The Quick Get-away
Mark 6:30-34
When I was working, I remember how much I needed to take some time off even if it was for only a few days or a couple of weeks. It was a time in which there were no firm time restrictions and few schedules to keep. We decided what we would do “day by day”. When we decided to go to the mainland or over to Salt Spring Island, we didn’t “run” for ferries because it didn’t really matter if we missed one and had to wait for another. It was truly a time of rest, recreation, and renewal. It is good to have those times because I would come back to the work tasks that lay before me in much better state that when I left them. We needed this “break”.
There is no doubt that Jesus and his disciples needed “a break” from their hectic activity. We read in today’s Gospel that when “the disciples gathered around Jesus, and told him all that they had done and taught, He said to them, ‘Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest awhile’. For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat.” (Mark 6:30) They needed some time to themselves. They needed a quick get-away.
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I am certain that we all need these times of rest, recreation, and renewal. Most of us have lives filled with activity. We are busy doing a whole lot of things never thinking to ask what we are busy about. There are things we have to do by a certain time. There are other people’s expectations that you probably feel that you should satisfy. There are your own expectations that you need to satisfy. There are demands made on us. Then there are times you that you have to make decisions that are unpopular. Often we feel alone. Our activities and decisions are accompanied by taxing emotions- the feelings of guilt, loneliness and even anger. The more we “keep on keeping on” the more exhausted we get. In the midst of all this feverish activity we need to hear the words of Jesus, “Come away…and rest while”.
To avoid the call to rest or to say that you don’t have time is like saying that you are too busy driving to fill your car up with gas. Sooner or later it catches up to you
On Andrew Greeley’s Homily page on the Internet there is a story by Dr. Mary G. Durkin of a woman who volunteered to work in a parish:
….Her children were grown and she felt that she had the time to give to the parish community. As is usually the case, there were many things for her to do and as the parishioners became more familiar with her, they often turned to her for help. She was a deeply spiritual person and people sought her advice. Since she was the type of woman who tried to do everything well, before long she was working the equivalent of time and a half. She loved her work but as time went on, and there was more and more work, she found she had less and less time for her own spiritual reflection. She also began to feel like she was not doing her best work in the parish. Her husband suggested that she needed a break, a time to connect again with the spiritual vision that motivated her in her work. She went on a retreat where the director suggested to her that she would do well to set aside an hour a day and a day a month and a week a year as a special prayer time, a time to get in touch with the God in whose name she was working. She followed the director’s advice and now finds she reaches more people while still having time for her family and her prayer life. (1)
Jesus calls us to come away and rest.
“He said to them, ‘Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest awhile.“
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The word “rest” doesn’t mean doing nothing. It is the “rest” spoken of in Genesis when God created the world and “rested”. This is when God paused to look at the Creation that God had made and pronounce that it was “good”. It is much like a painter stands back and looks at the painting that he or she has just finished and enjoys it, or a fine carpenter who makes a gorgeous chair and stands back to admire the handiwork and then uses it with delight. When we rest we are not necessarily called to sleep in and vegetate, but to do the kind things that we enjoy doing and that enrich our lives. We are called aside to see the meaning of our lives and to contemplate what our purpose at the present time. Where are we going? What do we want to do? How can we renew our strength to move toward our goals? How can we simplify our lives so we can enjoy the rest of the journey? The more we rest and ask those questions of the more we discover of our selves and our unique contribution to the world.. Sydney J. Harris a Syndicated columnist who died in 1986 said from his observations of life “Ninety percent of the world’s woes comes from people not knowing themselves, their abilities, their frailties, and even their real virtues. Most of us go almost all the way through life as complete strangers to ourselves.” We are called aside to rest so that it can never be true of us.
Jesus calls us apart to a deserted place
“He said to them, “Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest awhile.“
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A “deserted place” is any place where we can have a moment to ourselves or to reflect with others on the direction of our lives. It is hard to find a deserted place these days. In fact it was hard to find for Jesus and his friends. They did have short time to themselves in the boat, but as soon as they reached the other shore, they found a host of people waiting for them.
With all the modern technology available to us today and the feeling that we have to always be on call and available at all times, it is harder to find those place where we can find rest. A few years ago one edition of the Globe and Mail, one of Canada’s national newspapers, had an article on the backlash against cell phones.
When people hear a cell phone ring in a public place, they want to shout, “Ah Shut up” Certain restaurants have actually banned their use . You are required to check your cell phone in at the door. One restaurant put a little sign on each table — a red slash through a picture of a phone — telling them to take their calls out to the sidewalk. The proprietor calls it a blow for civility, a throwback to the days when graciousness and leisure, real leisure, were prized. A few outraged patrons threatened to sue him, but the policy did boost business and as he said, “Since we’re all so overburdened with technology, people appreciate a little oasis of quiet, – I get letters thanking me.”
I like the motto for our rest as taking “time every year, time every week, and time every day” I think that is important to take a vacation ever year to change our gears and get in touch with ourselves and the people that our close to us again. I think that we need at least one day off every week, a weekly sabbatical, reserved for life’s most important, and often neglected pursuits – to do things that revitalize you. You need to consciously make time for it. I believe that we also need those brief moments of retreat every day. There has to be a time that we can just hold everything – a quiet time in the midst of the day – sit quietly, listen to music, read something even a few sentences from one of your favourite writers, contemplate on some energizing event in your life or a place that brought you great personal power and draw upon that energy again, so you are ready for the rest of your day.
Maybe you just need to be silent. When was the last time that you were just silent and still? It was Blaise Pascal wrote,
“All man’s miseries derive from not being able to sit quietly in a room alone”. (2)
It is wise for us to set some time each day to be silent to get in touch with our deepest desires, our most pressing needs and our highest priorities.
Jesus calls us to be together with him
“He said to them, ‘Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest awhile”
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Christ invites the weary and heavily burdened to let him share our load and give us the kind of deep inner rest that we could never find on our own. Together with Christ we find rest for our souls and freedom from the heavy burdens which wear us down.
Debra Brazzel of Duke University says this about sharing our burdens with Christ:
Every Friday night, in the Taize community in France, there is a service around the cross. In a very moving ritual, an icon of the cross is laid on the floor and people are invited to come forward and literally lay their burdens upon Jesus. For hours people come to the cross – young and old from all over the world, the affluent and the poor, life-long Christians, new Christians and those who are simply searching. With foreheads pressed against every square inch of the cross, they share their burdens with Christ. And as they walk away, often with tears of gratitude in their eyes, you can see that the load has been shifted and the burden is easier to bear because it is borne by two. (3)
Jesus says,
” Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest awhile”
…and they went away in a boat to a deserted place by themselves”. It was a quick get-away….just the disciples with Jesus. However, it was enough to revitalize them for the work ahead of them
How about …..just you …just me…..with Jesus?
See what a difference it make in your life….in my life
(Period of silence)
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(1) Dr. Mary G. Durkin on Andrew Greeley Homily page http://www.agreeley.com/homilies00/jul23.htm
(2) quotation by Blaise Pascal in a section Peace in The Treasure Chest ed by Charles L. Wallis, Harper and Row, NY 1965 p. 192
(3) from a sermon Rest for Your Souls preached at Duke Univeristy Chapel July 7, 1996 by Debra Brazzel
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