SERMON: Holy Rest

Pentecost 7(B) Proper 11, Lectionary 16: Jeremiah 23:1-6; Psalm 23; Ephesians 2:11-22; Mark 6:3-34, 53-56

This past week I was organizing my central conference synod files to give to the new conference dean. And in doing that, I came across this flyer for the 2003 Professional Leaders Conference. "Holy Rest." I had forgotten about it. There on the cover is the then bishop asleep on a cloud. Inside synod clergy were reminded that Sabbath is Holy Rest and, while we "teach it, preach it, [and] need it,"

we all too often do not model it. The cares of our world, the pressures of our society [I would add jobs and vocations] and the needs of our families pile up one us until we consistently use what little down time we have to meet out own basic needs, such as shopping errands and laundry.

But God knows [the flyer continues] we need rest and so God, in all God's wisdom, created the Sabbath: a time for rest, a time for reflection, a time for renewal to recommit to our Lord.

The conference was held at Interlaken Resort and Country Spa -- a lovely resort outside of Lake Geneva in Wisconsin -- and offered not only Bible Study and worship but what the organizers called "the Sabbath Experience": guided meditation, yoga class, shiastsu, reflexology, massage, and a labyrinth. It sounded wonderful.

And very much what today's Celebrate promises from this morning's gospel. Take a look at your Celebrate. See at the top?

Mark's gospel makes clear how great was the press of the crowd, with its countless needs to be met, on Jesus and his disciples. Yet in today's gospel Jesus advises his disciples to get away and rest, to take care of themselves. Sometimes we think that when others are in great need we shouldn't think of ourselves at all; but Jesus also honors the caregivers' need.

And it is true that Jesus tells his disciples -- whom Mark here calls "apostles" -- that they need to rest. These are the disciples who have become "apostles" by going out two by two to villages proclaiming that all should repent, casting out demons, and anointing with oil and curing many who were sick. These guys are really exhausted. Not to mention hungry. And what Jesus proposes is that they get into a boat, and go to deserted place where they will not be disturbed and where they can eat in leisure, bond, and be restored.

Now normally deserted (and the Greek might best be translated as "desolate") places were not destination spots for meals -- or anything else except wild beasts, demons, and perhaps robbers. This is not Interlaken, Lake Geneva, Resort and Spa country. But it is a place to get away from people, to reflect, and to enjoy a leisurely meal. The place where they land is not, however, deserted for long but, instead, is overtaken with people who recognize the returning apostles (an indication that the mission is bearing fruit). And, overcome with compassion, Jesus teaches them.

Now, if we consider only what we hear this morning, it is Jesus who does the teaching and, for all we know, the returning apostles sneak away to get the rest that Jesus has advised for them by finding a quiet place alone apart from the crowd and Jesus' teaching and healing. But that is not what happens. There are 18 verses between the first verses we hear this morning and the last read, And those verses tell a very different story and because they do, I have included them in the bulletin insert this morning. Take it out. "Today's Missing Text."

Before we look at those texts to see what happens between today's beginning and end, it's useful to consider why the verses are omitted.

Probably the main reason for the omission is because one of the things that happens in the missing text is Mark's account of the feeding of 5,000. There are multiple feedings like Mark's recorded in all the gospels. John's account has the most detail, so the organizers of the lectionary have John's account read a week from today (because the Gospel of Mark is so short, it is supplemented by readings from the Gospel of John during Cycle B -- the Mark cycle -- of the Lectionary).

Two feedings stories, one on top of the other, would try the patience of most preachers, not to mention congregations. Its omission this week is understandable.

The second thing that happens in the missing text this morning is Jesus' walking on water. Mark's account is also found in Matthew's gospel with the addition of Peter's walking on the water and then sinking. It is Matthew's account of Jesus' walking on the water that is included in the lectionary during Cycle A. No need to include Mark's or John's account when Matthew's is so much more interesting. Besides, Jesus calmed the waters of the seas just four weeks ago in Mark's gospel.

The rationalizations for omitting the verses make sense. But their omission tells a very different story.

When missing verses are re-inserted we discover that the disciples never do get their leisurely meal or any rest.

When it gets late, the disciples remind Jesus that they are at a potentially deserted place and the hour is late. Time to send the crowds into the surrounding towns to buy food so the disciples and Jesus can have a restorative meal. Jesus says, "No."

Instead of letting the disciples disperse the crowd (a crowd of men, by the way), Jesus directs the disciples to give them something to eat. And by this directive he does not mean that the disciples should go into the towns to buy food (something that would cost half a year's wages). Rather, he tells the disciples to supply the food from what they have brought for the leisurely meal that is not going to be. Then he tells the disciples to organize the men and have them sit down on the green grass. This, the disciples do, arranging the men in groups of 100s and 50s. This is no small feat. Take a look at the photo on back of the bulletin of last Wednesday's Grant Park Orchestra audience scattered around Millennium Park and imagine getting everyone into groups of 50 or 100 for a meal. Yet the disciples do exactly that.

But the work of the disciples is not over. Jesus blesses God and breaks the five loaves of bread and hands them over to the disciples to set before the people. Jesus himself divides the fish (probably dried -- one of John's details). As we know, everyone is filled, including, one hopes, the already tired and famished apostles.

There is, however, no rest for the weary because Jesus immediately orders the disciples to get into a boat to go to the other side of the sea. Jesus does not join them but instead says his farewell and goes up on the mountain to pray. And stays there all night.

Holy rest for Jesus but not the disciples, who, far from bonding on the boat, are dealing with an adverse wind -- a wind that stops only when Jesus joins the disciples in the boat the next morning.

And this morning's gospel picks up with the boat landing at the other side of the sea. Where it is met by still more crowds who recognize Jesus and rush about to bring the sick on mats to wherever they hear he is. The pace does not slacken. "Wherever he went," he hear, "into villages or cities or farms, they laid the sick in the marketplaces, and begged him that they might touch even the fringe of his cloak; and all who touched it were healed."

And so, in all this, where is the rest for the disciples? Where does Jesus "honor the caregivers' need" (besides perhaps his own)?

I think that the answer is that rest is not perhaps always what we think it is. That it is not necessarily reflexology and massage or even meditation and yoga. Jesus' initial thought of a long and leisurely dinner alone with the disciples is certainly rest. Lovely and inviting as Interlaken is (and I did attend the professional leaders conference in 2003), I would take a dinner with friends over the Spa's amenities any day for pure rest and relaxation. I am with Jesus on that one.

But the disciples did not have their meal with Jesus. Instead, they had a meal with five thousand men -- a meal that they organized and served. A communal meal in which resources were shared. A meal in which everyone ate and was filled. A meal not unlike the meal we will share this morning.

And is this rest? I think it was for the disciples. And I know it is for us. In one translation, we hear the psalmist say: "Only in God is my soul at rest." That rest is truly the rest of the sabbath. In The Confessions, St. Augustine prays:

O Lord God, give us peace, for you have given all things . . . to us, the peace of rest, the peace of the sabbath, the peace without an evening. This entire most beautiful order of things that are very good, when their measures have been accomplished, is to pass away. For truly in them a morning has been made, and an evening also.

     Then also you shall rest in us, even as now you work in us, and so will that rest of yours be in us, even as these your works are through us. But you, O Lord, are ever at work and ever at rest. You do not see for a time, nor are you moved for a time, nor do you rest for a time. Yet you make both that things be seen in time, and the times themselves, and the rest that comes after time.

May that be our prayer this morning. Amen

July 19, 2009

Ruth VanDemark, pastor

Wicker Park Lutheran Church

Chicago