Come away and rest awhile

Mark 6:30-34; 53-56

Today’s sermon is about rest. In our text this morning the disciples report back that they’ve done a lot of good work and Jesus says okay time to rest. But the thing is we don’t know how to rest. Not really. I met a few weeks ago with a Georgetown student who is here for the summer program. She is blind, has an anxiety diagnosis, left home for the first time, is taking difficult classes- 3 hour-long classes to be exact- and she revealed she is having panic attacks in class- having trouble breathing and crying but no one can tell because of the glasses she wears. These are summer classes- so already in addition to a normal course load- She was thinking about dropping the class but feels too bad about herself because “she should be able to do it”.

 How did we get here? You are 18- in a pandemic- moved to a new city- are blind, have severe anxiety, and find yourself in hell for 3 hours a day and having difficulty giving yourself permission to end this unnecessary pain because why. Because putting yourself last is seen as selfless. It’s seen as being strong. It’s seen as admirable. Achievement is seen as purpose.

If we can learn anything from this pandemic I hope it’s that we don’t have to live this way anymore. This pandemic should show us that we can take a rest and the everything will still be okay. that we can work a lot less, feel a lot less pressure, and still meet everyone’s needs.

Richard Rohr weighs in on this tension in our culture between rest and achievement: “After an optimistic explosion that we call hope, and an ensuing sense of deep safety, comes an experience of deep rest. It’s the verb, I’m told, that is most used by the mystics of all religions: some kind of “resting in God.” All of our striving and our need to perform, climb, and achieve becomes, on some very real level, unnecessary. The gift, the presence, the fullness is already here, now. I can stop all this overproduction and over-proving of myself. That’s Western and American culture. It’s not the Gospel, and yet we have made the Gospel conform to the meritocracy of most cultures.

One thing that got me into men’s work is that I found that males are especially driven by the performance principle. Most males just cannot believe that we could be respected, admired, received, or loved without some level of achievement. So many of us are performers and overachievers to some degree, and we think that only then will we be lovable or acceptable. Even when we “achieve” something with a good day of “performing,” as I often do myself as a type A personality, it is never enough, because it is inherently self-advancing and therefore self-defeating. We might call it “spiritual capitalism.”

In Jesus day we don’t see many stories about achievement being the way one earned love- we see following the rules or being moral or obedient but this earning love by achievement idea is a western idea- one that has spun so far out of control that people think it’s normal to be in pain and misery.  The disciples worked but they found purpose more from community, family and providing- but not for getting ahead purposes. Just getting by. But Jesus still thought they needed to rest. The disciples couldn’t have had a more important task- tell the world that there is a God. And even with that – rest was needed. There is no job too important to rest. Love cannot be achieved by more and more achievements.

So How do we rest?- the word in Greek means to refresh. In the text this morning we have 2 clues about how to rest.

1.To find Solitude- a quiet place- away from what you are resting from. Deserted.

2.To eat. Eating was more than just nourishment for the body- it was nourishment for the soul.

Jon and I realized this adds a lot to our life- being able to go out to eat- make good food at home, host people for meals- and our budget reflects this. This is where we splurge. We are going to Spain for our honeymoon because of the free tapas and the siestas- you think I’m joking. We are hoping Spain shows us something more about how to rest. We recently watched the Anthony Bourdain parts unknown episode where they went to Granada and no lie at least on the show they say it’s normal to have a beer and big lunch, have a siesta, and then later at night go out again for a drink and a free tapa. Every day and more on the weekends. I think to myself that can’t be but I’m about to find out.

As pandemic life recedes in the U.S., people are leaving their jobs in search of more money, more flexibility, and more happiness. Many are rethinking what work means to them, how they are valued, and how they spend their time. It’s leading to a dramatic increase in resignations — a record 4 million people quit their jobs in April alone, according to the Labor Department.

Jeremy Golembiewski has ideas about why. Last week, after 26 years in food service, he quit his job as general manager of a breakfast place in San Diego. The pandemic had a lot to do with it.

