological Seminary who, of course, were very familiar with Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan. And just to make sure that the parable was at the forefront of their minds during this experiment, the students had all been given the task of presenting a sermon on this parable.
Then, unbeknownst to the students, the organizers of the study divided the students into three groups. The first group was told to go quickly to the chapel to deliver the sermon – because they were told they were late. A second group was told that they weren’t exactly late, but that they needed to get there asap. And the third group was told they had plenty of time to get to the chapel.
Of course, as you would expect, on the path to the chapel, they all passed someone in obvious distress.
So who, do you think, out of all these seminary students about to preach on the parable of the Good Samaritan, who do you think stopped to help?
Well, it turns out that it didn’t depend on if an individual had a particularly compassionate personality. And it didn’t matter who was raised with an ethic of helping others. The deciding factor that impacted whether a person stopped to help or not was time – was how much time they had to get there. The students who were in a rush – busy, and late – were the ones who didn’t stop to help the individual in distress. Some of those rushing student confessed that they didn’t even see the individual in need. The ones who were led to believe they had plenty of time and could move at a slower pace, they were the ones who offered to help. The study concluded that “ethics becomes a luxury as the speed of our daily life increases.” Let me say that again. “Ethics becomes a luxury as the speed of our daily life increases.”
So no, “come away with me and rest a while” is not just a throw away line. And we are here today, worshipping and serving in this Christian community – a community called Good Samaritan of course – because our ethics are NOT a luxury. We are called to act. Called to serve. Called to follow Jesus’ way. And practicing the Sabbath – “coming away with Jesus for a while” – is a spiritual practice that we need to develop and practice together. Cal, our Rector, is leading the way for us by taking his sabbatical now. Of course the word, sabbatical (from the Hebrew: שַׁבָּת Šabat and Greek sabbatikos) is a rest or break from work. And while we may not be able to rest from the busy-ness of our lives for an entire summer, we can add the practice of Sabbath to our weekly routines.
We are followers of Jesus: disciples and apostles ministering and moving in the world. But remembering that Jesus’ way is through green pastures and by still waters – which for us, can often seem like strange and unfamiliar territory – but it’s critical. “Come away with me, to a deserted place, all by yourselves, and rest a while.” It’s not laziness, and of course, Jesus doesn’t mean forever. But for a while. And rest. It’s an outlandish but important Gospel truth for us to ponder during these last few weeks of summer, and a perfect way to practice our discipleship. Try it for a day, or two. Or a week. Put down the phone. Close out the email. Refrain from updating your Facebook status or Instagram story. And take Eugene Peterson’s advice, strike the word “busy” from your vocabulary for a while.
It’s life-saving. Life sustaining. Live-giving. The fruit of this rest is that we are then able to go back into the world, healing, teaching, and serving others, living lives of faith in the name of God who passionately loves us all.
Amen.
Year B – Proper 11 – July 21, 2024 – The Ninth Sunday After Pentecost – The Rev. Mary Davis
