2 Samuel 7:1-14a
Psalm 89:20-37
Ephesians 2:11-22
Mark 6:30-34, 53-56
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.
My friends, there is an epidemic of massive proportions raging out of control on the West Coast. To a lesser degree it is seen in the eastern US, particularly around the island of Manhattan
A writer for Glamour Magazine[1] reports one of the earliest cases of this most despicable illness was reported almost exactly eleven years ago when Mariah Carey’s exhaustion kept her from appearing on MTV’s TRL with Carson Daly. Glamour reported, “the songbird checked into a hospital for treatment of ‘extreme exhaustion’.” To that her rep added: “She just hasn't been herself for a little while, and it just caught up with her.” Oh, the tragedy.
More recently, Demi Moore has suffered from this infirmity. Her rep issued a statement saying that “because of the stresses in her life right now, Demi has chosen to seek professional assistance to treat her exhaustion and improve her overall health.” [2]
Others who have suffered from exhaustion over the past ten years include Hollywood young lions like Tracy Morgan, Colin Ferrell, and Dave Chappelle. The young Hollywood lionesses with extreme exhaustion include Selena Gomez and Ashlee Simpson. The article has an entire paragraph devoted to Lindsay Lohan and her exhaustion hospitalizations.
It’s true, I’m making fun of celebrities who are tired. Please know that I am not making fun of people whose fatigue is a symptom or result of chronic immune diseases. With diseases like fibromyalgia and Crohn’s disease, exhaustive fatigue is a major symptom. Chronic Fatigue Syndrome patients are also victims of a disease, not an attitude. I certainly won’t make fun of people who are receiving chemotherapy which devastates the body. Lyme disease is a tic borne illness that causes among other things fatigue. Many people suffer, truly suffer from these diseases and need more than “perk up!” as a treatment plan.
I will also refrain from making fun of two women from the Glamour article whose exhaustion causing lifestyles led to their deaths, Amy Winehouse and Whitney Houston were both mentioned in the article. Mocking the dead should never be spoken anywhere, especially in this pulpit. Addiction is itself a terrible destructive disease.
While substance abuse and addiction may be a cause of some of these exhaustions, my grandmother (who would be 106 years old and knew nothing of addiction as a disease) would suggest these folks stop burning the candle at both ends.
The apostles were sent out in pairs with the authority of the Lord to do great things in God’s Holy Name. In time, they returned and gathered around Jesus. They shared stories about all they had done and all they had taught. This must have been glorious. It’s exactly like returning from a mission trip and sharing what happened during a minute for mission and sharing a meal. There were halleluiahs all around.
Then, the people came, oh, the people came. Jesus knew that the apostles have had a busy time of late, doing work with his authority and all. Jesus knew that they had been burning the candle at both ends recently and they needed time. They needed a Sabbath. So they went to a solitary place by themselves.
From here I’m tempted to say that the apostles and we too need a rest from the work of the week. We need a rest so we can be rejuvenated for the week to come. Let’s face it, there’s work to be done in the world. In our own city there is poverty and crime. The local races for judge and senate include accusations that if true are horrible. If you listen to our national political discourse we have a choice of being led by commie scum or authoritarian fascists. We live in such a sin-sick world that someone actually planned and executed an attack on a movie theater.
This is a sin sick world and it is our vocation as the Body of Christ to reflect the light and life of God in the world. So we had better get our rest and eat our Wheaties because it’s gonna take blessed work to accomplish the gracious work we have received. There’s one problem with this attitude though, and it’s a pretty big problem. It’s not biblical, it’s Greek. It’s an opinion Aristotle would have had,[3] not the Lord God or Jesus the Christ. To say we need relaxation because we cannot work continuously is true, but that is not why the Sabbath was created.
Now you may find that an interesting phrase all by itself, the Sabbath was created. Yet it is true. Genesis 2 reminds us that after the sixth day “the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array.” But on the seventh day, we are told God did three things: God rested, blessed, and hallowed the seventh day.[4] Hear this joyous truth, the first thing God called holy is time. While creation is good, only the Sabbath is holy.