In the months that followed, Golembiewski’s life changed. He was spending time doing fun things like setting up a playroom in his garage for his two young children and cooking dinner for the family. At age 42, he got a glimpse of what life could be like if he didn’t have to put in 50 to 60 hours a week at the restaurant and miss Thanksgiving dinner and Christmas morning with his family.

“I want to see my 1-year-old and my 5-year-old’s faces light up when they come out and see the tree and all the presents that I spent six hours at night assembling and putting out,” says Golembiewski, who got his first restaurant job at 16 as a dishwasher at the Big Boy chain in Michigan.

So instead of returning to work last week, Golembiewski resigned, putting an end to his long restaurant career and to the unemployment checks that have provided him a cushion to think about what he’ll do next.

The great migration to remote work in the pandemic has also had a profound impact on how people think about when and where they want to work.

“We have changed. Work has changed. The way we think about time and space has changed,” says Tsedal Neeley, a professor at Harvard Business School and author of the book Remote Work Revolution: Succeeding From Anywhere. Workers now crave the flexibility given to them in the pandemic — which had previously been unattainable, she says.

Alyssa Casey, a researcher for the federal government, had often thought about leaving Washington, D.C., for Illinois, to be close to her parents and siblings. But she liked her job and her life in the city, going to concerts, restaurants and happy hours with friends.

With all of that on hold last year, she and her husband rented a house in Illinois just before the holidays and formed a pandemic bubble with their extended family for the long pandemic winter.

It has renewed her desire to make family a priority. She and her husband are now sure they want to stay in Illinois, even though she may have to quit her job, which she’s been doing remotely.

“I think the pandemic just allowed for time,” she says. “You just have more time to think about what you really want.”

Why does God want to offer us rest? What does rest do for us? What does it mean to refresh? Take a breather.

I think like this pandemic it gives you time- time to think. Time to reflect- reflect on your life, your relationships, how you want to spend your time.

I grew up with 2 financial advisors as parents- it is ingrained in me that work allows you to live in this world. And yet- as much as I love my job- most of my “living” comes from outside of work.

I am refreshed when I’m with my family- spending mornings drinking coffee and making weird breakfast concoctions with Jon. When we play hide and seek with my dog, Bryz in the dorms now that the students have left or that we figured out Bryz would play in the shower all day if we let him.

Rest might look different for different people- for me, it looks more like play. I don’t play enough so this is refreshing- this reminds me about what truly makes me happy- play.

All those in the NPR article seemed to be yearning for more time to play- with their kids, with their families, with their meals, with their pets, with their gardens.

Most people in our country don’t use all their vacation days. I don’t think it’s because they love their jobs so much. I think it’s because they forgot how to play.

There’s this scene in the movie stepmom that has always stayed with me- it’s a very sad movie- I’m a sucker for them. But the parents are divorced and the dad has a new younger girlfriend and the mom found out she is dying from cancer- she has 2 kids about 8 and 12. Once she realizes she doesn’t have much time left- she wants to spend her remaining time making memories with her kids. One night she wakes up her 12-year-old daughter in the middle of the night and they go horseback riding in the dark. It’s this beautiful scene of play- an unexpected, delightful play between a mom and a daughter.

I really don’t want to have to learn I’m dying to understand the importance of play. I don’t want to wait until I get a fatal diagnosis to reflect on what’s important to me.

I want to rest, reflect, refresh continually so I can remember to play.

You are all probably like oh no we hired someone who doesn’t care about work ethic- I care a great deal about work ethic but I believe you can have a good work ethic and care about what you want out of life at the same time. Our culture tells us you have to pick- but that’s a foolish dichotomy. You don’t have to pick. You have the power to do both. God’s kingdom is one of abundance- not scarcity.

You can eat well, play well, work well and rest well.

I don’t even need to ask who needs rest- the answer is a resounding yes.

But how do you rest? What does rest look like for you?

Is it setting aside daily quiet time? Going away on a girls’ weekend? Is it doing something silly like waking your kids up in the middle of the night to do something fun? Is it spending more money on recreating your favorite meal- you could get really crazy and make fancy cocktails with it too. Me giving you permission sure won’t do anything if God giving you permission doesn’t do anything- you need to give yourself permission to do this. What’s stopping you from giving yourself permission to rest, to play, to simply stop achieving?

