"Come
away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while."
What
a lovely invitation Jesus is extending to his disciples. Come away from
the busyness of your lives, come away from the crowds, come away from the
demands on your time. Come away and rest.
And
there’s the underlying message in this invitation too – Jesus is speaking to
his disciples, to his friends. These are people who have been working
tirelessly with Jesus in carrying out the mission and ministry to which God has
called them. And Jesus sees that. Jesus sees what these people are
going through day after day as they are carrying out their work. And he
sees that they are exhausted – we’re told they don’t even have leisure to
eat.
This
is a problem. We all need to eat - otherwise we know we can't keep going on.
And in Jesus' time, there are no frozen meals and microwaves; eating a meal was
a time for repose and reflection and rest – a time for the feeding not just the body, but also the mind and the
spirit. So to not have time to eat meant not sitting down, not sharing
company, not having proper nourishment.
Jesus
realises exactly how big of a deal this is. He's asked a lot of his disciples:
come away from your families, your homes, your employment, your inheritance.
Come away to do the ministry I'm asking you to do; it will be difficult but
rewarding; it will be physically exhausting but spiritually energising.
And
so they came. But now - let's face it, they're hungry. They're hangry. They're
tired. They're possibly quibbling between themselves, longing for that
one.day.off. And they tell Jesus ALL
that they have done and taught - and it's a long list. They've earned a rest;
they've earned a good meal. They deserve the chance to just sit and be; to
laugh with one another, share the tales of their ministries, fill themselves
with good prayer and good food and good rest.
So
off on retreat they go.
At
least, they try to go.
But
they're popular - and the people want more and more of them - so the people
follow along, and get there before the boat even arrives. So much for the nice
calm retreat!
And
Jesus sees them, and has pity on them, and begins to teach them. For hours, he
sits there, teaching, healing, being very present with these people.
And
in the segment that we (for some reason) skipped over in today's lectionary,
the disciples start complaining again. Their stomachs are growling, the people
are hungry; WE are hungry, send them away to get something to eat.
Key
message: send them away. We still want our down time!
But
Jesus doesn't do that. Instead, he engages further with the people. He invites
the disciples to engage further with the people.
And
together, they eat. Together, they rest. Together, they find healing. Together,
they are inadvertantly re-energised for their mission and ministry - not by
avoiding it like they had thought, but by engaging in it even more strenuously
than before.
It
sounds counter-intuitive, doesn't it? Gain rest and rejuvenation by doing more
work? That's certainly not the message of today's culture. Today we have people
that are placing expectations on themselves to be available 24/7/365. And then
they burn out, and we wonder why? We live in a culture that expects immediate
responses - I once got a professional email from someone who said she was in
the bathtub. (I assure you - we were NOT that close, nor was the email THAT
time sensitive!) We live in a culture that sees nothing abnormal with eating a
meal in the car, having gone through a drive-through. We live in a culture where doing work on
vacation is the norm; where internships are unpaid yet highly demanding in time
and energy; where a pause in traffic to let the geese cross the road has people
laying on their horns and shouting obscenities from their windows.
This
is not the world where we can find rest and peace and be restored. It is this
type of world that Jesus invites us to step away from, even for a brief time.
Come
away from the world.
Come
into the rest of ministry.
When
we do God's work for God's people, we are refusing to be bogged down by the
earthly expectations that are put upon us - by ourselves and by others.
Instead, we are choosing to be active in the mission that God has called us to.
And
the good news - the great news, really - is that this mission and service will
not just benefit the others to whom we offer ministry. It will also give us
exactly what we need. God's great that way; God knows exactly what we need, and
God gives us the opportunity to share in the receiving of those needs. And what we get, we will get at the same time
as other people, other followers of God. And the beauty of it is, we may not
even recognise it at the time.
The
disciples in today's story: they had been busy - VERY busy - and so they come
to Jesus needing food, needing rest, needing health.
And
the people to whom they minister are also coming to Jesus. They too need food.
They too need a break from the stresses of the everyday. They too need health -
both physical and spiritual.
And
they all receive. By the grace of God, they all receive.
The
disciples want a retreat; Jesus offers his teachings to the multitudes as well
as to his friends. The disciples want a proper meal; they are fed just as much
as the crowds that gather in the sharing of the loaves and the fishes. The
disciples want to be healthy; they receive as much spiritual and physical
healing as those gathered at Gennesaret.
They
receive exactly what they need, just as they are providing what others need.
For the love of God, through the power of God, using their gifts from God.
So I ask you now to consider for yourselves: what
is it that you want from God? What is it that you are asking for in your life
this week?
And
are you willing to offer exactly that to someone else, whose similar needs you
have seen? Do you see the needs of the
world around you because deep down you know you share those needs? Do you not
see the needs of the world around you because you don't want to see deep down
in yourself?
The
disciples were made to look, in that subtle way that Jesus has for teaching.
The disciples then, and those of us who choose to be disciples today.
I pray that we might decide this week to be true disciples of Christ: doing
God's work, even when we feel like we don't want to.
May we recognise that being
a Christian doesn't come with a day off. But when we do it right, we don't need
a day off.
Be calmed by calming; be fed by feeding; be healthy by healing. Come
away, to a peaceful place, and rest for a while.
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