A real rest

Rev. Dr. Rod Sykes’ reflection for July 6, 2008

Read: Matthew 11:16-30

Ahhh, the glories of summer! Sweltering afternoons that vibrate to the sleepy song of the cicada, lulling us to sleep in our hammock among the pines, the wavelets on the lake gently slapping against the dock, marshmallow clouds ballooning up into the limitless azure sky. Ahhh, the glories of summer...

Or... maybe not? The family camping trip in a rented RV, for instance, is prone to mishap because of:

The challenges of the technology...

Driver error...

And the fact that the “open road” is sometimes not so open...

Yes, on our holidays we try to achieve all our fondest hopes for delightful adventure. We try to find re-creation in our recreation. As a result many folks in our society end up tearing across the highways and roaring through the woodlands in an almost frantic chase after the rest for which our souls pine. The risk, of course, is that we may come home from holiday more exhausted than when we started out.

As the Gospels portray him, Jesus never took a vacation, not in our sense (in the peasant world he inhabited holidays were simply unimaginable). But he how to engage in a real rest. In Eugene H. Peterson’s wonderful paraphrase, The Message, Jesus as Matthew presents him offers to show us “how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace.”

“The unforced rhythms of grace”. What a wonderful phrase. We yearn so strongly for a break from our hectic, overscheduled, overburdened lives. Could it be, though, that the release we need will come not through our escaping from our lives but through our entering more deeply into them?

Buddhist traditions speak of the spiritual practice of “mindfulness”. To be “mindful” is to concentrate intensely on the moment. To be “mindful” is to let go of memories that may crowd in and put aside anxieties about the future. And isn’t that what we intuitively want our vacations to do for us – to sharpen our “mindfulness”? We engage in vacation travel in order to break the normal pattern of our living and introduce a new pattern. We consult travel guides and go on conducted tours in order to pause and see what is actually right in front of us. That is part of what is meant by an “unforced rhythm” in living: to enter an experience, then to dwell more deeply into it.

A local example: every day (almost) we can see from Calgary the Rocky Mountains on our western horizon. But we are rarely mindful of them. Only when we intentionally go to spend time among those peaks does their full majesty and stimulating variety force itself upon our notice. Only when we give them our full attention can they work their magic upon us, reminding us of our place in the great stretches of geological time, perhaps thereby helping us to reorient ourselves more modestly within the world.

Jesus was innately skilled at being “mindful”. For one thing, he payed intense attention to every person he met. That was how he could connect so strongly with them, and sense their particular need for God which he could enable them to satisfy.

For another thing, he gave himself moments to pause. He would work hard, healing and teaching. But then he would withdraw into moments of solitude and silence and communion with God, times when he could go deep into the underlying meaning of the things that were happening around him. As I said, he never took a holiday, but he knew how really to rest.

He invites us to imitate him. He demonstrates mindfulness. His example beckons us to live every day in that easy rhythm of grace: working and playing; giving and taking; conversing and being silent; living on the surface of things as we often must, but also pausing and going deep.

As you come to the table to which Jesus invites you today, notice how here, in his ritual meal, the “unforced rhythms of grace” are present. We move along the surface of the ritual, saying the familiar words, rehearsing the familiar actions of thanking and breaking, pouring and sharing. But these are also all potent symbols, symbols which call out to us to pause and ponder. They are markers of the blessing that Jesus has given to us through his living and dying and living again, grace which sustains our spirits. So come today mindfully to his table, and be fed in body and spirit.

Ahhh, the glories of summer. And the glories of every day, which can bring us true rest and refreshment, if we will attend to and follow the rhythm of Jesus’ life.

May it be so.