“Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves, and rest a while.” That’s a great word to ponder in the middle of summer. Come away and rest a while. Almost sounds like a commandment, this urgent invitation, doesn’t it? It’s the word of the Lord. A sweet commandment for the tired and the weary, the busy and the hurried.
Some of us don’t have to be told twice - we just go and rest a while in the mountains, on the beach, with our toes in the sand, or in the hammock, with a big glass of something chilled and fruity, hearing nothing but some chirping critters and the faint sound of an airplane flying high above. Come away and rest a while - what a pleasure it is to keep the Lord’s commandments!
Friday last week I paddled down the Cumberland River, and I praised the Lord for Great Blue Herons and juvenile Ospreys, the surprise of two big, long fish with spots like leopards whose names I don’t know, several Green Herons, a gorgeous Copperhead, and turtles, turtles, turtles - and I took pictures, of course. And when I got to the mouth of the Harpeth I thought I’d take another picture, just for documentation, I guess, that I had indeed paddled that far, and that’s when I dropped my phone in the river. Just a plop, no splash, and that unremarkable sound marked the end of the restful portion of the day. After that, it was all about getting back to the car and to the nearest phone store and dealing with all the crazy ripples a phone dropped in a river is bound to cause.
Reflecting on that unpleasant disruption, I thought about a summer several years ago, when Nancy, the kids and I had driven down to Fort Morgan, AL for a week on the beach. We had arrived on Sunday afternoon, and on Monday I got up early, made a pot of coffee, poured myself a mug, and sat on the deck. I could see Mobile Bay and the gulf from my chair; I could hear the waves, a few seagulls, and the soft voices of a couple of joggers running past the house. I watched brown pelicans fishing for breakfast as the sun slowly climbed above the pine trees. It was a perfect Come-away-and-rest-a-while moment — until suddenly an all-too-familiar whining sound pierced the morning air: a leaf blower! I will not repeat the words that came across my lips on that bright morning, repeating them would not be appropriate—not here, not now—but at the time they felt just right.
Then I saw him. The noise came from the house across the road; a house just like ours, sitting about 9 feet above ground on pylons, with two vehicles parked underneath on the concrete slab, and wooden steps leading up to the deck and the entrance. Our neighbor, with legs as pale as my own—clearly a very recent arrival—was blowing sand from the carport. The house was practically sitting on the beach, but he seemed determined to keep the sand off the slab.
“I just hope this isn’t part of your daily routine, buddy,” I said to myself, wondering if their house came with a leaf blower or if he had brought it all the way from home, just in case.
It takes a while to get used to the rhythms of life on the beach, I told myself. He probably woke up before everyone else in the house, and he was so used to doing stuff and staying busy, he just had to find something to do until the rest of the family got out of bed, I told myself. The rest of the week, thank God, the leaf blower remained silent.
“Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while,” Jesus said to the disciples. They had just returned from their first mission trip. He had sent them out two by two, empowered to proclaim repentance, and bring wholeness by casting out demons and anointing the sick. They still were disciples, pupils, followers and students of the master teacher—but here Mark refers to them for the first and only time as apostles, that is, sent ones. These emissaries, these newly-named apostles of the Lord gathered around Jesus, two by two, to tell him what they had done and taught. On their mission they had discovered, to their surprise, that they could do much of what they had observed Jesus do; that his authority and power became manifest in their own words and actions. They had stories to tell; yes, they were tired, but they were also wound up like children who cannot possibly go to sleep until they have shared every wondrous moment of their day.
“Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while,” Jesus said to his excited and exhausted missionaries who had no leisure even to eat. There were people everywhere, driven by curiosity and drawn by the promise of wholeness; people came to wherever they heard he was. So Jesus and the disciples went away in the boat to a deserted place by themselves, to a place with the promise of soul-nourishing solitude.
Just to be out on the water was great. They pulled away from the shore, away from the daily demands, away from the needs and the noise. Soon they heard nothing but the sound of the bow cutting through the swells and water splashing from the oars.
It didn’t last, though. When they pulled up on shore, they discovered that a crowd had followed them on land. It was as if they simply couldn’t get away at all. They could feel how their care and concern was slowly turning into resentment, and they hated it. They didn’t tell each other because they felt ashamed for what they thought was a profound lack of love and presence.
We’re all in that boat, disciples of Jesus, sent to proclaim good news and bring wholeness. But how do we respond when we feel emotionally and physically drained by the brokenness we encounter constantly? Compassion fatigue is a modern expression, but we have known the reality it describes for generations. Our emotional capacity to let ourselves be touched by the suffering of others, let alone respond to the demand they make on us, is limited. There’s a reason we sing, Jesus, thou art all compassion, pure, unbounded love thou art—we sing because none of us are all compassion; pure, unbounded love we are not. The wells from which we draw strength for the great work of living and proclaiming the good news, the wells are not our own. And that is why we sing of Jesus, why we sing to Jesus in whom divine compassion meets us in wondrous and complete human translation.
The scene in Mark is incredibly short: As he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things.
We may be so eager to know what exactly it was he taught them, that we almost miss what he is teaching us. We want to know the many things he taught them, because we’re pupils learning to think of ourselves as sent ones, and we want to pick up the lesson and run with it. What we miss is that we are very much part of them; that without him, we all are like sheep without a shepherd. What we miss is that it was him who went ashore and began to teach; and that we get to stay in the boat and eat the bread of his teaching; and that we don’t have to go anywhere or do anything but be here in his presence and receive his gifts, let him speak to us. Some of us still remember Herod’s party that ended with the death of John, the herald of the kingdom, and we notice that wherever Jesus goes, people live and experience wholeness. Some of us let him speak to us and we receive words of forgiveness and renewal. And some of us hear the sound of little waves rolling up on the beach, until we doze off, rocked to sleep like babies in a cradle. And when we awake, we rub our eyes and rediscover that the world did in fact turn without us. Oh, he knows what he’s doing, and he knows what we need better than we know ourselves, and he gives it to us. Come away and rest a while.
We follow Jesus because the rest he offers is more than just a break in a relentless race. We’re invited to rest in the movement of God’s compassion in the world, to draw strength from it, and to let it shape our actions, words, and thoughts with divine purpose.
Mark shows us a scene with people everywhere; people constantly arriving; people not just following Jesus around, but anticipating where he’s headed and hurrying ahead of him, seeking to cut him off before he can move on. They need healing and deliverance, and all the commotion, the crying, begging, and pushing bespeaks real desperation, desperate need—our desperate need, for we are them.[1] But we are not sheep without a shepherd. We shall not want.
[1] With gratitude to Cheryl Bridges Jones, Feasting B, Vol. 3, 260ff.