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Sermon - January 4th, 2009
Holy Rest
Rev. Gwen Drake
Scripture: Mark 1:29-39
May the meditations of our hearts, may our thoughts and feelings be touched by your spirit, O God. May we find holy rest for our souls, O God, our creator, redeemer, and sustainer. Amen.
The Gospel of Mark is written with a sense of urgency. The plot and action move quickly. The author uses words like “immediately” and “at once” and “just then.” John the Baptizer appeared and proclaimed the coming of Jesus. Jesus was baptized, the Spirit immediately drove Jesus into the wilderness where he was tempted. John is arrested proclaiming, “The time is fulfilled, the kingdom of God has come near, repent and believe!” All this happened in 14 verses. Mark’s gospel is efficient with words, and urgent in description.
In the next 15 verses, Jesus called his first disciples, taught in the synagogue, and exorcised an unclean spirit. In today’s lesson, Jesus has left the synagogue for Simon’s house. As soon as he and his disciples arrived, Jesus was told Simon’s mother-in-law was sick. He went to her, took her hand, and helped her up. The fever left her, and she began to wait on them.
After the sun went down all the people of the village had gathered in front of the house. The good news had traveled fast. Jesus was the new miracle worker in town. Hurry and you too will be healed. He’s at Simon’s house. He healed his mother-in-law. He’s driven out a demon. Let’s go! And great crowds gathered around him. He cured many, cast out more demons, and did not allow the demons to speak because they knew him which is another theme characteristic to Mark. Jesus instructed those he helped not to say anything, an instruction that no one followed, obviously. Scholars have wondered about this “messianic secret” thing ever since.
And then, we get to the heart of my message today. Jesus got up early and went to a lonely place to pray. The disciples went out searching for him. They found him, of course. I hope it took awhile. The disciples interrupted his peace and quiet, saying, “EveryONE, EVERYone is looking for you.” As if to say, “What in the world were you thinking, going out here by yourself when everyone else NEEDS you to be available. How dare you leave us alone with those people. We can’t do any thing without you. There’s important work for you to do. What are you doing out here anyway? Anything? Nothing? PRAYING???”
Jesus responded with clarity, “We must move on. I have preaching to do, that is why I came. I have a message to give and I must give it. Let’s go.” And off they went traveling all over Galilee.
I believe Jesus absolutely needed to get away to find time alone to pray and breathe and figure things out. The way Mark described Jesus, he had been an instant success. People were pressing in on all sides. They wanted a piece of the miracle. Mark doesn’t explain this to us. Mark reports what happened and moves on. So we have to read between the lines. Or we have to read and let the story speak to our story. We have to take the time to listen for God’s word to us. We have to find that lonely place and pray and ask God, what are you saying to me? What are you saying to the church? What do we do next? What an important message for us who live in a world that is faster, busier, and fuller than ever before. We all need time for holy rest. Even Jesus needed holy rest.
Perhaps the question that Jesus wrestled with in prayer that morning was: “Do I go back and do what feels good, where people like me and what I’m doing? Do I take on the work of a healer? Is that why I’m here?” And it looks like the answer was: “No, your reason for being here is more than that. Healing is only part of the message. It is not ALL there is. You are more than that.”
I’m one of those preachers who has no doubt at all that Jesus was 100% human. And because he was human, I believe he absolutely had to get away from it all. It was about re-connecting to God, to his deep self, to his purpose. A sense of connection is so important to us. We need to know that what we are doing isn’t futile. We need to know that we are not alone. We need to have a sense of direction. We need assurance, more than assurance from others around. My goodness, Jesus had plenty of that. Jesus needed a deep assurance, like the assurance he received at his baptism, when the heavens opened up, and a voice said, “You are my Son, the Beloved, with you I am pleased.” He needed to hear that again, deep within his soul. He needed to feel that sense of connection.
Some of us are born into an intricate web of affiliations, a large family, regular gatherings of extended family, family where everything is everyone business. I learned quickly in my house that I’m not the only person in the whole world, so I better get over myself and pitch in and do my part or there were consequences. And growing up in a small town of just over a thousand people, I learned that not much happened without someone noticing, someone asking questions, someone telling someone else about it. I have never questioned that I needed other people in my life. I learned very early that I was not the center of the universe. I also discovered that my favorite place in the whole world was out on a hill, by myself, just me and my horse. In a family and community like mine, that’s where I learned a sense of self. That was my holy rest.
And that’s what I think Jesus was searching for early that morning—a sense of connection and a sense of self. He, too, had a sense of connection from birth. Not only to his immediate family and community, but to his ancestors and to the prophets, to the Holy Scriptures of his faith. He was born into the world knowing that he was part of something bigger than he was. Did he know what his part was? Some people think he did. Some believe that he always knew. Not me. I need a Jesus who struggled just like me. I need a Jesus who was 100% human and we humans have to grow up and get over ourselves before we figure out who we are and where our niche is in this life. We have to have long conversations with ourselves and each other and God. We need to mess up a few times or a lot of times. We need to find that holy place in ourselves where we know what we are doing is right for us.
