You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
It may surprise few who know me to learn that I flunk vacations. I don’t know how to plan them, allow adequate time for them, or completely shut off from work while I’m on them. I could blame this on being single - it’s more work to plan a vacation with people not in your family, and less fun to go alone. But maybe it’s just me.
It may surprise some to learn that Jesus commended time away after a busy period of ministry. (As we’ll see, Jesus also kind of flunks vacation, responding to the needy crowds seeking to pull him off course…) So when his disciples come back, excited, after their first mission foray, he tells them they’ve earned some quiet time: The apostles 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 a while.’ For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat. And they went away in the boat to a deserted place by themselves.
Spiritual work depletes our energy. It can give us energy in the short term – I can be really pumped up for a few hours after any kind of Spirit-filled worship or ministry. But then I find I need a nap and to recharge my batteries. And we need more than naps – we need breaks. Prayer breaks and Sabbath days, and retreats, and actual vacations – and sabbaticals and Jubilee years too. Like ground that loses nutrients if it’s over-planted, we need to rest and let our brains go fallow and our creative energies return. If we’re active in any kind of ministry, we need to allow the river of the Spirit to move through and cleanse our channels, remove the debris, reawaken the faith vision to see what is not yet.
Fridays are my day off, and I’m working hard (!) at not working at all, really letting it be a sabbath. Sometimes I feel bored, or feel bad for being so unproductive (my definition of sabbath means no “productive,” “to-do list” activities). Yet when I do unplug from the to-do list, I notice that I’m more resilient, that my natural hopefulness comes back, and I start to feel creative juices flowing again. Not for nothing did God ordain a Sabbath day of unproductivity each week! Why is it so hard to keep that command/invitation? Even machinery needs to rest; why do we think we can keep running?
When did you last take time off – a few minutes, a day, some weeks or longer – and really let your system recharge? What gifts were you aware of in that time? What stands between you and taking more time off?
What if we thought of taking breaks as a spiritual discipline? Sabbath-keeping certainly is, but so is every rest after a time of ministry. I’m going to try something, and I invite you to join me: The next time I think I can’t take a break because I have to get one more thing done, I’m going to imagine myself in that boat with Jesus and the disciples, heading to a deserted place by themselves. Just imagine the mood – “Yay! We’re going away! And with Jesus! We’ve worked hard, we’ve seen God do amazing things through us, and now we get to rest and recharge a little. Have a retreat. Decompress. Imagine!”
And really, can anything we think we have to do for Jesus be more important than hanging out with Jesus? Isn't that where the real work happens?
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
Showing posts with label vacation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label vacation. Show all posts
8-30-21 - A Little R&R
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
I’m away on a brief vacation this week (I set this up to send before I left). I can sure use some time off – like everyone, I’ve worked and worried hard this year. I can tell when my creativity becomes stunted that I need to let my brain and spirit unplug for a bit.
If I think I need a vacation, imagine how much Jesus needed some rest time! He had been preaching and healing and traveling and disputing and training, never in the same spot for more than a day, it seems. And now he arrives in Tyre, on the coast, and he just wants some time apart. It’s his Garbo moment, “I vant to be alone!” But it’s not to be.
From there he set out and went away to the region of Tyre. He entered a house and did not want anyone to know he was there. Yet he could not escape notice, but a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit immediately heard about him, and she came and bowed down at his feet.
It’s great to read that Jesus sought these times to rest and recharge, for it reminds us that he was human, and it gives us permission to recognize our limits as well. And, of course, he was also the God who ordained a day of rest in every seven; if we would only live into that promise, we might not even need vacations.
It’s also helpful to learn that Jesus was interrupted at his rest. The demands of the world do not subside just because we take some time out. The woman who came and found him had business she felt was much more pressing than his need to rest. And, though his initial response appears surly, in the end he agrees with her: her need, and her faith, were worthy of his attention.
When we’re on vacation we put down our regular work, our regular tasks, sometimes even our regular landscape, and seek to be renewed in the space that opens up. But we do not cease to be servants of the Living God, engaged in God’s mission of restoration and wholeness. We may find ourselves presented with needs in the people around us. We may fall into some interior, spiritual work we’ve neglected in our busyness, or find ourselves dealing with issues in our families or relationships. We may be surprised at how God wants to work through us in our time away.
There will be some ministry on my holiday, and I plan to be alert to opportunities, but not seek them out. I might find, as Jesus did, that the mission of God can find us in despite our best intentions to stay apart. Then we have to trust that God will give us the R&R we need in some other way.
I’m away on a brief vacation this week (I set this up to send before I left). I can sure use some time off – like everyone, I’ve worked and worried hard this year. I can tell when my creativity becomes stunted that I need to let my brain and spirit unplug for a bit.
If I think I need a vacation, imagine how much Jesus needed some rest time! He had been preaching and healing and traveling and disputing and training, never in the same spot for more than a day, it seems. And now he arrives in Tyre, on the coast, and he just wants some time apart. It’s his Garbo moment, “I vant to be alone!” But it’s not to be.
From there he set out and went away to the region of Tyre. He entered a house and did not want anyone to know he was there. Yet he could not escape notice, but a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit immediately heard about him, and she came and bowed down at his feet.
It’s great to read that Jesus sought these times to rest and recharge, for it reminds us that he was human, and it gives us permission to recognize our limits as well. And, of course, he was also the God who ordained a day of rest in every seven; if we would only live into that promise, we might not even need vacations.
It’s also helpful to learn that Jesus was interrupted at his rest. The demands of the world do not subside just because we take some time out. The woman who came and found him had business she felt was much more pressing than his need to rest. And, though his initial response appears surly, in the end he agrees with her: her need, and her faith, were worthy of his attention.
When we’re on vacation we put down our regular work, our regular tasks, sometimes even our regular landscape, and seek to be renewed in the space that opens up. But we do not cease to be servants of the Living God, engaged in God’s mission of restoration and wholeness. We may find ourselves presented with needs in the people around us. We may fall into some interior, spiritual work we’ve neglected in our busyness, or find ourselves dealing with issues in our families or relationships. We may be surprised at how God wants to work through us in our time away.
There will be some ministry on my holiday, and I plan to be alert to opportunities, but not seek them out. I might find, as Jesus did, that the mission of God can find us in despite our best intentions to stay apart. Then we have to trust that God will give us the R&R we need in some other way.
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