Mark 6:30-34, 53-56
Proper 11 / Year B
Jesus said to his
disciples, “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.
Much of what we
read in the bible feels so foreign to our day and time, but not this. Our culture’s bedrocks seem to be frenzied
activity and perpetual demands. Meals
get wedged in when and where possible: perhaps at a Chick-fil-a drive thru at
9:30 at night. Rather than being a
necessity, leisure has become a luxury well beyond what most of us can afford.
Gandhi once said
there is more to life than increasing its speed and yet this is exactly what we
do. We load our calendars with a
landslide of activities. We rev our
motors well past the red lines of our personal RPM gauges. We assume we are constantly to be doing
something… anything… as long as we are doing, doing, doing.
Acedia is one of the seven deadly sins and
perhaps the most misunderstood. We get
greed and gluttony and rest, but acedia is more mysterious. Most often translated as sloth or listlessness, acedia, at least according to
Kierkegaard, has something to do with the “despairing refusal to be
oneself.” For some, this refusal looks
like an unwillingness to try; what we refer to as being lazy or having
self-doubt. But for others, it looks
like the never slowing down. There is a
difference between being industrious (what we are created for) and being on hyperdrive
all the time.
In today’s Gospel
reading we see Jesus inviting his disciples to “be themselves” by seeking a
time of solitude and leisure. He helps
them live out their imago dei (or
divine image) by resting, as God did after six days of creative work. The biblical rationale behind the fourth
commandment to honor the Sabbath and keep it holy is not that God demands our
worship. Rather it is rooted in theology
and history. The theology: God rested on
the seventh day and so should we. The
history: when God’s people were enslaved in Egypt they were made to work every
day without respite. Constant work and continual
activity imprisons. It is a refusal of
one part of oneself.
This morning’s reading falls in the midst of some amazing activity in
Jesus’ ministry. It begins with Jesus
asleep in a boat during a storm, no doubt exhausted from what has come
before. He disciples wake him and he
calms the sea. Once ashore Jesus
encounters Legion, a man so possessed the locals chain him to a tomb. After this and another boat trip Jesus is led
to the home of a synagogue leader whose daughter is dying. On the way, a woman reaches out and touches
him, healing her illness of thirteen long years. Next Jesus teaches in his hometown synagogue
and his own people reject him. In
response he commissions his followers to go throughout the region in teams of
two to preach and to pray and to heal.
In the meantime, we learn of the death of John the Baptist, Jesus’
cousin. When his disciples return to
report on their travels, the band is inundated by various people with multiple
needs. Is it any wonder Jesus diagnoses
their need to get away!
The Gospels tell us big stories, but often in between, in just a few
words or a sentence, they give us a glimpse of Jesus’ humanity. He goes off alone to pray. He doesn’t want anyone to know what house he
is staying in. He is hungry. He is thirsty. He is tired.
He withdraws. He seeks solitude. These are not signs of weakness or failure or
selfishness. They are acknowledgments of
who he is and signs of his determination to be who God has created him to
be. They are not times when he refuses
to heal or to care. They are essential
to how he responds to those who are like sheep without a shepherd.
Coming out of a protracted time of quarantine and severe restrictions
it might be tempting to think we are emerging from a long period of extended
leisure, but nothing could be farther from the truth. We have spent well over a year learning new
ways to do everyday things. We have had
to be more than vigilant to protect our own health as well as the health of
those we love. We have taken on new
roles (like being a stay-at-home parent/teacher) while trying to keep up with
our old roles (working remotely).
Whatever else this time has been, one thing is certain… it has been anything
but leisurely. And it is telling (and
wise) the first response many have made as restrictions are eased has been to
go away. We recognize our need for rest,
for leisure, for respite, for Sabbath.
Sam Hamilton-Poore is a Presbyterian minister who wrote a
book titled Earth Gospel: A Guide to Prayer for God’s Creation. He contends one way to care for our planet is
to pray for it, and to pray for our place in it. Here is one of his prayers that feels deeply
rooted in turning from acedia by embracing who we are created to
be:
Grant me grace this day
to rest and remember
that there is nothing I have to do,
nothing I have to buy or sell,
nothing I have to produce or consume
in order to become who I already am:
your beloved creation.
May your overworked creation
and those who cannot rest today
come to know the liberation of your sabbath.
And this is
my prayer for you as well. May you come
to know who you are created to be; a person with a meaningful purpose to be
sure. But also a person who does not allow
yourself to be enslaved by life’s demands.
May your life be full of times to rest and to dine and to be beloved by
God and those who are dear to you.
