Rest
Matthew 11:28-30
Matthew 11:28-30 (NRSV):
28 “Come to me, all you who are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
I would like to give you some rest today. That’s my goal. Rest from…a long scripture. Pretty short today. Rest from demeaning religious-informed messaging. I’m not going to tell you how awful or inadequate or powerless you are, because I don’t believe any of that’s true. Rest from fireworks. We won’t light off a single firework this morning–not even a single ground bloom.
I want to offer you rest from worrying about what comes next, because you know what comes next–I’m going to say a few things, I’ll sit down, it’ll be silent, until a few folks get up and say something encouraging or challenging or…strange…and then we’ll wrap up and people will start to leave but Devon will be over there, engaged in a super deep one-on-one conversation. You know what’s coming! And so you can rest into the regular rhythm of our gathering, take a break from planning, and just be present.
I want to offer you rest from volunteering. Well, no, maybe I don’t actually mean that. Just don’t overdo it, as if everything depends on you. If you step back a bit, we’ll be okay. I want to offer you rest from the many dire things happening in our world, many of which impact you or your friends. Not by avoiding or dismissing these things, but by resting, to reduce the likelihood that these forces will crush your soul or your body.
I want to offer you rest from trying to not be a burden on others. You are permitted to be a burden on us today. You are allowed to need help. I want to offer you rest from being polished or having it all together. You don’t have to have it all together.
I want to offer some of you rest from parenting, not because you don’t love your kids, but because you do. Just a few minutes of rest, until meeting is over, if everything goes as planned. Parenting may bring you joy, but it’s also exhausting and sometimes frustrating, and you’re not failing if you get frustrated by a frustrating thing, or exhausted by an exhausting thing.
I want to offer you rest from being told you can’t use this bathroom, or can’t compete in this sport, or that you don’t exist, if that’s messaging being directed at you or your loved ones. I want to offer you rest from trying to control something or someone you can’t, which can be draining, even destructive, for you and others. I want to give you rest from doing that thing you’ve been doing, for a long time, that is no longer serving you or others well, that you don’t even know why you’re still doing, other than habit, or a lack of clarity about the alternative. Maybe clarity can bring rest.
I want to help you get some rest today, from whatever you need it.
Who is Jesus speaking to? I would guess, people who are tired. People who are caregivers. People who work really hard. People who live in fear of a violent empire, and what it will do. People under pressure. People with little buffer from the elements.
Many of you are tired. Many of you are caregivers. Many of you work really hard. Many of you live in fear of what our own country is becoming, and who it will harm, beyond the harm it has already caused. Many of you are under enormous pressure. Many of you have little buffer, should something go wrong, or you know people with little buffer.
And none of this is going away tomorrow. People still need care. Your job and other kinds of work you do will still ask a lot of you. The good fight for peace and justice continues, and many of you cannot, in good conscience, abandon that fight. The struggle to survive or build a life for you and your family, goes on. These things can be rewarding and exhausting at the same time. How do you get rest, to recharge and restore your body and mind but also to pause and take stock of what is going well?
Can this space be a place of rest for you? I hope so. Maybe the silence is rest. Maybe being with people who share your values is rest. Maybe getting a hug from one of your friends here, today, is rest. Maybe somebody not hugging you because you’ve said that you don’t like hugs is its own kind of rest in a world that doesn’t always understand consent and boundaries. Maybe giving yourself permission to fall asleep during worship, today, would be rest! By all means, take a nap, if that’s what you most need!
Maybe being here connects you with something larger, and that feels like a kind of respite from your own, individual concerns. Maybe you’ve been part of a faith community that was hostile toward other faiths, or women, or LGBTQIA people, or whomever, and the disconnect between your own values and what you heard from the pulpit was becoming agitating, and so being here is a kind of rest.
I hope we are a faith community that gives rest to the weary. How can that happen? How can we be a community that gives rest—relief, sustenance, safety, peace—to each other and to the people we support beyond our community? How can we lean into that ministry of rest? What might give you the rest you seek?
“Are you the one we have been waiting for?” the people ask, earlier in Matthew 11. Jesus responds: “Tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, those with a skin disease are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them” (Matt 11:4-5). Jesus outlines his track record of easing burdens for weary people. Matthew later says that Jesus “began to reproach the cities in which most of his deeds of power had been done because they did not repent” (Matt 11:20). I would think Jesus is calling out people in those cities in positions of some degree of power who continue to place heavy burdens on others, in stark contrast to his own rest-giving ministry of befriending and sharing meals with the weary.
And then, this: “Come to me, all you who are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.” What makes whatever Jesus is selling so “easy” and “light”? Jesus says he is gentle and humble and heart. Where has guidance from our teachers and leaders and authorities been harsh, instead of gentle? Where has it been self-regarding, rather than humble?