Later, in the Sinai, God told the people of Abraham that they would be a holy people unto the Lord. Only after that Golden Calf incident did God tell the people to create the tabernacle, a holy place. No matter what we might think about the importance of holy ground, the order in which God declared holiness on earth was time then a people then a place. Time was hallowed by God, space was consecrated by Moses.
This means something very special to the ancient Jews and to us too; as God rested, blessed, and hallowed the seventh day, so too are we to rest, bless, and hallow the Sabbath day. We are to celebrate what God created on that seventh day, “tranquility, serenity, peace and repose.”[5] We are to remember the Sabbath and keep it holy.
Rabbi Abraham Heschel teaches the meaning of the Sabbath is to “celebrate time rather than space. Six days we live under the tyranny of things of space; on the Sabbath we try to become attuned to holiness in time.” You see, God wants us to “share what is eternal in time.” God wants us to “turn from the result of creation to the mystery of creation; from a world of creation to the creation of the world.”[6]
So for us, this is more than a day off. The Rabbi[7] reminds us “Labor is a craft, but perfect rest is an art.” There is a discipline to celebrating the Sabbath lest it become a pit of sloth. We are to celebrate Sabbath. We are to consecrate Sabbath. We are to share the Sabbath. We are to welcome the Sabbath as we would welcome a distinguished visitor. We are called to spend the Sabbath in “charm, grace, peace, and great love.”[8]
Of course, as our Lord and his apostles went out for their Sabbath, they were followed by many people. When they landed, the people were there ahead of them. While we don’t read the next story until next week, it is the “Feeding of the 5,000,”[9] it’s hardly a time for the Lord and his apostles to kick off their sandals and spend some quality time together.
In doing research on this passage, one of the commentaries I read had this possible preaching theme: “Jesus demonstrates a healthy balance between having boundaries (the need for rest) and being a sacrificial blessing (caring for the crowd).”[10]
My first thought about this was, “Oh, really?” When I read this passage I didn’t think any such thing. I agree that Jesus demonstrates the need to keep a healthy balance, but honestly, I thought he failed in actually getting there. It’s like a long fly ball being curled foul by the wind into the stands. The long drive looks great and has plenty of distance, but other forces take over and when the ball lands it’s a strike against the batter.
Despite the fact that in our reading the apostles don’t really get to celebrate it, they know and we know too that Sabbath is vital to life. In the second chapter of Mark Jesus tells the apostles, the disciples, the scribes and the Pharisees that the Sabbath was made for humanity, not humanity for the Sabbath.
The Sabbath is a day of rest, as God took rest from the first six days of creation in Genesis 1, yet it is so much more. The Sabbath is a time to celebrate and be made holy. It is a time to make time itself holy again. It’s a time to share not creation but life with God and with one another.
Yes, Aristotle’s world, a world of toil will return Monday morning, but more importantly, today we are called to celebrate the holy. It is a time to share God’s peace with one another and with all creation. It is a time to remember that creation is good, but time is holy. It is our time not to take our Sabbath rest at the lake, but in the outstretched arms of our loving Lord.
[1] “From Demi Moore to Mariah Carey, 10 Celebrities Who Played the Exhaustion Card, http://www.glamour.com/entertainment/blogs/obsessed/2012/01/from-demi-moore-to-mariah-care.html, retrieved July 19, 2012
[2] Ibid
[3] Heschel, Abraham Joshua, “The Sabbath.” New York : Farrrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1951, page 14.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Ibid., page 22
[6] All quotes Ibid., page 10, italics in original text.
[7] Ibid., page 14
[8] Ibid., page 29
[9] Mark 6:35-44
[10] “G Force,” HomileticsOnline.com. http://www.homileticsonline.com/subscriber/btl_display.asp?installment_id=93040467, retrieved July 14, 2009
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