I spent my first four years of ministry in Myrtle Point, a small church that had to close a few years ago. A young family moved there shortly after I arrived. They had a son who shared a birthday with Abbe, my daughter. One afternoon they were playing together at his house and Abbe wanted to draw. Brian didn’t want to draw. Abbe sat down at the table and started drawing. Soon Brian came over and watched Abbe. Then he asked Abbe if he could draw with her. Abbe’s reply was, “I think you will just scribble.” But Brian persisted and said, “I can do it. I want to draw.” Abbe said okay and Brian sat at the table with her to draw. Abbe watched for a while, then started helping Brian with his drawing, being very patient, and showing him where everything went in his picture. (This was all told to me by Twila, Brian’s mother.) When Brian finished his picture, which was scribbly, he asked Abbe if she wanted to look at dinosaurs. Abbe said, “No, I don’t really like dinosaurs.” Brian persisted and said, “Well, I love dinosaurs.” And he went to his room and come back with a book about dinosaurs. Abbe continued to draw. Abbe loved drawing. Brian started showing Abbe the dinosaurs and naming them. They were both 4 years old. Soon, Abbe started paying attention to Brian, watching and listening. Then she said, “Brian, you know a lot about dinosaurs. I don’t know how you know so much.”
After Abbe came home, Brian’s Mom told Brian that she thought it was great that Abbe could draw so well. She also said it was great that he knew so much about dinosaurs. Then she asked him, “Why do you think that is?” And Brian answered immediately, “I think I know so much about dinosaurs because that is God’s present to me.”
What a great sense of self those two four year olds had! Sometimes I wonder why we humans make life so complicated! But we do. And I believe Jesus did too. We all need a talent or a skill or a weakness or an attitude that is ours alone. We all need to learn to be responsible for ourselves and our own stuff. We also need to learn that things don’t always divide evenly, and that’s OK. Sometimes you get more than you deserve, sometimes a lot less. Life isn’t fair. We all have to make our own way eventually. Even Jesus had to do that. It would have been easy for him to follow the crowd that followed him. They were a very needy bunch. But he got up early to be by himself, alone, to re-connect with his sense of self and purpose and God. Who he was, was wired into his being, body and soul, but just like you and me, Jesus got disconnected. Holy rest for Jesus was re-connecting with his true self so he could go back into the world and be the beloved son of God again.
Now Mark doesn’t talk about this next aspect of holy rest; but I have to because I couldn’t get through life without it, I am sure of it. And I don’t think Jesus did either. I think Jesus had to get away from it all, the sickness and the demons, and a crowd of demanding people, to find his sense of humor again. The best gift my father gave me was a sense of humor. I didn’t get it from my Mom, that’s for sure. She comes from stern and serious German stock. I am sure that I never saw my Mom’s mother smile, ever. Somehow, I learned to laugh at myself, to not take myself too seriously. A sense of humor makes life more enjoyable, uplifting, tolerable, it makes life more of everything. Life is full of moments of wonder and confusion and panic and joy and humility and self-doubt. A sense of humor must have help Jesus immensely to turn the serious into the bearable and the mundane into the unique. Jesus was a great story-teller. Every great story-teller I know has a great sense of humor. My Dad was a great story-teller. He had a great sense of humor. I’m sure Jesus did too.
The last reason I believe Jesus spent time alone that morning was to regain his sense of direction. I used to think I had a great sense of direction. Then I had a daughter named Abbe. She used to get lost in the town of Dallas, Dallas, Oregon. Her high school classmates would tease her mercilessly. I wondered where she got that characteristic. Then I started getting lost or maybe I should say confused. I relied on the hills and fence posts and farm houses of Eastern Oregon to give me my sense of direction. Take that away, and surround me with trees that all look alike, or surround me with buildings that look alike, and I’m lost. I need a GPS!
Having a sense of direction in life, however, is not that simple or I would have got a GPS for my daughters as soon as they came out. After all the fact finding, weighing pros and cons, and asking people for advice, and getting advice I didn’t ask for, I require some very serious time alone, in holy rest and holy dialogue to find that true sense of direction in my life. If all I do is react to demands and emergencies, I have no sense of direction.
Did Jesus ever lose his sense of direction? I think he did. More than we know. We are given clues that he did because of the times when he had to get away from it all, spend time alone, time to pray and to ask God for the courage to face the direction he knew his life was going. He needed holy rest. We all do. Holy rest can gives us back our sense of connection, our sense of self, our sense of humor, and our sense of direction. May God grant us and may we grant each other, time for holy rest.
Amen.