July 25, 2006 — 8:49 PM
"I Will Give You Rest"
2 Samuel 7:1-14a
Mark 6:30-34, 53-56
It's been a hard week to follow the news. No matter what medium you prefer - television, newspapers, magazines, or the internet - it was full of sad stories. Many times during the week I found myself having to close my computer and walk away. It was all too much to take in. It was hard to see God at work in what I read there.
First, there was the frightening news of armed conflict between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon, news that continues to grow even more frightening by the day. With ever-growing numbers of deaths and no end in sight, we are left to wonder how will true peace ever be reached?
Add that on top of the continuing coverage of the deaths in the conflict in Iraq and fighting among ethnic groups in African nations.
And, as if man-made disasters weren't hard enough to deal with, there were many stories of natural disasters as well.
In Southern California and beyond firefighters worked valiantly to put out wildfires and protect populated areas. And once those were under some control the threat of heavy rains bringing flooding was announced.
And, once again, Indonesia experienced a devastating earthquake followed by tsunami which killed many hundreds of people.
All of this, and much more, during one of the hottest weeks on record across the entire nation.
It was a hard week for people everywhere. I know it made me long to hear God speaking as God spoke to David. I would love to hear God's promise: "I will give you rest." Those are beautiful words. And to those wearied by the events of living daily in a world that often seems overwhelming and hostile, those words offer hope.
God offered this word of hope not only to David, but also to God's people. We hear this in verse 10 when God says, "I will appoint a place for my people Israel and I will plant them, so that they may live in their own place, and be disturbed no more; and evildoers shall afflict them no more, as formerly."
Interesting words to hear in light of the news from Israel this week. They are words that most definitely inspire modern-day Israelis to fight for the land that they believe God planted their ancestors in. But that was not the original intent of these words.
God speaks this promise through the prophet Nathan at a time when the Israelite people have been in the promised land for many years. They had settled a generation or so earlier in an area of the lower Palestinian hill country and had accepted Saul as their king.
But life was never very stable. Their kingdom was constantly being attacked by other peoples living in the area. When David became their king he decided that God wanted them to move higher into the hills where they would be more secure and to establish God's holy city in Jerusalem.
So David moved the people up into the high country and established the kingdom there - complete with a lovely royal dwelling for himself and his family. Things seemed to be calming down on the foreign affairs front and the people started to be able to relax a little; ceasing to worry constantly about a threat of invasion.
This relief from foreign threats allows David to begin to think about something other than self-defense for himself and for the people. He begins to think about establishing the official cult for their God. This would be symbolized by the building of a "house" for God. It would be a temple worthy of the deity who had brought the people up out of slavery in Egypt, had brought them safely through the long years wandering in the desert, and into the promised land. David believes that the transitory nature of the Tabernacle, which had been made to be moved from place to place, is no longer sufficient as a place to worship God.
So David consults Nathan the prophet, who is relatively new to the job, and Nathan gives him the go ahead. Up to this point every decision David has made has received God's blessing, so why would this one be any different? But, as Nathan finds out that night, it is different. God doesn't want a permanent house from David. God wants David to rest while God works on behalf of David and the people. God wants them to be safe from their enemies and God wants to give them a place where they can be rooted - a place that will be theirs for many generations to come.
The work that God called David to do - protecting the kingdom from invaders and foreign pressures - has been completed for the time being. Now it is time for David and the people to rest and be concerned only about daily life. More will be asked of them in the future, but for now they are to sit back, relax, and enjoy the goodness of the Lord who has brought them to a new land where they can worship God without hinderance.
God says, "I will give you rest" and with this statement asks David and the people to allow God to do just that. They must stop their planning and activity in order to allow God to give them rest. God offers the promise and now it's up to the people to accept it.
Our New Testament reading for this morning tells us that the disciples were in a similar place.
Earlier in chapter 6 of Mark's gospel they had been commissioned by Jesus to go out and do the work of the kingdom of God. In order to do this work, Jesus gave them authority over unclean spirits. It was believed that spirits caused people to be ill and made them unclean in the eyes of the religious authorities. Jesus was giving his disciples the authority to heal people in the same way that Jesus healed them. Jesus' act of commissioning the disciples showed that healing was not an exclusive power of Jesus, but rather was possible from anyone who believed in the God whom Jesus called Father.
Not only did Jesus give them authority to heal the sick but he also charged them to proclaim repentance - the same work that John the Baptist was said to be doing in each of the gospels. Life under Roman occupation was not easy - it was not the life that God had promised to the ancestors who were brought out of Egypt. The prophetic people of the day, including John the Baptist and Jesus, believed that the reason for the difficulties was that the people had not kept their commitment to the covenant. They needed to repent so that God would once again look upon them with favor and bring about peace and security for them in their land.
