July 22, 2012
© 2012
I.
Wayne Muller is a therapist, minister,
consultant, speaker and author who lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Roger is a
thoughtful physician and one of Wayne’s clients. Physicians
are trained to work when they're exhausted, required to perform when they are
sleep-deprived, hurried and overloaded. Roger told Wayne, “I discovered in
medical school, that the more exhausted I was, the more tests I would order. I
was too tired to see precisely what was going on with my patients. I could
recognize their symptoms and formulate possible diagnoses, but I couldn't hear
precisely how it fit together. So I would order tests to give me what I was
missing. But when I was rested--if I had an opportunity to get some sleep, or
meditate, or go for a quiet walk --I could rely on my intuition and experience
to tell me what was needed. If there was any uncertainty, I would order a
specific test to confirm my diagnosis. But when I was rested and could listen
and be present, I was almost always right.”
Wayne writes, “I speak with
people in business and education, doctors and day-care workers, shopkeepers and
social workers, parents and teachers, nurses and lawyers, students and
therapists, community activists and cooks. Remarkably, within this mosaic there
is a universal refrain: ‘I am so busy.’ We say this to one another with no
small degree of pride, as if our exhaustion were a trophy, our ability to
withstand stress a mark of real character. Because we do not rest, we lose our
way.” http://www.waynemuller.com/cool_stuff/articles_and_excerpts/whatever_happened_to_sunday
A.
I
had the opportunity to hear Wayne Muller speak at Presbyterian Hospital in
Dallas a few years ago. What he said stuck with me, confirming and expanding
the rhythm of my spiritual disciplines. He recommended 1 minute of Sabbath
every hour, 1 hour of Sabbath every day, 1 day of Sabbath every week, and 1
week of Sabbath every year.
B.
When
I was in junior high our family’s vacation took us through Grand Rapids,
Michigan on Sunday. We could not find a gas station or restaurant open in town.
Later in life I did some Christian education seminars, consulting and
curriculum writing for the Christian Reformed Church based in Grand Rapids. I
learned from these folk, who had a healthy self-deprecating humor, the debates
within the Dutch Reformed tradition about what activities were and were not
acceptable on Sunday. You could read the Sunday paper if you bought it Saturday
evening but you could not have it delivered Sunday morning. Any outdoor chores
that might be observed by your neighbors were verboten: washing the car, mowing
the lawn. Of course, a Saturday night snowfall was shoveled Sunday morning so
you could drive to church. With the advent of transistor radios with ear
phones, men and boys listened to sports they would never dare to watch on TV. We
may bemoan that Sunday has become as commercial and busy as every other day, but
we wouldn’t want to go back to blue laws or the harsh Sabbath enforcements of
colonial Massachusetts. We can find great freedom in the practice of Sabbath if
we do not think of it in terms of what we can’t do but what we don’t have to
do.
C.
In
the Gospels Jesus is constantly in trouble for his refusal to follow all the
Sabbath rules, but he was not anti-Sabbath. In Mark 2:27 he said, “The Sabbath
was made for mankind, and not mankind for the Sabbath.” When the Ten
Commandments are repeated in Deuteronomy 5:15, the people are told, “Remember that you were a slave in the
land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from
there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm; therefore the Lord
your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day.” Sabbath was a sign of freedom and liberation. The
Israelites were no longer slaves. They could rest one day a week and no task
master could force them to work.
D.
If
you put rest in your rhythm, God will catch up to you for a chat.
II.
Mark’s
Gospel frequently tells stories in sandwiches. After starting the action, a
contrasting narrative in inserted, and then the story climaxes. Mark 6:30-34 is
the conclusion of the story of Jesus sending his 12 disciples out in pairs to
preach and heal. It is interrupted by the death of John the Baptist we talked
about last week. Now we get the rest of the story.
The 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.
A.
In
this Gospel sandwich, we get a snapshot of a rhythm Jesus repeats many times
with his disciples. Learn by watching and listening to me. Go out and serve in
my name. Take a rest and refresh your relationship with me. Then learn some
more as you repeat the cycle.
B.
Jesus
was not at all hesitant for the disciples to get away for some solitude and
rest. Yes, when he went ashore and saw the great crowd he had compassion for
them. But notice that he taught them; he didn’t give the disciples an
assignment until evening came and they were hungry. Neither we nor the
disciples are Jesus. We are not obligated to respond to every need we
encounter. As guilty as they may feel, famine relief workers know they must eat
better food than they are distributing or they won’t have the strength to help
anyone. If you fail to rest, eventually you will fail to serve.
C.
All
through the Gospels Jesus gets away for rest and prayer, and he lead the
disciples to rest and pray as well, even if something urgent interrupts the
rhythm. If you kept reading to Mark 6:46, you’d see Jesus go up the mountain
alone to pray.
D.
If
you put rest in your rhythm, God will catch up to you for a chat.
III. When King David wanted to build a Temple for God, he
was looking to provide holy ground for meeting God. He desired a place where he
and the people of Israel could get away from the pressures of live to rest and
refresh their relationship with God. Unfortunately, this was contaminated by
his ambition to accomplish something important for God.
A.
At first the
prophet Nathan gave David the go ahead to do what was in his mind, for God was
with him. But what was in David’s mind was not what was in God’s mind. God
wasn’t interested in a cedar palace. God was mobile, not confined to any one
place, certainly not controlled by David or anyone else.
B.
David’s desire to
build a Temple is certainly understandable, but much as Wayne Muller wrote
about how we inflate our self-importance with busyness, David had his
perspective, not Gods. A careful reading of 2 Samuel 7 reveals that David
is not the main character in the story, God is!
C.
If
you put rest in your rhythm, God will catch up to you for a chat.
IV. The interim period for 1st
Christian Church, Duncanville is coming to a conclusion. I don’t know if you’d
describe it as a time of rest, but I do hope you think of this year we’ve spent
together as a time of learning. Pastor David will be with you in September, and
you will head into a new season of service.
A.
The
only places in Mark’s Gospel that Jesus’ disciples are called apostles are 6:30
and 3:14. In both instances, Jesus is sending them on a mission. The word
apostle means someone who is sent with a message or mission. Sometimes you will
hear people speak about the Church’s apostolic tradition as though it refers to the
authentic, approved teaching that came from the apostles. The way the New Testament
uses apostle has more to do with the tradition of being sent by Jesus.
B.
Jesus
is sending Pastor David to 1st Christian Church, Duncanville to lead
you on new apostolic mission. All around you are people who are like sheep
without a shepherd. Yes, the time is fast approaching to mobilize for action,
but busyness engulfs people. Compassion for them does not mean getting
overwhelmed yourselves, but practicing the rhythm of learn, serve and rest.
Exhausted people will flock to Jesus for rest.
C.
When
God declines King David’s offer to build a Temple, God promises to build the
household of David. The real Temple is not this building or the institution of
this congregation. You as a community of faith are the real temple, as
Ephesians 2:19b-22 says so eloquently.
You are citizens with the
saints and also members of the household of God,20built
upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as
the cornerstone.21In him the whole structure is joined together and grows into a
holy temple in the Lord;22in whom you also are built
together spiritually into a dwelling place for God.
D.
If
you put rest in your rhythm, God will catch up to you for a chat.
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