Time Out

Mark 14: 3-9

The Gospel of Jesus Christ is radical.  Throughout Lent, we have explored some of practices or habits of our Christian faith and we have seen firsthand just how bold the Gospel really is.  We have walked through the art of making time for God, seeking forgiveness, aligning our money and our faith and loving our neighbors.  I heard someone once say that Jesus asks us to love our neighbors and our enemies because sometimes they are the same person.  The Gospel of Jesus Christ is radical.  Even as a kid, I knew that there was something a bit wild about what I learned in the basement of the Open Door Congregational Church.  We read Jesus’ words, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”  I knew it was hard for me to love the boy next to me who insisted on putting smarties candies up his nose, so I could imagine that Jesus’ request wasn’t easy for big people either.  I was in Elementary School when Desert Storm occurred and we were all given yellow ribbons to pin on our shirts and to hang in our windows at home.  We watched our televisions with wonder as the war was broadcast with green lights flashing for the first time.  I never quite had the guts to raise my hand to share what I had learned in the tiny classroom in the basement of the Open Door Congregational Church.  We gleefully chanted the name of the one we were told was to be killed, “So Dumb Insane”.  The Gospel of Jesus Christ is radical.  And this is certainly not the only way.  The Gospel stands in stark contrast to the norms of our culture and it constantly invites a sort of dissonance, even calling us beyond what comes naturally or what we are inclined to do if left to our own devices.  Jesus asks of more of us than we could ever do on our own; his requests are simply too difficult to take home without the reminder that we are not alone.  And as radical as loving our enemies is, as trying and difficult as it is, Jesus asks something of us that in my experience is equally challenging and just as countercultural.  He asks us to rest.  Perhaps because we have idolized work for so long as a way to happiness and the American dream, it is far easier to dismiss the idea of resting.  Even though this request is included in our Ten Commandments, we tell ourselves that rest is optional.  And for many of us, we have gotten ourselves in a place where stopping is almost impossible.  We have told ourselves that work is the way out and the way up.  Work has become something like salvation for us because it fills us up enough that we don’t even notice when we are tired or hurting, lonely or lost.  And since moving here, I have learned that these work habits do not just apply to those of you who are gainfully employed.  This tendency to idolize busyness applies to those of you who are parents and whose lives have become more like taxi services and events organizers.  This need to have a day so full that there is hardly room to breathe applies to those of you who are retired and have replaced your jobs with so many volunteer commitments that you can hardly enjoy an unscheduled activity.  With all of this, I have come to believe that Jesus’ request for us to take some time off and call a time out on all that demands our time just might be one of his most radical commands. 

But why is it so hard for us to rest?  Why do we struggle to say no to more commitments or to put our foot down firmly enough to sit together around the dinner table without the TV or the radio or video games?  And I think the answer is in part because the message of the dominant culture is much louder than the Gospel.  I am not trying to be glib.  Other than one hour on Sunday, where else do we human beings in this country hear that we are adequate just as we are, that we don’t need a full schedule or the prestige of certain commitments or the busyness that leads to the appearance of an important life to be happy?  Where else, other than this place, do we remember that our bodies are holy creations of God and as such need some time for renewal?  Where else do we hear again that Jesus asks us to call a time out on the schedule, not just to prevent us from getting sick, but to hear the voice of God, to be present fully in the moments that life brings to us?  Where else do we hear that we don’t need an expensive meal or a spa treatment or a cruise to be renewed?  I think it is hard for us to rest because we have become convinced that our salvation, that our abundant life depends not on God, but on our schedule.  Even if we know intellectually that of course God’s love or approval will not come as a result of a full schedule, we are living as if this is true.  Restoration is about resting, re-storing, putting back together the fragments created by a hectic week.  And I wonder if the brevity of Jesus’ life brought him profound clarity about what matters.  I wonder if his short time here on earth showed him the heart of life found in God.

In the Gospel of Mark today we meet Jesus toward the end.  We know that it won’t be long given the urgency we hear in his voice.  He says things like, “you will always have the poor, but you won’t always have me.”  He probably knew that it would be days away.  He had a lot to do, final conversations and goodbyes, last instructions and farewells.  We might expect him to keep a full schedule so as to ensure that all of his plans would be completed.  We would think that he would be making speeches in every village within his reach.  We would expect to read of him writing everything down, taking time to document all that he has seen and all that he hoped he would be able to do.  We might expect to find him hanging out with his family and sharing stories about the good times and the best memories that they will all hold closest when he is gone.  But instead Jesus is sitting with a woman who comes to him with an alabaster jar of expensive oil.  She breaks it open and puts it on his head.  With all of the chaos ensuing around him, with all of the hubbub and busyness, Jesus is sitting for a moment to have his head rubbed with oil.  His friends who are with him are annoyed.  They tell him that it is a waste- that the oil shouldn’t be used for this moment.  They probably wondered what the heck he was doing sitting there when there was so much to do.  But instead Jesus sits with a woman to have oil rubbed on his head.

Much has been made of this encounter, especially since it falls in Jesus’ final week of life.  But I am not so sure that this is about the end at all.  Jesus does say that the woman just might be anointing him for burial, but maybe that was his way of quieting the squawking of his friends, so he could have a moment of time to be still.  Maybe Jesus simply wanted to rest, to be still with God.  Maybe he wanted to call a time out on the world that was swirling around him.  Maybe those few minutes, those moments of rest were the very ones that prepared him for the days that were waiting. 

In his final days of life, I bet Jesus had clarity about just a few things and one of them was to stop, to take a moment to breathe, to find a minute to be still before our loving God.  If Jesus waited until everything on his list was crossed off, it would have been too late and so even with all that was swirling around him, and he paused, called a time out and rested. 

What would it look like for us to take this commandment just as seriously as the others?  What difference would it make for our hurried hearts to be required to stop, one day and breathe?  The Gospel of Jesus Christ is indeed radical.  And without rest, without renewal and restoration we might never be able to follow Jesus fully.  Friends as we near the end of our Lenten journey, I invite you to schedule time for rest.  It is not selfish.  It is not wasteful.  It is part of what Jesus asks of us as his followers.  It is part of the Christian life.  May it be so.  Amen.