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Rest
SERMON - 10.15am, Emmanuel Church, Pokfulam, Hong Kong
Sunday 23rd July 2006
Revd. Matthew Vernon
Mk 6.30-34.
Having a baby teaches you many things:
• like the value of sleep.
My third baby was born one month ago,
• her name is Phoebe.
She's sleeping quite well,
• but I'm getting less sleep than before.
Her brothers wake up at the same time every morning,
• no matter what's happened during the night.
It's easy to see why sleep deprivation is a form of torture.
Rest and sleep are essential parts of a healthy life.
Sleep cures many things.
Rest is also an essential part of a healthy spiritual life.
For us as Christians, rest is based on the Sabbath.
That doesn't mean slavishly keeping the Sabbath with lots of religious laws,
• but it does mean making sure we get enough rest each week.
Jesus says to his disciples, in this morning's Gospel:
"Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while."
For many were coming and going and they had no leisure even to eat.
Sounds like Hong Kong, doesn't it?
With our busy, busy lives.
Many people are slaves to their work.
Many people rush around in self-absorbed activity.
Many people have yet to learn that there's more to life than increasing its speed.
Rest is an opportunity to regain our soul.
A change to reduce the stress and rush;
• to see the bigger picture again.
To remember God.
• Who rested on the seventh day.
There are many religious stories of people sleeping when they should have been awake.
People falling asleep during a sermon, for example.
And afterwards the preacher saying to them "sleep probably did you more good than listening to my sermon.'
I read another story recently, about a woman on retreat in a monastery in the US.
"On the narrow bed, [I] slept past Noon Prayer. Didn't hear the bell. Slept out the hours I'd lost in the cold night, slept out the lethargy, slept beyond prayers and good intentions; slept away the life I'd bought on my back."
Such stories illustrate how sleep can often be more important than religious activity:
• be it prayer or thinking about sermons.
For when we sleep our defences are down, our ego is lowered, and God can do God's work on us.
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