At Rest in Christ

Matthew 11:25-30
A few years ago, my dad was hospitalized following emergency surgery. My sisters and I took turns staying overnight with dad during his stay. One night, when I was going to be with dad, Ann dropped me off, but stayed a bit and was talking with one of my sisters. In the meantime, dad and I talked.

My sister told Ann, “I’m so glad that Dad has Bub [that’s what everyone in my family calls me]. He knows things about Dad’s life that none of the rest of us do.” I think that’s true. Sons, maybe especially first-born sons, have special relationships with their dads. They have inside information on their fathers. They get things about their dads and can share things about their dads maybe nobody else can.

Jesus spoke of Himself and we confess Him to be the Son of God the Father. In fact, in speaking of the first Person of the Trinity, the “creator of heaven and earth,” as His Father, Jesus was speaking of God in ways that were hardly known among God’s people, the Jews.

Jesus had an intimacy with God the Father that others noticed. And when Jesus taught those who believed in Him as the Messiah and Lord, God the Son, how to pray, He taught us to address His Father as “our Father.” Jesus shows us that, despite our sins, God the Father wants us.

Jesus, to put it simply, shows us the Father.

If we’re willing to see Him.

In today’s Gospel lesson, Jesus talks about who can see the Father through Him, those who can’t, and what belongs to those who do.

Our lesson begins with Jesus allowing us to eavesdrop on His praying, His intimate conversation with the Father: “At that time Jesus said, ‘I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this is what you were pleased to do.’” (Matthew 11:25-26)

It’s important to be careful here. Jesus isn’t here commending stupidity. He isn’t railing against learning, scholarship, or degrees.

Remember that the person the risen Jesus would later designate as apostle to the Gentiles, Paul, was among the most scholarly and learned men of his time.

Decades before, God chose to reveal Jesus’ birth to people we sometimes call “wise men,” because of their scholarship.

I think that God fully endorses it when parents tell their kids, “God gave you a brain; use it!”

When Jesus thanks the Father that the truth about Jesus as the way to life with God had been revealed to “little children” rather than to the “wise and learned,” He’s drawing a contrast between two different kinds of people.

The “wise and the learned” are people who are so wise and learned in their own eyes that they think they’re better than others. They close their eyes to the truth that sets before them. They’re like the people of Jesus’ day who saw Jesus feed crowds with a few scraps of food, raise people from the dead, cast out leprosy and demons, and still refused to believe that Jesus was God on earth.

Today, they’re people who write off answers to prayers offered in Jesus’ name; write off believers transformed by the love and grace of God; write off the faithful strengthened by God’s life-giving world. They say it’s all coincidence. Or rooted in feelings rather than facts. They ask for proof, even when surrounded by proof.

Little children, as Jesus puts it, aren’t people who are innocent or sinless. Whoever met a child who wanted a toy that belonged to another child knows that little children aren’t sinless.

But little children are open. They’re willing to acknowledge the truth of what stands before them.

It’s to “little children,” Jesus says, people who are open and willing to trust, who see Jesus for Who He is and through Him, see God the Father.

One of the things I say to atheists who wonder how I could be a former atheist who now believes, is that I came to faith after seeing Jesus in the lives of the people of Bethlehem Lutheran Church in Columbus. By seeing them, I became willing to believe. The Holy Spirit took that willingness and is still weaving it into faith in Christ.

That’s why it’s important for the adults of Living Water to be involved in our youth and children’s ministries; kids need to catch your faith from you.

It’s why it’s important when you receive an invitation to be part of one of our discipleship small groups that you say yes; gathered around His Word, our faith is deepened and stirred in these intimate platoons of believers.

The Holy Spirit will give faith to anyone who is willing to have faith!

And faith is important business. Since we are saved from sin, death, and futility by our faith in Jesus Christ alone, we need, no matter how learned we become, no matter how many degrees we earn, no matter how accomplished we are, to have the openness of little children to see what God shows us in Jesus.

It’s to people like this that Jesus chooses to reveal all of “these things.” Look at what Jesus says next (He’s shifted now from praying to teaching others about the Father to Whom He’s just been praying): “All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.” (Matthew 11:27-29)

A number of years ago, in the heyday of blogging, I became acquainted, just via the Internet, with a woman who described herself as a Jewish/Buddhist/atheist. She was a writer and we both occasionally contributed articles to the same group blog. She wrote an email one Saturday and I dashed off a quick reply, explaining that I needed to spend some time working on my sermon. “I’m not sure I know what God wants me to say yet,” I explained. She wrote back: “HA! You actually believe that God inspires what you preach on Sundays, that it’s the Word of God.” I wrote back later and said, “I pray that what I preach on Sundays is the word of God. I’m sure that it is when I get out of the way and let God speak His Word through me.”