This is my Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.

Matthew 3:13-17

We have two baptisms happening today and so we are looking at Jesus’ baptism this morning. Baptism is a symbolic way to wash away your sin so that you can start anew as one who has been claimed by God. It’s interesting that Jesus was baptized though because he didn’t have any sin. Jesus didn’t need to be baptized but he did so as a symbol and an example for people to follow. As Presbyterians, we don’t believe that baptism has any saving powers but that it is a ritual and spiritual rite of welcoming another member into the community of God. It is a celebration of bringing someone into belonging. It’s an invitation into a family who vows to show up and struggle with.  

Baptism is a community event because belonging is found in community and today we get to be reminded of our own baptisms and our own journey to find belonging. When we talk about remembering our baptism, that isn’t a call to an actual memory because most of us were too young to remember but it’s an opportunity to reflect that you belong to God and that you are an important addition to humanity.

After Jesus was baptized a voice came from the heavens and said, This is my beloved Son,^[d] with whom I am well pleased.” The voice from heaven could have said anything but it chose to make a claim- that the baptized is beloved and is pleasing to God. We are named and claimed, claimed by God, claimed as worthy before anyone can tell us differently.

This is the only claim that should matter. You belong because you are

Claims affect us- your social standing, your success, and often how you feel about yourself. Do you believe this voice is louder than the others? That this claim overshadows the false claims about who we are.

The claim on every one of us – This is my beloved, with whom I am well pleased.

Names affect us- names in the bible were especially important- each name had a meaning that told us something about what type of person they were. What do names say about us? What do they portray? Have you been given a nickname? or made fun of? What identity does the name give you or does it give you a false identity? Names have connotations- When you hear a name and it immediately conjures up a memory of someone from high school and you know you could never name your child that or you judge someone for having that name and have trouble seeing them as they are and not as this other person.

We are each given the name of beloved. What does the name beloved mean? What does that say about our identity? It does not just mean loved- it specifically means loved by God or divinely loved. What would it look like if you carried yourself as one who was divinely loved?

This is my beloved with whom I am well pleased.

 I’m on this Isaiah 43 kick- 1-7: it talks about what it means for God to call us by name. Maybe these verses can help us understand more the importance of being called by name.

”But now thus says the Lord, he who created you, O Jacob,
    he who formed you, O Israel: “Fear not, for I have redeemed you;   I have called you by name, you are mine.² When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;  and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned,
    and the flame shall not consume you. ³ For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. I give Egypt as your ransom, Cush and Seba in exchange for you. ⁴ Because you are precious in my eyes and honored, and I love you, I give men in return for you,  peoples in exchange for your life. ⁵ Fear not, for I am with you;  I will bring your offspring from the east,  and from the west, I will gather you. ⁶ I will say to the north, Give up,  and to the south, Do not withhold; bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the end of the earth, ⁷ everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory,  whom I formed and made.”- It reads so much like a poem or a drama that it can be hard to digest.  When you walk through fire, you will not get burned. I wish I knew this phrase in high school and I could recite it over and over to myself when I walked through the halls- or anywhere where you may have felt small or scared or like you didn’t fit in. In session this past week we talked about how God is calling IPC and more specifically what does it feel like for IPC to be called by name. We talked about how it means we have a unique calling- not quite like anyone else’s. We talked about how it can be uncomfortable to answer this call- that you might be called to do something you never thought you would. We talked about how it means for God to always be with us and that we will never be alone.

And we also talked about how just because God calls us by name and promises to always be with us doesn’t mean we won’t suffer. We might not burn in the fire but it doesn’t mean we won’t feel the heat. It doesn’t even mean God will stop the suffering. God knew this life would be unbearable at times and this is why we are called by name- so that when things feel too hard, too out of control, we can remember who we belong to and that we don’t have to go through this alone. And that just doesn’t mean God- in the spiritual sense- it means you are not alone because you have a whole community spanning all across the world- a community that has promised to welcome you and support you and struggle with you.

