Be Still & Know
From Pastor Heidi Eickstadt’s Sermon on 7/18/2021
Rest. We talk about how much we long for it but taking time to rest is so much easier said than done, right? It’s like that project lying around our house that we bought the stuff for, but never quite seem to get the time to work on. Rest becomes one of those things we’ll get to when things slow down at work, when your baby starts sleeping through the night, when you’ve finally got that diploma and no more papers to write till 2am. Perhaps rest will happen when your kids graduate and go to college or maybe when you’re retired. Or maybe when you get through the holidays, or maybe, ironically, you get through that vacation. How many times have you felt like you need a vacation after your vacation?
Rest seems like a luxury that only a few can afford and it can even sometimes be seen as a shameful transgression in our go-go-go society where busyness and exhaustion are worn as badges of honor. But we’re told that rest is what Jesus instructs the disciples to do in our Gospel reading for today. Jesus doesn’t say to rest someday, he doesn’t say it’s something to consider or think about. It’s not a request, it’s a command.
It’s a command because Jesus knows that rest is necessary in order to recover from the frenzied pace of life, for the disciples and for us too. According to Mark, the disciples weren’t even able to eat, there had been so many people asking them for help and so much work to do! So surely, they deserve some nice lodgings, a hearty meal and some good wine after all their exhausting travels! But where does Jesus take them? The desert. Just a wild guess but that’s probably not what they had in mind.
The disciples may have wanted to make up for all those meals they’ve missed but Jesus knows what they need is actually a place of stillness more than comfort and good food. A place of stillness that can help them quiet their spirits, quiet minds that typically replay the past or worry about the future and are rarely in the present. A place of stillness where they can take the time to pray and actually listen for the still small voice of God.
Jesus also knows that a place of stillness is necessary for us to listen to ourselves and face our insecurities. When you’re in the wilderness of the desert, there’s no escaping yourself, there’s no distractions like Netflix, sports, TV…distractions like surfing the web and social media to keep our minds occupied from our self-doubts, anxieties and fears that we push away by being too busy to think about them…
In the desert, you have to spend time with yourself. And that can be hard, even painful. But necessary. Necessary for us to stop running from ourselves and all the insecurities that keep us from loving and accepting ourselves, the good and the bad, the beautiful and the ugly. Necessary for us to face the insecurities that keep us from loving ourselves and experiencing compassion for ourselves. Because when you can’t love, accept or experience compassion for yourself, it’s hard to experience it for others. Or believe in a God that has it for you and for everybody.
But Jesus does experience compassion. He is moved by the sight of a crowd that has frantically scrambled to meet him, even in the desert. They have nowhere else to turn for healing, guidance, hope. His compassion moves him to postpone his plans for a desert retreat with the disciples and instead, he teaches the crowd.
Now, at this point, I am saying to myself, hey, Jesus, what about this rest thing you just told me to do? What am I supposed to do, not ever rest because there’s suffering in the world? But then I read the verses that were left out of today’s reading and I realized that after teaching and feeding the crowd, Jesus DOES takes time to go up to the mountain to pray. And he doesn’t forget about the disciples or lack compassion for them in their exhausted state. After feeding them along with the crowd, he sends them off on the boat as he dismisses the people, so that the disciples could get some needed rest, some peace and quiet.
Both compassion AND rest. Both compassion for ourselves AND also for others. Both time for working AND for praying. We live in that tension of both/and in a world that screams either/or. It’s hard to carve out the time to rest, even for Jesus. But it’s not optional.
As a seminary professor of mine often said, we’re like water bottles: If you keep pouring yourself out without stopping to refill yourself, pretty soon you’re going to run out of water. You’re not going to be of any use to anybody, including yourself. So how will you fill up your water bottle this week?
I read this neat idea on another pastor’s blog that I think may be helpful for us, myself included. Pastor David Lose invites us to think of 2 things and write them down or type them in the notes app on your phone.
Number 1. Write down what you’re NOT going to do this week so that you free up some time for refreshing your spirit. Maybe that’s not checking your work email when you get home or after work hours. Maybe it’s canceling an appointment in an overscheduled day. Maybe that’s not checking social media for an evening, or maybe, maybe, maybe even shutting off your phone for a few hours!
And Number 2. What WILL you do this week to refresh your spirit? Will you get up early for some quiet time with God? Will you make time to have coffee with that friend you’ve been missing but just too busy to meetup with? Will you spend a meal in conversation instead of sitting in front of the TV?
Everybody write down your two things and I invite you to email me or tell me next Sunday whether or not it made a difference in your week. Was it difficult? Was it refreshing? Did it help you fill your water bottle back up? Did it help you have more compassion for yourself and for others?
I look forward to hearing your responses as I too will be intentional about writing down one thing I will NOT DO to free up time for refreshing my spirit and writing down one thing I WILL do to refresh my spirit. And I will be intentional about actually implementing those things that I write down. I’ll share about my experience with you on Holy Trinity’s social media and I invite you to respond or comment and share yours too!
Be Still and Know that I am God. This is our invitation and command from God…To stop and listen to the God we are called to serve to see what that God actually wants us to do and be in this place and time, to stop and trust in God instead of our own wisdom and guidance.
I listen to a lot of podcasts and one of them is by a teacher and author named James Finley. He works for a place called the Center for Action and Contemplation, a place that teaches the both/and nature of our faith, both spirituality AND compassion for others. Both rest AND action. In this podcast, James Finley ends the episode inviting you to spend a few minutes in contemplation and silence with God. He starts every session with the verse from Psalm 46, saying:
Be Still and know that I am God
Be Still and know that I am
Be Still and know
Be Still
Be
May we make room for rest this week, to be still and know that God is God, not me.To be still and know that God is the Great I AM. To be still and know God in the stillness. May we make room in our lives to be still in mind, body and spirit and press pause on all that says it’s more important than God.
May we make room to be, to rest in God’s presence, to be who God has created us to be, receiving God’s presence and love, filling up our water bottle to act and to share that love and compassion with others. Let us Rest in a God who is moved by compassion for all of us and all the world and who will never stop acting to heal us and shepherd us into the Kingdom with Love. Thanks be to God. Amen.