She wasn’t convinced. I think that she was too “wise and learned,” too unavailable to the possibility of belief to believe.

Jesus doesn’t call us to check our brains in at the baptismal font.

But He does call us to cede control of our lives--brains, bodies, spirits, wallets, relationships, and every other part of our lives--to Him and to trust in Him. He wants to liberate our brains, bodies, spirits, wallets, relationships, and every other part of our lives from their imprisonment to sin and death, set us free to become all that God has made us to be.

When we lay ourselves open to the God we meet in Jesus through childlike faith, we see just how incredible the God revealed in Jesus really is!

When we see Jesus, God the Son, and through Him, God the Father, we’re ready to respond to the invitation that Jesus makes at the end of our lesson. “Come to me, [Jesus says] all you who are weary and burdened, 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.” (Matthew 11:28-30)

Only Jesus could claim to be God in the flesh and, at the same time, call Himself "humble" and do so credibly. Jesus voluntarily divested Himself of the advantages of His deity in order to serve and to die for us. That adds believability to His invitation.

And when Jesus addresses those who are “weary and burdened,” promising “rest,” do you picture Him speaking to you? I think that we human beings are almost born “weary and burdened.”

• By things like trying to be in control in a world in which, literally, anything can happen. 
• By trying to be worthy in a world where, it seems, there are lots of people who want to tear us down or push us down. 
• By trying to get everything figured out. 

If you haven’t noticed, all of these things that we try to do-- seizing control, demonstrating our worthiness, figuring everything out--employing all of our wisdom, intelligence, and shrewdness, is futile if we do any of it on our own.

One of the passages we’re memorizing for our discipleship groups is Proverbs 3:5-6, which tells us: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding; in all your ways, submit to Him and He will make your paths straight.” This isn’t fatalism; it’s faith. It isn’t passivity; it’s filling up on the power for living that only the God we meet in Jesus can give.

There is rest in that even when everything in our lives goes crazy. A woman I knew had just lost her husband. It was a tremendous loss. They had loved each other very much. Everyone commented on how calm this newly-widowed woman was. I know that she had her tears, when the pain of her grief was unbearable. But I too saw that calm. She was at peace, at rest in the Lord.

Those consumed with their own wisdom, who think that they must be in control, may never see Jesus--even when they read His Word, are touched by the fellowship of Christ’s Church, or receive the sacraments. Their minds, hearts, and wills are closed.

But when we come to Jesus with a childlike willingness to see and to believe, when we are open to Him, we see God. And in seeing Him, we rest, knowing that no one and nothing can ever separate us from God our Father. I pray that childlike openness and that supernatural rest for you today and always. Amen

[Blogger Mark Daniels is pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

Learning to Relax

One of the hardest things for me to do is relax.

There are many factors that no doubt have contributed to my being so relax-averse. One is my work ethic. Growing up, one of the worst things that could be said about someone was that they were lazy or that they lacked initiative. Because my interests--other than sports--were more sedentary, things like reading, writing, creating, and other things not mechanical, I always feared that I might deserve the label of "lazy." I'm sure that, at some level, to disprove this epithet, I've been a harder worker than many.

Don't misunderstand, I love to work and I love the work to which God has called me. But there has to be a shutdown time, a point at which we agree with Jesus to let the day's troubles be enough for that day. Clearly, one of the reasons that God established a sabbath is so that we would set aside a day on which we could rest, recharge, and pay particular heed to God's Word. Martin Luther talks about this in his explanation to the Third Commandment:

The Third Commandment.

Thou shalt sanctify the holy-day.

What does this mean?--Answer.
We should fear and love God that we may not despise preaching and His Word, but hold it sacred, and gladly hear and learn it.

Another factor in my relaxation-aversion may be the nature of my work. While of course, I can't visit with shut-ins or the hospitalized at all hours of the night, I can work on a sermon, send a note, compose an email, or write a press release at any time. Because I've always been a night owl anyway, the temptation to do "just one more thing" is probably greater for me in the evening hours than it might be for others and when you're dealing with work that is never done (won't be done until Jesus comes back), the temptation is magnified. In recent months, I've even found it difficult to justify sitting to watch movies with my family because of a sense that I had something more to get done.

Another element of my personality working against relaxation is that I'm a widget man. A widget, in the days before computer techs took over the term, was simply a euphemism for any means of keeping score: How many transistors or hood ornaments a factory produced; How many battles a general won; How many words you got right on the spelling test. Widgets can affirm your productivity and, at a sick level, your value or worth as a human being.