Weston and Elena will have struggles and they will not always feel like they belong but we can remind them that they are divinely loved and that claim trumps any other claim.

This is my beloved with whom I am well pleased.

Right after Jesus baptism he goes into the wilderness for 40 days- tempted- tried to deter him from being who he was. If we believe in baptism we also have to believe in the wilderness that comes after-  those that make us doubt who we are. Baptism helps us through the wilderness- baptism propels us into community. Baptism is about faith in community and in order to make it through the wilderness you need community. Every example we have of people in the wilderness we see that God meets them there- God helps them through.  The Israelites had each other, Jesus had the spirit. This is the saving act- getting by with the help of others- not doing it on your own. There’s nothing salvific about doing it alone- despite what our society tells us.  Baptism is not meant to be interpreted as a personal event that only safeguards yourself- it’s meant to bring us closer together into a community that helps each other on this journey.

So what is wilderness? Why is it here? And how do we learn from Jesus to resist the temptation it brings to lose oneself?

The wilderness in the bible is often an isolated, desolate place symbolizing feeling lost or exiled- not at home, in between where you came from and where you belong. We can have many wilderness experiences- anytime we are trying to discern something big or discover more who we are or when something turns our world upside down. We always wonder why God doesn’t stop these “wilderness” experiences from happening. But in these wilderness experiences- is where we grow and are forced to become dependent on others. This is where we learn the hard lesson that we can’t do it on our own and we shouldn’t try. But we do try and it takes until we are desperate to lean on our community because we don’t want to appear weak and grace is uncomfortable. At the presbytery, I do some admin work in setting up trainings and such to help pastors learn how to start new worshipping communities- at a training last week they told them they assess one’s social base- questions around emergency in the middle of the night-going on vacation with family or friends- knowing your neighbors well. If you are quickly realizing you failed this test- don’t fret because I hope we can be that for each other. I don’t think anyone in here would blink if you asked them for help.

Baptism is a symbol of our belonging- we don’t start to understand that until we allow ourselves to be a part of a community- to depend on other people. It’s terrifying. To allow other people to affect your feelings, your happiness. It’s vulnerable and risky and you know- it’s a choice. You don’t ever have to do this. Some people don’t. You can try and live your life on your own- be in control of your own emotions. You can see where that gets you. But I think in Baptism God gives us an invitation to not do life alone. God invites us into faith-lived-in community. God invites us into something more fulfilling and whole. God invites us into belonging. The thing is sometimes this belonging takes awareness to know we have the power of giving it. For example

There was a guy on one of my floors when I worked in the psychiatric ward in the VA hospital who had paranoid schizophrenia. He was a quaint elderly man who had the softest eyes and bright white hair. You couldn’t understand a word of what he said though. For some reason and I’m not quite sure why (I should have asked a nurse) but his words came out too fast and sounding almost like a different language. He seemed to understand what I said but when he answered I couldn’t understand anything. But one day he came up to me and he looked at me, reached out his hands, and said the word prayer audible enough for me to hear it. I assumed he wanted me to pray for him so I said sure and took his hands and he started praying the Lord’s Prayer and I could understand every word clear as day so I started praying with him- in the middle of the hallway with people walking all around us, we stood there holding hands reciting the Lord’s Prayer. Every time he saw me since then,  he would come up to me and we would do just that. I didn’t have any other interactions with him but for those 2 minutes- that man belonged. And it is to be celebrated. What if I wasn’t aware of what this moment could be? What if I didn’t realize the significance of these words to him or recognize that this had the potential to make him feel safe and understood and not alone? Would he experience this same belonging with any person there?  Could this be an extension of my baptismal vows- to make an effort to bring others into belonging?

Maybe for a moment, this man was reminded of God’s words “this is my beloved, with whom I am well pleased”.

How can you uphold your baptismal vows to bring someone into belonging? How can you remind yourself that you are divinely loved and you could walk through (figurative) fire and not be burned? Could this symbol of baptism have a real effect on our lives and who we know ourselves to be? I think so. Amen.