At the beginning of our passage, we find the disciples returning to Jesus to report on their work in that regard. In between the time of their commissioning and their return to report to Jesus some very disturbing news has spread throughout the Jewish communities. John the Baptist, who had been jailed by Herod for being an agitator of the people, has been put to death. And the story being told is that it was all because of Herod's wife. She disliked him so much that she asked for his head to be brought to her.
The disciples come to Jesus weary from the work of healing and weary from the strain of living in the shadow of that violent death. They are scared that they will meet a similar end - or worse, their teacher Jesus will.
Jesus sees that the disciples are weary. He sees that they have been working hard to follow his command. He learns that some of them have been working so hard that they have not even had the time to eat. So Jesus invites them to come away with him to get some rest. They have completed their work for the time being and they need to rest a bit before they return to the work of the kingdom.
They get in a boat together to go down the shore to one of Jesus' favorite places to rest. They are looking forward to spending time together relaxing and learning more from Jesus about God's kingdom and how it will be radically different from the kingdom in which they are living now.
Unfortunately, that rest time is cut short - it ends up being only one boat ride long.The people of the area catch word of Jesus' presence. They have been following Jesus' movements so they know where he likes to go. This allows them to run ahead to meet Jesus and his disciples at the end of their journey along the lake shore. Those that gather desperately desire Jesus' healing touch.
When Jesus and the disciples come ashore, Jesus has compassion on the people and stops to pay attention to them. He knows that rest is important for his disciples, but he also wants to give the people that come to him rest from their infirmities and from the social isolation that those infirmities bring. Because of this conviction, Jesus stops what he is doing and tends to the people as a shepherd tends to sheep.
Rest is important - God wants to provide it for David and the Israelite people; Jesus wants to provide it for his disciples.
Rest has been important since the beginning of creation. When God had finished separating water from land, light from darkness, man from animals, and eventually from woman, God established a day of Sabbath - a day set apart for rest and worship of God.
God wants to give us all rest and to help us feel secure, but often we are like David - busy making plans for how to work for God. Sometimes we get so caught up in what we are doing that we fail to see that all God wants from us is for us to stop and let God give us rest.
Maybe we need to stop for a short while - for the length of a boat ride along the lake. Or maybe we need to stop for a longer period while God sets the stage for the next big steps to be taken. In David's case, God didn't want a temple to be built by him. God wanted it to come from the next generation - from the line that God promised to establish for David.
What is God calling you to step back from? What do you need to shift your focus away from so that you can see God's call to renewing rest?
I know that this community has been working hard since I was with you as an intern to do the work of preparing to call a new pastor. This has been intensive work - writing a mission vision statement, working with the presbytery to get it approved, writing a Church Information Form, making sure it truly reflects who you are as a worshipping community and where you want to go. Where have you been renewed in this process? Have you taken times of rest to be renewed by God's love? Have you felt God's reassurance through the promise to be with you always?
Maybe God is calling the Old First community to rest in the assurance that God will provide. Rest in the knowledge that you all have a rich, long history through which God has worked to do wonderful things. And rest in the promise that God will continue to do so long into the future.
And where do you need rest in your individual lives? Are you weary from constantly worrying about how you will make ends meet? Are you struggling with health issues that wear you down physically and drain you mentally? Are you tired from the strain of working to make this world better only to pick up a newspaper and read that it only seems to get worse?
Maybe God is calling you to trust in God's providence. God, the creator of all that is, wants to provide for each of us. We just need to be willing to open ourselves up to receive what God offers. It may not look like what we were hoping for, but it will be what we need.
I say this as much for myself as I wait on God for a call into full-time ministry in a church as I say it for all of you.
Sometimes we can get so stuck on one vision of how things should be that it's hard to recognize another option. That is why God calls us to stop, to break the pattern we are in. Only then will we be able to see what other possibilities exists for us.
This past week I attended a training seminar for interim pastor ministry at Zephyr Point Presbyterian Conference Center on South Lake Tahoe. This was my first trip to Lake Tahoe after having lived in San Francisco for twelve years. It's hard to believe that it has taken me so long to get there, but now that I have experienced it first hand, you can bet it won't take me that long to return!
One session during our training included a video from a photographer for National Geographic who was talking about how he gets the shots that end up being bought and published. He said the biggest breakthroughs for him come when he remembers that there is more than one right answer - more than one right shot. He doesn't stop once he has a good shot that will fulfill the assignment. Rather, he changes position, angle, or lens and tries to get more photos. And often, he has to turn around and look in the other direction.
The clarity of thinking necessary to help us see more than one right answer comes only when we have had a chance to rest and be renewed. When we work from a place of exhaustion we often get trapped into thinking that there is only one right answer. God calls us to rest so that God can shower us with many right answers from which we can choose the one that fits best.
God said it to David and the Israelite people and God says it to us today: "I will give you rest." Trust in God's promise and allow God to shower you with possibilities.
Amen.