Although I was an indifferent student, I always prided myself on the "widgets" I acquired in areas that mattered to me. I never got less than an A in History, Social Studies, English, or Spelling when I was growing up. I loved flaunting my supposed "mastery" of these subjects.

My first love was politics, in part I suppose, because on election night, voters deliver a score. The more votes you get, the more affirmed you are.

A close second to politics as I was growing up was sports. I was never a good athlete. But I was an earnest one. A small fry, I nonetheless loved to play basketball. Winning was so important to me that I tried to find subtle and not-so-subtle ways to compensate for my deficiencies. "Watch out," Steve, a friend of mine told another friend with a smile as we got ready to play some hoops, after we had all reached our thirties, "Mark's a dirty player."

In my twenties, two of my very best friends--Jerry and Tom--worked hard with me on my softball skills. I was the only guy on our team who hadn't played varsity baseball at least at the junior high level. (Most had played high school ball and several had played in college.) I became obsessed with my batting average and five years into our stint in an industrial league, loved showing people the stats I meticulously kept which demonstrated that I had the highest average on the team.

I even carried this silliness over into my years as a pastor. Once, I was invited to a conference for pastors of congregations in small towns or in rural areas. I was serving at Bethlehem Lutheran Church in rural Okolona, amid the corn and soybean fields of northwest Ohio. To start out, the convener asked us to give a ballpark estimate of our weekly worship attendance. The other pastors sitting around the circle said things like, "Around...," "About...," "Somewhere around...." Just before the meeting, I had gone through my weekly ritual of confirming the Sunday attendance and figuring out what that number did to the average for the year. "About 282," I said. The place erupted in laughter. "About 282?" someone asked.

When I took a call to establish a new congregation in the Cincinnati area, what became Friendship Lutheran Church, my tendency to obsess over numbers was encouraged. There are thresholds to be met by so-called "mission churches": attendance figures, membership numbers, congregational giving. These, in turn, decide whether the mission church meeting in temporary facilities, will be able to erect its own first building unit.

All of that is important, of course. I agree with the maxim of Rick Warren: We count people because people count. There is no sure way to measure how many disciples, followers of Christ, a church is making. But any pastor who doesn't care about seeing more people exposed to the Gospel should think about going into some other line of work. Jesus has given His Church a great commission, to reach people with the good news of new life as a free gift for all who repent and believe in Him. The Church is called to "make disciples."

But pastors and congregations must avoid overestimating our role in the disciple-making process. Jesus says, "I will build My Church." He didn't say, "Mark will build the Church." (Although in the passage from which that line is taken, Jesus is saying that He will use the confession of Him as Savior, like the one made by His follower, Peter, to build His Church. God's people are the central means by whom Jesus builds His Church.)

Furthermore, as Paul says in 1 Corinthians, it's only by the power of the Holy Spirit that a person can confess, "Jesus is Lord." For a recovering control freak like myself, it's tough to simply share Christ by word and deed and leave the rest to the Spirit.

My heart attack has taught me what I should already have known as a Christian:

• I'm not in charge.
• "Successful" or not, God loves me.
• I don't deserve the gifts of God's grace, but without personal merit, I can appropriate forgiveness and new life through faith in Jesus Christ.

Those are important facts for me to remember if I'm to learn to relax.

As I mentioned yesterday, over the past few days, I've been re-reading Dr. Keith Sehnert's Stress/Unstress, published in 1981. In a section I read last evening, Sehnert mentions Dr. Herbert Benson's book, The Relaxation Response. Benson looked at relaxation techniques from different cultures and noted that they have four elements in common:

1. Quiet environment
2. Mental device such as a sound or word
3. Passive attitude to help one rest and relax
4. Comfortable position to reduce muscular effort to a minimum

Benson then developed a method described in his book. I adapted it for myself last evening and found it deeply relaxing. After doing it, I was definitely ready to hit the sack. Here (with my adaptations in italics), is Benson's relaxation response:

1. In a quiet environment, sit in a comfortable position. (I used my Ikea office chair, extremely comfortable.)
2. Close your eyes.
3. Relax all your muscles, beginning with your feet and progressing to calves, thighs, lower torso, chest, shoulders, neck, head. Allow them to remain deeply relaxed. (I had forgotten how easy it is to relax parts of my body in this way. Keeping them relaxed is a challenge, but not insurmountable. You just have to give yourself the time and the silence.)
4. Breathe through your nose. Become aware of your breathing. Say the word 'one' silently to yourself as you breathe in; repeat it when you breathe out. (The breathing was fine with me. But in my mind to myself, I recalled promises from Scripture, prayed in Jesus' Name, and visualized and prayed for the Holy Spirit to fill and heal my body.)
5. Continue the practice for 20 minutes. You may open your eyes to check the time, but do not use an alarm clock. When you finish, sit quietly for several more minutes, at first with your eyes closed, then later with your eyes open. (I was able to keep my eyes closed for the entire 20 minutes and found it deeply refreshing.)

