Our Gospel reading today is kind of an odd one—it’s cut and paste scripture from just before and after the feeding of the five thousand. The disciples have just returned from being sent out for the first time, a reading we heard about a few weeks back. As I prepped this week, the piece that stuck out to me the most was Jesus’ guidance to the disciples to “come away to a deserted place by yourselves and rest awhile…”
As many of you may know, yesterday, we had the first large wedding here at Trinity in a while—my first wedding ever, and the first wedding since I arrived at Trinity. It was a beautiful day, all went over very well—we had a lively group of 80 people. But it turns out events like this, for a place that is relearning a pattern of doing them, is kind of exhausting. It was pulled off in large part because of a few volunteers from Trinity who, after the set up and take down of the day was done, lovingly nudged me towards my own form of rest in this moment—and so, today the words that I will share are not my own, but instead are the words of Debie Thomas, a writer that I turn to often for my own learning and spiritual comfort. I consider this to be a manifestation, hopefully an example from your priest, of the ways we live in community with each other—to protect the boundaries, peace, and rest of one another so that we all can all be reminded to rest in God, so that we are able to continue our ministry with God…
In her sermon, the Gift of Rest, Debie Thomas explores how our culture has a hard time finding—particularly post pandemic, when the lines of home and work became very blurred—a sense of balance and rhythm…she writes… “We can’t get started. We can’t wind down. We’re anxious, sleepless, overstimulated, and bored… The lectionary this week offers us a way out. Specifically, it offers us a portrait of Jesus we rarely consider. A Jesus who believes in rest.”
When I read the Gospels, I tend to envision a brisk and efficient Messiah — full of purpose but short on time — striding from village to synagogue to hilltop to seaside, a whirlwind of miracles, parables, and life-changing conversations swirling around him. In fact, for most of my life, I have regarded Jesus as a sleepless zealot, striving to save the world before his clock runs down.
But a high-strung workaholic is not who emerges in our Gospel reading this week. Instead, we find a Jesus who recognizes, honors, and tends to his own tiredness. We encounter a teacher who pulls his overheated disciples away from their labor and striving. We discover a savior who probes below the surfaces of our busyness and pinpoints the hunger our manic culture won’t allow us to name: the hunger for space, reflection, solitude, nourishment, recreation, rest, and sleep.
Having spent a few days now with this lectionary, I wonder if the striving, hurrying Jesus I usually conjure in my head is really Jesus at all. Maybe he’s a distorted mirror image of [us]. [Our] anxiety. [Our] perfectionism. [Our] dread of “wasting" time. [Our] conflation of striving with virtue.
Our Gospel reading […] describes the return of the disciples from their first ministry tour — their inauguration into apostleship. We see them on fire, bursting with thrilling stories of the healings, exorcisms, and effective evangelistic campaigns they’ve pulled off on their own for the first time. They are wired. Excited. Caffeinated. Ready. In their minds, what they need is their next project from Jesus. Their next divine mission. In their minds, the crowds are waiting, and it's time to go.
But Jesus disagrees. Where the disciples see energy, Jesus sees overstimulation. Where the disciples see a tightly packed schedule, Jesus sees a poor sense of balance and rhythm. Where the disciples see invincibility, Jesus sees need. The need to debrief and reflect. The need to eat, pray, play, and sleep. The need to learn the art of solitude.
Perhaps Jesus senses that the disciples have darker stories to share with him, too — stories that will take time and tenderness to unearth. Stories of failure and rejection. Stories of doubt. Hard stories they need to process privately with their teacher. Whatever the case, Jesus recognizes that the disciples need a break. They're wired, tired, underfed, and in significant need of rest.
"Let's go off by ourselves to a quiet place and rest awhile," he says to his disciples as the crowds throng around them at the edge of the Sea of Galilee. "Come away with me," is how another translation puts it, and I hear both wisdom and love in these words. Jesus wants to provide a time of rest and recuperation for his friends. He wants to make sure that their zeal for ministry — for success in ministry — doesn’t become an idol. A drug. He wants to make sure that they value being more than doing.
Lesson One for me? Pay more attention to the "throwaway" passages in the Gospels, those little transition verses which often precede or follow the "main events" of Jesus' life story. Passages like Luke 5:16: "But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed." Or Mark 11:12: "The next day as they were leaving Bethany, Jesus was hungry." Or Matthew 8:24: "Jesus was sleeping." Or Mark 7:24: "He didn't want anyone to know which house he was staying in."
In these "minor" verses, I see essential glimpses of Jesus's human life. His need to withdraw, his desire for solitary prayer, his physical hunger, his sleepiness, his inclination to hide. These glimpses take nothing away from Jesus's divinity; they enhance it, making it richer and all the more mysterious. They remind me that the doctrine of the Incarnation truly is Christianity's best gift to the world. God — the God of the whole universe — hungers, sleeps, eats, rests, withdraws, and grieves. In all of these mundane but crucial ways, our God is like us. Our God rests.
Of course, this lesson isn’t new; it runs through Scripture from its earliest pages. In Genesis, God rests on the seventh day, and calls the Sabbath holy for all future generations. Honoring this is no small feat in our 21st century lives, where every hour of every day is measured in profits gained or advantages lost. For me, rest never comes naturally. I forget about it. I fear it. I resist it. To remember that God rests, that Jesus rests, is startling and humbling. How dare I keep running on fumes when Jesus himself insists that his followers do otherwise? The Sabbath is the only thing in the creation account that God calls "holy." We would do well to pay attention.
We’re meant to “come away.” To honor the rhythms and borders of work and play, inside and outside, online and in-person, sleep and wakefulness. It’s not a coincidence that Jesus asks his disciples to leave the noise and crowds behind. Sometimes, we need deep silence. We need to unplug.
Fortunately, we follow a Savior who is unapologetic about his need for rest and solitude. Who sees no shame in retreating when he and his disciples need a break. Who does so even when the needs around him continue to press in on all sides.
Jesus is able to do this because he trusts God enough to let go. Even as he honors his vocation, and keeps his commitments, he doesn’t hoard the limelight, or allow his disciples to imagine that their faith makes them invincible. In the end, the work of the kingdom is God’s. We are precious and beloved, yes. But we’re not indispensable. God will survive our naps. It is more than okay to rest. Amen.
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