Loading...Sermon – July 19, 2015
The Rev. Rebecca S. Myers, LSW
The Church of the Nativity and St. Stephen, Newport, PA
Pentecost VIII Proper 11, Track 2
He said to them, "Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while." For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat. Mark 6:31
Please be seated.
In the spring of 2006, I moved to Washington, DC to take a new job. I had been planning to move to a bigger city for a couple of years, so was prepared and excited to live in a big city. Because I was looking for positions in the DC area, during the job hunt process, I traveled there frequently and made numerous connections.
In the past when I’d moved, I’d often been led to a church before I even moved to an area. For instance, in my first big move as a new mother in the mid-70s, my then 6 month old son was playing with a magazine – ripping up the pages. (I’d read that was a good thing to do for a child and had given him some old magazines.) As I was cleaning up the mess, I noticed an article about a church in the town where I knew we were going to move in a few months and that was the end of the “church shopping.”
My process in moving to DC involved checking out churches online. I chose one and went a few Sundays, but it just wasn’t the right fit. I woke up to that realization one Sunday morning. It was Pentecost, though, so I wanted to be sure to go to church. I decided to go to the Washington National Cathedral for just that one Sunday and then start “church shopping” the following week.
When I arrived at the Cathedral, however, I found so many things going on that pulled me in. There was an all-volunteer choir forming and auditions were being held in the next couple of weeks. The possibility of singing in a Cathedral every Sunday sounded wonderful. The choir would sing at the early service and I reasoned that I could easily sing and then go to another church for a later service…a church that would be like a normal parish.
A class called Disciples of Christ in Community or DOCC was also being advertised. It was 16 weeks of lectures about Christian faith followed by small group discussion. Being new to DC, I thought this would be a wonderful way to meet people, as well as deepen my own faith.
I signed up to audition for the choir and signed up for the DOCC program AND kept attending the Cathedral every Sunday. I never resumed “church shopping.”
While I loved the services and the space of the Cathedral, I also found it odd. There was no congregation or parish, although there were people who attended regularly. Most people were one-time visitors. There were no committees like the churches I had attended my entire life prior to that point. At the time I didn’t know that a congregation would be forming at the Cathedral the following year.
I started to worry that I was “taking it easy” or not doing what God wanted me to do. I thought maybe I needed to go “church shopping” to find a more traditional parish. I felt like maybe I was being a lazy Christian.
One day while I was praying about this and asking God where I needed to be going to church, I heard, “Take it easy. Stay right here. This is my gift to you.”
This is my gift to you…. Sure enough within the next year, there was plenty to be involved in, even as it was still a little different from my previous church experience.
“Take it easy….this is my gift to you.”
In our Gospel today, the disciples have been extremely busy; so busy, they don’t even have time to eat! Have you had days or times like that where you’ve missed meals, because you’ve been so busy?
Jesus bids them to go to a quieter place and rest awhile…rest awhile.
That can be very difficult to do when you’re used to doing, doing, doing, and going, going, going. But the truth is, our bodies and souls and spirits can only take that pace for so long. I know I cannot work 14 days straight or I get very cranky! As much as I LOVE and I mean LOVE all of the services and time of Holy Week, I also find it to be a challenge.
All of us need to find ways to “rest awhile.” We need to find ways and we must find time to take care of ourselves. It’s like when you ride an airplane and the flight attendant says if there is a loss of cabin pressure, a mask will drop down and you should put the mask on yourself before you try to help anyone else! When we’re tired and worn out, we are of no help to anyone else.
Sometimes we don’t know how to slow down. Sometimes we’re afraid to slow down, because if we do, we might have to face some internal spiritual work we’re trying to avoid. Busy, busy, busy is the way we live our lives. And our central Pennsylvania Dutch culture isn’t much help in that regard, I fear. There’s something about working hard being an important virtue. We tend to believe the saying that “idle hands are the devil’s workshop.” We truly identify with Martha and understand her indignation that Mary is not helping prepare the dinner, but sitting at the feet of Jesus! We know we should be a little more like Mary, but it just goes against our upbringing and how we’ve lived our lives.
And Jesus continues to call us from our labors. Yes, Jesus expects us to work hard. Jesus expects us to be actively bringing God’s Kingdom here on earth. And Jesus reminds us that we must rest…we must remove ourselves from the busyness of our work. Jesus calls, "Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while." How will you answer?
Amen
