Our Souls are Restless Until They Find Rest in You.

Last week flew by.  With the end of internship nearing and the last year of seminary coming quickly on its heels (not to mention preparing for the GRE and PhD applications and my approval essay for ordination in the ELCA), I am guessing I will be saying this most weeks.  Phew.  I have to remind myself that there is a reason life only comes one day at a time.  Unlike most weeks, I finished my sermon on Friday instead of Saturday evening.  Ironically, the Gospel text for tomorrow (Mark 6:30-56, selected verses...) talks about rest - but I don't think it talks about rest in the way we would expect.

Do you ever become curious what is left out when we skip verses at church?  Perhaps it’s the obsessive desire to do things in proper order, to not skip over anything, to not do it halfway, to not miss out on something because I was busy looking the other way (have I mentioned I can count on my hands the number of naps I have taken since I was 2 years old?) that always makes me curious when verses are left out… It’s hard to get a picture of what is really happening between Mark 6:30 and Mark 6:56 without checking out what happens between these two verses. 

What happens, between “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,” and “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?”  The feeding of the 5,000, a storm at sea (not to mention Jesus walking on water), and a whole bunch of healing and preaching and teaching.  There is no rest.

What do you suppose Jesus was thinking, as they approached Gennesaret and saw the crowds lining up at the shore?

What do you suppose the disciples were thinking?

What do you suppose the people were thinking?

With whom do you identify in this story?

I’m not sure we really understand what is at stake here and, even talking about it and thinking about it, I’m still not sure we could understand what it must have been to be these people, bringing out their sick to Jesus.  In a society that was even more stratified than ours today, with the wealthy and the poor, the healthy and the sick, the clean and the unclean divided according to their respective groups. This transgresses all of the boundaries so carefully constructed.  I can imagine the people, running to shore, “Did you hear about this Jesus guy?  He heals the sick and feeds the hungry…” and they started paying attention to all of those people: the ones strewn about the sides of the road, people who they might have ignored before because to touch one of these people would make good Jews unclean. 

They touched people who were untouchable, and the untouchable touched God.  The people in the crowd who brought these people weren’t worried about the divisions in their society, and they didn’t seem concerned about contracting whatever illnesses the people whom they carried had.  What in Jesus’ message would have done that?  Why would they have done this?  There must have been something that would have made these people, who would have ordinarily left the sick to their own devices, carry them to the shore.  What is more, they did not just carry these people to the outskirts of town, where they could remain safely ostracized from society.  The sick were carried to the marketplaces, to the place where people congregated and met, drank strong tea and gossiped about life.

This image is so beautiful, of people letting down their boundaries and loving someone else enough they’d be willing to let go of their own conceived notions of cleanliness and holiness to bring them to Jesus.  As I stop to marvel at the beauty of this image, I feel a pit in the bottom of my stomach as the dreaded question comes: “And what makes them so different from you, Mandy?”

I tell myself that it might have something to do with the fact that Jesus was actually there.  I tell myself that it must have been somehow easier for them to let go of their obligations and their pride than it is for me.  We tell ourselves all sorts of things that help us pass by our neighbors who are less fortunate without a second thought: “He’ll just use the money I give him to buy alcohol anyway,”  or “She’s just looking for a handout,” or  “I hope they can get some help someday.” 

Jesus and the disciples would have had a great vacation if he had said this. Jesus and the disciples could have legitimately justified doing this; they were so busy they didn’t even have time to eat, and this was before the feeding of the 5,000 and yet another storm at sea.  They could have walked through the maze of mats set before them, watched as the smiling and waving faces fell when he refused to make eye contact, and been on their way to the beach on the Sea of Galilee, but this is not what happened. 

Am I saying that rest from work or vacation are bad and that we should be more like the disciples and Jesus?  Well, not exactly.  I do think, however, that this does prevent us from reading the beginning of the story and thinking, “Wow, I have a lot in common with Jesus… I totally know how it feels to be so spent and to just need a break.”  You might know how it feels to be spent and to need rest but to find none.  You all probably know what it is like to be heading for vacation only to find a whole bunch of things seem to come up at the last minute before you leave.  You might even know how it feels to help bear the burdens of another’s sickness, or another’s guilt, or another’s pain like the people in the crowd.

You might be like Jesus; you might be like the disciples; you might be like the crowd.  These stories have a way of showing us different parts of ourselves in each of the different characters… so you can probably guess where I am going with this: I think there is a distinct possibility that you and I have a lot in common with the person on the mat.  What if countless people, some of whom you are aware, but many of whom you are not, have carried you, bearing your burdens, your struggles, and your fears?  No, you might say; I have pretty much had to do it all by myself my whole life.  Okay, let me ask you this:  How often, when you go on vacation, do you think about all the people who have to work so that you can drive on the roads, stay in a hotel or campground, go out to eat, be safe at the beach…?  While we rest and get away from it all, countless people work, bearing our burdens so that we can rest. 

I think faith works similarly.  Faith is not something that happens in a vacuum where you and Jesus get away from the rest of the world.  It happens in community, where we all actually have to face those other people that Jesus also cares about.  For all the times we might pass others by, Jesus does not.  For all the times others might pass you by, Jesus does not.  Jesus looks directly act you and says, “’Daughter,’ ‘Son,’ you who were once far off are now drawn near; you who were once called “alien” and “stranger” are called “community.” 

Jesus and the disciples could have gone on their way, looking past all of these people, and had a great vacation.  In his compassion, Jesus refuses to do so.  Likewise, Jesus could have had a long career if he had just played by the rules, maintaining the divisions between wealty and poor, healthy and sick, clean and unclean, careful to not make too many waves so that he could walk through the system unnoticed, but he didn’t.  Jesus, in his refusal to look past you, goes to the cross.  It is in this promise – that you will never be invisible, lost, or forsaken – that you truly find your rest.  As a quote attributed to Augustine says, "Our souls are restless until they find rest in you."  In the end, Jesus and his disciples may have never found the rest they sought; but the people who sought them did, leaving their mats, their burdens, their sicknesses, and their fears behind them.