of conviction so people know it is an appropriate time for you to go away, but not so much conviction that you sound overly relieved to get away.

Too much enthusiasm could be hurtful and I don’t want to leave you with the wrong impression. The truth is that it is never easy for me to get away because I love and care and worry about you and the church all of the time. But it is time to go away, because my tank is empty…in part from all the loving, caring, and worrying.

That, and the fact that it’s been a heck of a year. It just has… and I know I am not the only one who feels this way. I know that feeling is not unique to pastors right now.  Teachers, therapists, advocates, parents… anyone really with an ounce of compassion…..a lot has happened this year, out there and in here, and it’s taken its toll. I am so proud of all the ways we have shown up for our neighbors and for each other. But I also know it has cost us something and we are tired. It has cost me something and I am tired. So when I thought about what I wanted to preach on for this last Sunday before vacation, I thought immediately of these words of Jesus.

“Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.” I remembered that one line in the gospel of Mark and I thought to myself, Bingo! Go back and find that. There’s your sermon right there.

“Come away, to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.”

I have to admit I like that idea.  Oh, who am I kidding, I love that idea. Jesus may sound more like a Calgon bubble bath voice over (y’all remember those ads - “calgon take me away!”) He might sound more like the old ads in this one line than the savior of the world, but I don’t care.

I love the idea of Jesus telling us all to pack it in, get out of dodge, and go relax somewhere else.  I love the idea of Jesus giving us permission to rest.

And so I was all set to meditate on that one line with you today. Quite excited in fact at the prospect of preaching an entire sermon about the importance of doing… nothing, until that is, I went ahead and read the rest of the story.

Which is too bad really, because our reading for today starts off so very well. In the sixth chapter of Mark, Jesus is welcoming his disciples back from their first ever pan-Galilean healing and casting out of demons tour, and he can see right away that his people are exhausted.

The work before them is incredible, they have accomplished miraculous things, they’ve done an amazing job, but at this point in their ministry the disciples are running on fumes. In fact, Mark tells us that there were so many people coming to see them that they didn’t even have time to eat.

So Jesus, being the good leader that he is, packs them all into a boat and takes them to the far side of the sea.  He pulls them away from their work - as important as it is - so they can be alone, catch up, and have a good meal together.

But unfortunately for them, while our heroes are sailing across the sea of Galilee to their deserted place, the crowds are hoofing it round the lake as fast as they can and picking up even more people as they go. By the time Jesus and his disciples arrive on the other side, there is an even larger crowd waiting to greet them with even more questions and pressing needs.

Now if Jesus had taken this opportunity to step off the boat, thank every one for coming and then told them that he and his disciples would be with then as soon as they had taken a much needed respite themselves, we’d have all the makings here for a straightforward sermon on the importance of rest.

Unfortunately, that is not what Jesus does. Jesus does not turn his back on the masses. Instead, Jesus looked out at all the people who had come so far and run so hard, and he had compassion on them, (darn it). Jesus saw them as sheep without a shepherd and his heart ached for them.

He told the disciples to stay in the boat, but he pressed on. Jesus postponed his own need for down time, walked out amongst all that hurt and pain and need, and picked up right where he’d left off - healing the sick and preaching to the multitude.  He may have been tired, but that didn’t stop Jesus from doing what needed to be done.

In fact, this passage which begins with Jesus seeking a little down time, ends up detailing one of his most productive spurts of activity ever. Notice that in the space of no more than 26 verses - instead of enjoying a little R&R himself - our messiah organizes a retreat for his staff, heals a multitude, preaches for the better part of the day, feeds over five thousand people, walks on water, and still manages to arrive at his next venue in Gennesaret on time and ready for action.

Admittedly, he does duck out at some point for a little solitary prayer and reflection, but it’s almost as if Jesus can’t stop.  The man is on fire. Like some benevolent Terminator, or the Energizer bunny, he just keeps going and going and going. Like the first century equivalent of James Taylor, if you want him, he’ll come running. If you need him, he’ll be there. He’s amazing, this Jesus.

Which is great and all for Jesus, but where does that leave us? What’s the message in all this for you and for me?  Is the take away here that rest is important unless something more important comes up?  Is the moral of this story that you really do need to take care of yourself, unless someone else needs you to care for them even more?

If it is, that’s certainly nothing new and it hardly seems like good news to me. In fact, I think that is how many of us live our lives already.

We give and work and show up, and yet even then, even when we’re ready to fall down exhausted - if our child wakes in the night with a fever, the boss asks us to work late, some new outrage comes to light, or a good friend calls with a quiver in her voice and asks, “Is this a good time?” We say yeah, sure…whatever you need.

Like Jesus, even when we’re tired, we still do our best.  We dig down deep and find some little spark we’ve managed to keep in reserve somewhere and we get the job done. Like a farmer eating seed corn or an athlete burning muscle, we do what we need to do when we need to do it, even though we know deep down that eventually something’s gotta give. But what else can we do?

I mean sure we’d love to find time in the day to stop and pray, but most of us can’t even find the time to exercise. Sure we’d love to take a full day off once a week and observe the Sabbath, but then who’s going to weed the garden or see that the hedges get trimmed?

