Come to Me

“Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.  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.  For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”  NRSV

“Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.”  The Message

Come to Me

Come to me . . . such an invitation, such a welcome – who could imagine it?

But the invitation is not for everyone, for the very simple reason that not everyone needs this invitation – or do they?  Who is to come?  The weary . . . the burdened among us . . . all of them . . . all of us . . .

kopiao – to become weary or tired.  Or to exert one’s self – to strive, to toil, to work hard, to struggle.

Maybe it’s the hard workers among us . . . or the strivers . . . the strugglers . . . or maybe it’s just the soul- and bone-weary . . .

Tired of thinking about the problems for which you have no solutions?

Weary of the cares and burdens that aren’t even yours?

Soul-sighingly broken by the blindness of others?

At the end of your own rope and the rope of all your neighbors?

Come to me, says Jesus.  Like a cool drink of water on a hot day . . . like a gentle breeze on a still summer’s day when nothing is moving . . . like a soft cushion between your head and the hard ground . . . come to me – and I . . .

I . . . not your worries . . . your plans . . . your efforts . . . your demands . . . even your prayers and good works and unending attempts to change . . . no – none of that – I and only I . . . will give you rest.

Give you – notice – you do . . . not . . . have . . . to . . . work . . . for . . . it.

It is yours – because I give it to you, this rest.

It is my gift.

You don’t earn it.

You don’t create it.

You don’t . . . you can’t . . . make it happen.

But you can fall in to it.  Surrender for it.  Live better through it.

What is this ‘thing’ Jesus will give, if we but come to him?

Rest.

Refreshment . . . respite . . . reviving life . . . sabbath . . . how, then would it be, if we understood life as the act of resting in to the Lord?  Of falling into God’s embrace?  Of soul-surrendering in to the cushion of God’s love?

This divine offer of rest is a real, tangible, physical thing.  We all carry our tensions in our bodies somewhere.  Me?  Usually it’s my shoulders.  How about you?  Where do you carry your tensions?  For some, it’s the chest – where that tight feeling that sometimes makes it hard to breathe resides.  For others, maybe it’s the jaw – clenched against what might be coming.

Or the hands similarly clenched until the muscles ache with tension.  It might even be in our hair.

Wherever we carry our burdens, there, says Jesus, will he be – lightening the load, offering kindness, providing rest, if we but come.

Sure, fine, but then what?

Take my yoke . . . it is not switching one yoke, one work, one burden, for another.  Oh no, it is not that.  Take the yoke I offer, says Jesus – the yoke being a thing of uniting – as two animals are bound physically to do their work in tandem, together, side-by-side.

To take on the yoke of Christ, then, might be understood to be coming alongside this Jesus - working, walking, sharing with this Christ – and in the sharing, the burden is made light – of little weight, as Jesus carries his half and a good bit of yours too.

And in the lessening of the load, there, then, is rest.

Resting Into Providing God

I love this time of year.  All the signs of spring are upon us: birds are chattering, flowers are in bud, the sun shines and the rains come.

And with the rain, every day things get a bit greener, reminding me of the many references in Scripture to God as our Living Water.

From God’s provision of water to the people Israel, suffering in the desert in Exodus through Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well in the Gospel of John, we are continually reminded that for all our effort, God is our Provider.

I don’t know about you, but that single fact is a great source of comfort and rest for me.  It reminds me that I don’t have to be in charge; that I don’t have to worry; that I can and should do my part and (thankfully, oh, so very thankfully) leave the rest up to God.

Jesus came that we might all find rest and comfort, peace and reconciliation, in and with our God.  Let us be thankful, but even more, let us be rest-filled.

Pajama Day Sabbaths

Sabbath – the notion of holy rest – is one fraught with avoidance.

The nearest I come are my pajama days – days when I literally do not get out of my pajamas.

The telephone goes unanswered.

The dishes unwashed.

The laundry unhung.

The news of the day unknown.

Pajama days in my house are un- kind of days – when nothing (or nothing much) gets ‘done’.

Sometimes there’s a book I’ve been wanting to read.

Sometimes not.

It’s a challenge to do nothing in a do something world.

For many, sabbaths include the social – spending time with family or friends.

But not for me – a genuine introvert of the Myers-Briggs kind – for me, sabbath is a no-people day or it’s not sabbath – except with my kids – when they were younger, we’d do pajama days together, exuberant in our indolence.  The house was usually a total wreck after, but that was okay.  And we had nothing to show for our time, but that was okay too.  I miss those days sometimes.

Sabbath, you see, is a day when I require nothing of myself or anyone else but to be.

I confess my best sabbaths don’t have much deep thinking to them either – no pondering on the deeper meanings of life, the big questions are left for another day.

It’s hard sometimes to explain pajama day to others, like the day when a congregant invited me to dinner.  I responded, sorry, I can’t – it’s pajama day, to which he responded that he didn’t mind if I came over in my pj’s, which begged more explanation than I had the energy to give at the time, so I simply said I’d have to take a rain check.

Today won’t be a pajama day, but the fall rains are here (perfect pajama days) and I’m hoping for one soon.

Saturday Respite

Between intensities
in this week we name holy

in the hell-gap
the in the meantime
measure of things
from a Friday named Good
with no irony intended
to a Sunday that promises
spring and springing
life and living

sits this day – Saturday

somber in the church calendar
I mark it in a different way

for this Saturday is a day
if not of rest, of breath
and breathing –
breathing in the possibility of
tomorrow
breathing out the ashy sorrow of
yesterday

until it is reversed

until reversed again, it is neither
and Saturday stands on its own
with neither its reference point

and that is good

and so it is that the child’s entry
with laughter and running glee
hide-and-seek adventures
that turn an ordinary bush
into a massive jungle to be explored
that brings a woman old enough
to know better along for the ride

and it is good
and very good

Saturday