I understand that for many people, finding the time to do this exercise just once a day may prove impossible. For you, other modes of relaxation may work. If so, let me know. Recent events have made me very open to learning other methods.

The Importance of Rest

I may have to work on my communications skills.

I said something today during a group discussion that elicited a gasp from at least one of my clergy colleagues.

It happened at a workshop for the ELCA pastors here in our portion of southern Ohio. The workshop was called Recognizing and Dealing with Depression. The event was initiated by Pastor John "Jack" Jackson, who serves as president of our grouping of twenty-or-so congregations which make up what we call the Scioto Conference. Jack, who is observant of human behavior, capable of sniffing out denial readily, had discerned that many clergy, who spend their lives as caregivers, often don't take very good care of themselves. This was true, he saw, not only with physical health, but also with emotional and spiritual health as well. Many clergy, as hard as it may be to understand, are depressed.

I got to hear two of the three presenters: Dr. Evelyn Kirkhart, a counseling psychologist, and Dr. Yvette Hensley, professor of pastoral care at Trinity Lutheran Seminary. Both were outstanding as, I'm told, was Pastor Mark Nodo, a psychologist and counselor, the first presenter of the day. Sometime, I may write more about the numbers of things I learned, as well as those things I already knew but found reinforced in what they had to say.

But now, back to the gasp I mentioned at the beginning.

Both Kirkhart and Hensley, in their own ways, emphasized that getting sufficient rest is an important strategy for staving off depression. Now, that ought to be obvious, I guess. But as I heard these two experts articulate that fact, I thought of all the people I've known through the years whose struggles with varying levels of depression were either triggered, or more commonly, exacerbated, by the frenetic paces at which they lived their lives. They failed to get rest and that made their depression worse.

It wasn't just to give us a day to worship Him that God established the Third Commandment: "Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy." God wants us to take a day to recharge our batteries by laying low and getting reconnected with God and God's people. It's energizing to do that. God also wants us to close our eyes and sleep.

After the presentations, we were encouraged to join in on conversation. It was at this point that I decided to make a confession, one which I think was misunderstood.

The point I was trying to make was that before coming to my current parish, which has had a high number of deaths and hospitalizations since I arrived here and which also has an atypically high number of shut-ins (elderly who live in nursery facilities or are homebound), I realized that my previously loosey-goosey approach to sabbath rest wouldn't work. For the first twenty-three years of my pastoral ministry, I admitted, I decided on Sunday nights which day of the coming week I would take off. I might take any one of the six days other than Sunday, a workday for a pastor no matter what.

I elicited a gasp because at least one of my colleagues evidently thought I was saying that in the first twenty-three years of my ministry I had never taken a day off. Looking back, I understand how that impression was created.

But, not true. Had it been that long since I'd taken time off, I doubt that I would still be around. All work and no play not only makes Joe a dull boy, most of the Presidents in my lifetime stand as vivid testimony as to how unremitting work ages a human being.




















One of the problems with the approach I used for twenty-three years is that if you're so flexible about your day off, it's easy to justify letting time away from the job to get squeezed out of your week. It can be too easy to never get away and to be hurtful to family, relationships, one's body, and effectiveness as a pastor. I think that by having my office at home, being available as a room father when my kids were smaller and as a coach or a chaperone for events as they grew older and by having regular dates with my wife, I think that my family would report that I avoided some of the pitfalls of that overcome workaholic pastors.

But when I came to my new parish last November, I realized that my old ways would have to go the way of the passenger pigeon.

So, I announced when I arrived at Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan last November that I would take a set day off. Whenever my work necessitated my working on the designated day off, I've taken a different day away from the job that week.

My sabbath rest, which includes spending a bit more time reading the Bible than I do the rest of the week and a little more extended time of prayer, has also included the chance for me to spend time with my wife in seeing friends, going shopping, or just hanging out. Last week, my day away included hiking some of the several beautiful caves here in Hocking County with my wife and two of our friends visiting from Cincinnati. The day after these days off, I come back to my work the next day a better pastor and a recharged person.

On this day-of-rest business, I've tried loosey-goosey and I've tried intentional. Intentional works better. I urge you to do the same.

Okay, I'm done. As I resolve to do a better job of communicating my true meaning and save my colleagues from gasping, I'm going to take another bit of advice from today's presenters: Get a good night's sleep. Maybe as I go into REM, I can do some of my lucid dreaming to discern ways to communicate clearly.

[About the pictures above: The one on the left is President George W. Bush in 2000. The one on the right is the president earlier this year.]