God's Work as Rest: Mark 6:30-34, 53-56 - Eighth Sunday after Pentecost

 ³⁰The apostles gathered around Jesus, and told him all that they had done and taught. ³¹He said to them, “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. ³²And they went away in the boat to a deserted place by themselves. ³³Now many saw them going and recognized them, and they hurried there on foot from all the towns and arrived ahead of them. ³⁴As he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things.

  ⁵³When they had crossed over, they came to land at Gennesaret and moored the boat. ⁵⁴When they got out of the boat, people at once recognized him, ⁵⁵and rushed about that whole region and began to bring the sick on mats to wherever they heard he was. ⁵⁶And wherever he went, 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.

A place to rest. by Bernard Spragg. NZ on flickr. CC0 1.0

Just before I started seminary, my grandfather introduced me to a friend of his who was also a retired pastor. Prior to retirement, he counseled burned out pastors.

He said to me, “Be sure and take your days off. I counseled a pastor who didn’t take a single day off in nineteen years.”

I am amazed that anyone could work for seven thousand consecutive days. There’s certainly no room to question his dedication to his work. But is this what faithfulness to God looks like?

Today’s Gospel presents us with something we rarely consider about Jesus: he was subject to human limitations. He could not be in two places at once. He could not please everyone all the time. Just like you.

For as eager as Jesus was to love people, heal the sick, and preach the kingdom of God, he got tired and needed rest. Just like you. This wasn’t a matter of choice. This was human necessity.

In today’s Gospel, so many people were coming to Jesus that he and his disciples didn’t even have time to eat. So they got onto a boat and attempted to get away to a deserted place by themselves. But the crowds followed them, and were waiting for them on the shore. 

So if you’ve ever felt overwhelmed as a worker, a parent, a caregiver, or servant of the church, Jesus most certainly knows how you feel. At the same time, we define Christian discipleship in terms of work. It’s serving, stewarding, teaching, studying, planning, preparing, building, and repairing. Just consider how much work it takes for us to be church! Nothing you see around you just happens without tremendous time and effort. So many people are hurting. Everywhere you look there are sheep without a shepherd. There is enough work to be done that each one of us could work every single day for the next nineteen and still there’d be more work to do.

Therefore, we must be careful in our understanding of what it means to be disciples—because if we define it exclusively in terms of work and activity, we’re missing the big picture. It can’t always be work. Discipleship also demands rest. 

And what is this rest, you ask? It is to retreat from all the noise and voices calling out for your attention;  it is to slow down and quiet your pace; it is to turn off and tune out to the rest of the world; it is to gather in all the exhaustion, all the stress, all the anxiety, and open yourselves to be served by Jesus. 

Have you ever prayed by telling God exactly how you feel in that moment? When you open your bible or your devotional booklet, do you tell God that you are hungry and thirsty for grace? When you come to church, do you find it hard to pay attention because there’s so much on your mind—or because you’re tired? When you fall asleep in church (and we’ve all done it), that doesn’t mean you’re lazy or disinterested. It means that you need the rest Jesus wants to give you!

It is not a sin to be weary and exhausted. Unlike the rest of the world, Jesus doesn’t judge you by how productive you are or how many people you please. In fact, Jesus accepts weariness, exhaustion, and stress as offerings—because you are acknowledging how much you need him in your life. 

When it comes to us as a congregation, we so easily fall into the trap of thinking that in order to be a faithful and growing congregation, we must launch new programs and new outreach ministries. In other words, we must do more work. But have you ever stopped to consider that the neighbor needs rest just as much as they need your good works? So how do we give it to them?

Again, we proclaim good news that Jesus welcomes weary, stressed, and broken people. But to truly rest from your burdens, you must be able to speak about them before others who listen without judgment. You must feel safe to cry, to vent, to speak honestly and openly about whatever it is you are feeling. This is what makes our GriefShare ministry, and recovery groups like Alcoholics Anonymous so effective in healing people. We must take off the masks we so proudly wear which tell the world that we’re strong, hard-working people who have it all together. We must be honest—that without Jesus, we are but bits and pieces. Sharing in our human brokenness together means that we are opening ourselves up to the amazing grace that heals our wounds and refreshes our souls. That is what rest is truly all about. For when you have nothing else to give, you are most open for Jesus to give you his everything. 

A life lived in faithfulness to Jesus is not the sum total of your good works. After all, we know as Lutherans that we are not saved by our own good works, but by Jesus’s good works. Without Jesus, the flesh is useless. You must be served by Jesus: to be fed by him, to be taught by him, to be cared for by him, to rest in him, and be saved by him. 

When your body is bone-tired, your mind is spinning like a top, and your soul can’t handle any more, hear the voice offJesus calling out to you: come away with me to a quiet place and rest a while. This is God’s work that Jesus does for you.

You cannot walk with Jesus, you cannot serve with Jesus, and you cannot live for Jesus—unless you rest in Jesus.