Maybe it’s restful to be instructed, guided, or supported by someone who is gentle with your soul, who truly respects you. Or by someone who is humble, who isn’t in it for personal gain, or attention, who isn’t using you, who genuinely wants you to be well and whole and strong, someone who recognizes their earthiness, that they are human, from the Latin root, humus, from the dirt, not separate from it—someone grounded in and cognizant of the interdependent community that is the Earth, coming alongside you.
Have you ever been carrying something heavy, like a table or luggage, and you tell yourself and others, “I got this.” You start to carry the thing and realize, “this is too much.” Someone notices and says “do you want some help?” And, though tempted to be stubbornly self-reliant, you let out the deepest sigh, and say “yes, thank you.” And you work together to carry the thing. What would have happened had help not been offered? Would you have completed the task? Would you have gotten hurt? Would you have eventually shouted for assistance, just before you drop the thing on your toes?
Jesus isn’t just talking about mutual assistance. This is about discipleship, learning the way of Love that Jesus teaches. And part of that way of Love is about rest. Jesus is creating a community of people who give rest to each other, by offering to help each other carry the thing, so that we don’t get more hurt than we already are. I’m often reminded as I hike and observe the varied ecosystems of the trail, that we’re made for each other, to depend on each other. Rugged individualism is unnatural.
I went hiking last Monday, the day after the CFC campout, where I didn’t sleep very well. Which is fine, that’s part of camping, especially in a group, especially when my tent is close to the fire where people are lingering beyond kid bedtime, talking loudly about spicy reality TV shows.
So clearly the best thing for me, after that weekend, was to wake up at 4:30am and drive two hours to the west side of Mount Adams. I mean, hiking is restful, but I tell ya, this was one of the slowest “moderate” hikes I’ve done, with plenty of “why did I feel the need to be there today?” moments. At some point, I gave myself permission to just take it slow, to not worry about mileage, or finishing quickly, or rushing home, because my family would be fine and we had made arrangements in case it took me a while, even though I like to make life as easy for others as I can. Which can also be exhausting. I did complete the 13 mile hike but with more…self-directed gentleness…than usual.
What does it mean to be gentle with ourselves, or others? Let me widen the focus, momentarily. What does it mean to, as the Dalai Lama has said, “be gentle with the Earth”? Is the Earth tired? And if so, how do we help give a weary Earth, rest?
Maybe we start with deep listening, cultivating habits of preserving, cherishing, and collaborating with the land, recognizing how my actions have consequences for the whole, in the present and, as our indigenous neighbors remind me, to the seventh generation. It could mean an active commitment to engaging the Earth in a way that gives it–and consequently, our neighbors, part of that Earth–the best shot at thriving.
What about with people? What does it mean to treat each other gently? People are strong, but also fragile. People are resilient, but also carry wounds that may have nothing to do with you, even if you’ve just triggered a big reaction. I think you can create a challenging, stretching space for others, and be gentle at the same time.
That certainly applies to this space. I don’t want anyone to feel shamed or condemned, here, but I also know that we’re all still emerging, we’re all still nurturing that Divine Love within us into something even more life-giving, like seeds becoming trees whose shade gives rest. We should challenge each other, but with gentleness and reverence.
Jesus offers his hearers an easy yoke and a light burden. For us to use a term like “yoke,” even if Jesus’ own tradition used it to refer to committing to learning the teachings of that tradition, is a bit problematic, given its connotations with slavery. I recognize that “yoke” can also suggest connection, like people yoked together, in the way animals might be yoked to carry a heavy load. Maybe Jesus is inviting people to be yoked with him.
But if we want to thank Jesus for the spirit of his point but find other language, we could say that Jesus offers his learning community “a less oppressive way forward, a more life-giving way, a program of learning how to be human, or creature-in-community, that honors the sacredness of each, that doesn’t rely on controlling people, exhausting them, sucking the life out of them.” He offers the rest that comes when people learn Love.
What is restful, about learning Love? Learning Love might take work, intentionality, commitment; it might mean recognizing our burden of responsibility to be co-creators of the kind of Loving world we want to live in. But if we’re doing it right, not forgetting our limits and need for each other, maybe it will feel like an “easy commitment” and a “light burden.”
Maybe it’s hate, resentment, fear and all the other ways we resist Love that deplete us, and that’s what Jesus was getting at. Loving people, loving the Earth, is work, and we need rest to sustain that Love. But maybe Love itself is also rest.
Queries:
What heavy burdens am I carrying? What are others carrying?
What might rest look like for me or for others?
How can I help others get the rest they need?
What do I need from others, or myself, to find rest?
Let’s spend time in open worship, practicing rest. Maybe that means somehow resting your busy mind. Maybe that means breathing, relaxing, unclenching, easing the tension in your body. Maybe that means discerning the kind, gentle words Spirit is speaking to you, and us. Maybe it means speaking restful words to the community, since part of why we do this, why we meet for worship, is, in a way, to give each other rest. Maybe it means, while your friends are practicing communal listening and discernment, you can just take a short power nap, and I’ll wake you up when it’s time to go.