Lessons aren’t going to plan themselves. No one’s going to knock on our door with a week’s worth of groceries and a pre-planned menu that is both low carb and heart healthy. Somebody’s gotta go to work to pay the mortgage. Someone’s gotta remember to change the oil. It’s illegal for the kids to drive themselves to practice (which is probably still a good thing).

But still, this kind of life that so many of us are leading, this over scheduled, over committed existence - I don’t know. Sometimes I wonder: is this really the life God wants for us? Is this what it all comes down to? The knowledge that rest is good, divinely ordained even, and we should do it, we really, really should…when and if we can find the time, when and if we can get around to it, when and if there is nothing more important to do.

Is that the real message at the heart of today’s story; the truth God has placed here for us to find this morning?

Gosh, I hope not.

***

You know, a few years ago, someone somewhere, had a little epiphany.  They asked themselves the question, “What would Jesus do?” and their life was forever changed. They slapped 4 letters on a bracelet, made millions, and retired to Tahiti. Just kidding, I know nothing about any of that. All I really know is that it’s kind of a stupid question …. because we’re not Jesus.

A lot of us have engaged in the Practicing the Way groups this year and John Mark Comer, the pastor behind the program, basically says that unless you’re a first century, single, male, Jewish, middle eastern rabbi, whose name starts wth J and ends with S, this isn’t really the right question for you to ask. The question you should be asking instead is: what would Jesus do if he were me?

Now, WWJDIHWM doesn’t have quite the same ring to it, so you might as well drop the idea for new and improved bracelets right now.  That ship has sailed. But it’s certainly a much better question to ask ourselves, and I think it’s exactly the right question to bring back to the text we have before us this morning.

Because you see Jesus may have been able to keep up the work indefinitely, but Lord have mercy, we’re not Jesus. Jesus may have been able to put off his need for rest till it was convenient, but if Mark is to be believed, he made sure that his disciples didn’t.

When they reached the other side of the sea, Jesus hopped out on to the shore and got back to work, but notice that he left his disciples in the boat. He recognized that they were only human, and trust me when I say that he knows, even now, that you and I are only human too.

God knows that we need to rest.  God knows that we can’t go on indefinitely. That is part of the reason why, rather than invite us to keep the Sabbath, God went right ahead and made it a commandment. It’s not one we follow particularly well, but it’s right up there in the top 10. God commands us to stop. God commands us to be still. God commands us to rest in God’s presence once every seven days and let God run things for a change because God knows we can’t just keep going and going and going.

But God also knows something else about us.  I think another reason God asks us to be still on a regular basis and know that God alone is God, is because God knows how quickly we forget. So many of us are so quick to justify our tendency to overwork because we are convinced that it all depends on us. But when you lay down your work, even for a relatively short period of time - say sundown to sundown - it doesn’t take long to realize that the only one we are all really dependent upon is the one who made us.

I think that Jesus left the disciples in the boat not just because they needed to take a break. Jesus left them in the boat because they needed to see that even if they took time off from their incredibly important and powerful work, that it would all still go on without them.

People would still get healed.  Demons would still be defeated. The gospel would still be preached and lives would still be changed. The world would keep moving forward even if they weren’t, because the in-breaking of God’s kingdom is bigger than any one of us. “God's redeeming work in the world,” in the words of Nadia Bolz-Weber, “might involve us but it doesn't depend on us.”

And read in this light you can see how the rest of the story reinforces this basic truth. When the disciples finally do emerge from the boat, rested but hungry, they want to take Jesus away and find dinner. Instead, Jesus invites them to stay and help him feed the people.

After some serious hunting and gathering, the disciples return to Jesus with nothing more than five loaves and two fish - hardly enough to feed themselves let alone a multitude.  And yet with nothing more than that limited offering, Jesus manages to feed them all and still have some left over.

I think the message is clear.  Our resources may be finite, but God’s resources are infinite.  Jesus could have kept going indefinitely, just as he could have kept that bread and that fish flowing forever, but we can’t.  Jesus doesn’t want or need us to play God.  Rather, what Jesus has been inviting us to do all along is to stop long enough to recognize that there is only one God, and it’s not us.

The secret to being able to accept that beautiful invitation to “come away and rest awhile,” lies in finding enough trust in your heart to let go and let God be God.

Dear Ones, on the cusp of my vacation, you know I am preaching this as much for me as I am for you. God’s work most certainly involves us, because God wants to involve us, but it does not depend on us. Jesus knew, perhaps better than anyone, that the need was never ending.

He knew the work would never be done, but he also knew that if his disciples were in any way going to keep up with the demands of the people, then every now and again they were going to need to resist those demands for a time, set the work aside, take some time for themselves, and give the whole thing back over to God.

So what would Jesus do if he were me? What would Jesus do if he were you? I think he’d ask us to remember that there are times when we need to give it our all and there are times when we need to come away and rest awhile. Times when we ought to be active and times when we need to be still, offer what little we have, and trust that God will provide the rest. We can’t always be there 100% of the time for others, but God can, God is, and God will be.

So take your vacation this summer. I certainly am. And when I get back I hope we can lean into exploring this idea of sabbath together. Don’t be afraid to stop and rest and give the work back over to the only one who has the power to see us through. Sometimes it really is better for everyone if we just stay in the boat.  Amen