Weary,
tired, exhausted, and pulled in a million different directions. In demand.
Everyone is looking for you!
You’re the go to person, right hand man, the one with all the answers,
on-call 24/7, Mom, Dad, wife, husband, sister, brother, friend, neighbor,
confidant, student, teacher, boss and employee.
You are called upon to fix everything; broken shelves and broken hearts,
you heal with a kiss and encourage a broken spirit.
You are the
driver, cook, designer, decorator, and cleaner.
You find what’s lost and blamed for losing what can‘t be found. You’re the medic and the Chaplin. Help me, I need you, where are you, come
here, go there, bring this, take that….. it never seems to end. Even coming to church can seem like just one
more thing on the to-do list.
Whew! I am exhausted just thinking about it! How many of you have ever felt this way or
feel this way now? Some weeks I look at
my to-do list and I just want to cry.
Life gets overwhelming.
We often
feel guilty in those times for taking time for ourselves, for stepping away
from the hectic pace of our life obligations to take care of ourselves. A long walk, sleeping in, an hour to read a
book for fun, coffee with a friend, or watching a movie can feel like a
luxury. People depend on us. We worry, stress and get run down. It’s exhausting.
When we feel
that way, it can be comforting to see Jesus feel the same way. Often, we focus so much on the divinity of
Jesus that we forget that he was human just like us in many, many ways. Our
story today is one of those examples.
That evening
at Sunset, as soon as the Sabbath was over, as soon as it was possible people
started looking for Jesus. They had
heard all about how he had taught with authority and cast out the demon in the
synagogue earlier that day. His
reputation was spreading fast, everyone was talking about him and everyone
wanted a piece of him.
The whole
town gathered near the door of Simon Peter’s house as they brought their loved
ones to see Jesus. They brought everyone
they could find who was sick or thought to be possessed by a demon. The mentally ill, epileptic, lepers, people
who are paralyzed, mute, deaf, blind…..
Imagine the
emergency room at a hospital after a natural disaster or crash on the
interstate. People are everywhere. There is no place to sit, people are
straining to catch a glimpse of Jesus the healer, pushing and pulling people
out of their way, trying to be next in line.
There are so many people for Jesus to touch and with each one that
passes he is getting more and more tired.
This didn’t start until sundown and unlike everyone else who has been
resting all day, Jesus has been teaching and preaching. As this scene continues late into the night
Jesus seeks an escape.
Just like
us, Jesus felt hungry, tired, overworked and exhausted. He couldn’t even walk down the street without
people groping and grabbing at him.
Sometimes he needed to get away too.
He needed to find a corner of peace, solitude and quiet, a time to
re-center his life, re-energize and reconnect with God.
We as fully
human people often forget this reminder from Jesus. In our effort to be independent we don’t like
to ask anyone for help- we don’t’ want to bother anyone else with our problems
so we keep it to ourselves. We think:
Why should we place our problems and burdens on others? They have their own problems to deal with
anyway.
In this
attempt at being independent we even forget to take our problems to God. God has loads of stuff going on. There is war, famine, genocide and poverty. People are dying and starving. My problems are nothing compared to that- why
would God take time out of that busy schedule to help me?
That is
where Jesus differs from us. He knows
what we have forgotten and what Isaiah reminded us today. God surpasses our human capacity to handle
problems. God knows you and cares for
you just as much as everyone else. God
is not limited in the capacity to care like we are.
Isaiah asks
“Have you not known? Have you not
heard? The Lord is the everlasting God,
the creator of the ends of the earth. He
does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint and strengthens
the powerless.”
It is ok to
not have it all together. You don’t have
to understand it all to be loved by God.
God is working in all things, even when we can’t see it or understand it
ourselves.
We all have
those “Calgon Take me away!” moments when we are at our weakest and most
vulnerable. It is in these moments when
we can acknowledge the limitations of our humanity and allow ourselves to fully
experience the power, grace and awe of God.
We forget
that person who offered to help. We
forget that God wants us to relinquish our fear and our worries over to
God. We forget that it is God’s desire
to be in a relationship with us and this isn’t possible if we don’t share our
burdens with the one who offers healing.
Jesus knows
this. Even though he is all powerful and
offers healing and wholeness to all who seek him, he knows he can’t do it
alone. He can’t do it without being a
part of that divine relationship with the Almighty that makes him God.
This
connection, this relationship is what gives him strength, nourishes him for the
journey ahead, and what gives him the ability to see the bigger picture of what
he is trying to accomplish.
This is the
other thing Jesus teaches us in this passage.
He is resting when the disciples
come looking for him. It is the
proverbial toddler who won’t let you go to the bathroom in peace. They won’t let him have any peace and
quiet. Simon Peter doesn’t want Jesus to
rest. He wants Jesus to get back to
work.
There are
more people waiting at his house who need healing, more people seeking to hear
a wise word from him. Simon Peter
misunderstands that in order to do the work, Jesus needs this time away, nor
does he understand the work of Jesus goes beyond this one small town.
Jesus
doesn’t just get re-energized so that he can go back to the fray. There will always be people who need
him. He re-energized and re-centered his
life so that he could remember the bigger picture and get a renewed perspective
on his life and ministry.
Our job as
parents, teachers, friends and all the hats you wear is more than just putting
out fires and doing what other people demand of you. The bigger picture for your life is the work
of shaping lives, teaching and empowering others to learn and grow on their own
so they can see the big picture too.
It is easy
for us, not just as people but also as Christians to spend our whole lives
putting out fires. The work of the
family and community still needs to get done but if all we do is put out fires,
if all we do is fill cracks, rearrange the furniture, and make things appear
beautiful than we can get too busy to do the real work of Christians.
We can spend
all our energy on fixing and putting out fires making a to-do list that will
never end that we fail to notice that the foundation is crumbling and forget to
look for the big picture of what our job as Christians really is.
Yes, Jesus
still offered words of wisdom, yes he still healed those who came to him but as
he did this, he went out into the world to share the story of the love, peace
and healing power of God.
That is
still our call today. To share the story of Jesus and his love.
I know you
are overwhelmed. I know you don’t feel
like there are enough hours in the day.
I know your family, health, work and even the church can bog you down
with laundry lists a mile long and it seems there is constantly a new fire to
put out, a new thing to add to your list of things to fix and I know how easy
it is to burn out.
Maybe it is
time to stop. Maybe it is time to spend
more time praying and less time doing for a while. Take a break.
Reconnect with the God who loves you, even when you don’t have it all
together and don’t have all the answers.
Seek healing
and wholeness in a solid foundation of a relationship with God who never grows
tired of loving you or guiding your paths.
Remember what the big picture is, ask God to help you find it if you’ve
never really known what that is. What is
the goal and purpose for your life- outside of what everyone else thinks you
should be doing?
Well-meaning
people place demands on our lives all the time, just like they did to Jesus,
but what is God calling you to do? How
are you being led by God to see, experience and participate in the bigger
picture goals of life and ministry?
Does your
to-do list match up with what God is asking you to do? Maybe it is time to reconnect and realign our
goals with God’s purpose to introduce people to Jesus and to offer the healing
love of Christ to the world. 