I Will Give You Rest

Leviticus 25:1-7

The Lord spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai, saying: ² Speak to the people of Israel and say to them: When you enter the land that I am giving you, the land shall observe a sabbath for the Lord. ³ Six years you shall sow your field, and six years you shall prune your vineyard, and gather in their yield; ⁴ but in the seventh year there shall be a sabbath of complete rest for the land, a sabbath for the Lord: you shall not sow your field or prune your vineyard. ⁵ You shall not reap the after growth of your harvest or gather the grapes of your unpruned vine: it shall be a year of complete rest for the land. ⁶ You may eat what the land yields during its sabbath—you, your male and female slaves, your hired and your bound laborers who live with you; ⁷ for your livestock also, and for the wild animals in your land all its yield shall be for food.

Matthew 11:28-30

²⁸ “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. ²⁹ 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. ³⁰ For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

In his poem “Sabbaths,” American novelist and poet Wendell Berry writes these beautiful words:

                        Whatever is forseen in joy

                        Must be lived out from day to day.

                        Vision held open in the dark

                        By our ten thousand days of work.

                        Harvest will fill the barn; for that

                        The hand must ache, the face must sweat.

                        And yet no leaf or grain is filled

                        By the work of ours; the field is tilled

                        And left to grace. That we may reap,

                        Great work is done while we’re asleep.

                        When we work well, a Sabbath mood

                        Rests on our day, and finds it good.

The field is tilled, tilled and made ready, tilled so that we might step away and let God take over for the plants and crops to bloom. The field is tilled and we have worked well, and there is a new mood. A mood of rest. A mood of comfort. A mood of grace. And it is called and found good, called good by God. Wendell’s words reflect the words given to us by the writer of Leviticus—words of work and labor, words of rest and grace and Sabbath, words spoken by the Lord to Moses for the people: “For six years you shall sow your field, and for six years you shall prune  your vineyard and gather in the yield; but in the seventh year there shall be a complete Sabbath for the land, a Sabbath for the Lord. You shall not reap or gather or prune. It shall be a complete year of rest for the land.” Work, work hard, God says, on the land that I have given you. Sow and reap. Prune and gather. Work for six years. But in the seventh year, you shall rest. There will be a break, for the land, for you, for everyone to rest in me. You have worked well. We have worked well, God says, and just as I rested on the seventh creation day, you shall rest in the seventh harvest year. A Sabbath mood will be created, and it will be good.

I love the term “Sabbath mood,” and I think we should use it more in churches and universities. Sabbatical leaves, moods, are usually given in the church after six to seven years of service, nine in my case (don’t get me wrong—you tried to give me sabbatical grace earlier, but two other ministers discerned that God was calling them to something new, causing me to delay a bit). Over the past several months, you all were so kind by gracing me with a sabbatical mood, a few months to rest and travel, think and discern, to travel for several weeks and stay still for others, a time to be renewed. You all gave me a leave from the fields I had been planting in partnership with all of you, a time to stay still and reflect and live off the yield from the planting. And although Leviticus suggests a year, three months is probably just enough time—ministers, after all, are doers by nature. It is a bit too hard to rest and renew and stay still for too terribly long!

And what I know now is that God has been at work all through this—although I had thought about sabbatical just as Lisa left and another as Frank retired, that God had created and sustained my sabbatical time for such a time as this. The past two years of my life have been an absolute whirlwind. When God called Lisa to a new place two years ago now, we all lost a minister and friend. I lost that, along with another female colleague in ministry, along with a family who invited this single girl into their own, a confidante. I also knew then what most of you didn’t know, that Frank would be announcing his much-deserved retirement only a few months later. That was a heavy burden to have, not at all his fault, but the reality of the situation. My beloved Aunt Linda was dying after years of chronic pain and debilitation. I was also in the midst of co-directing a conference for 1000 incredible college students. Hard and lovely work. And my aunt lost her battle just a few days before the conference started. It was hard leaving my family to go to Montreat the morning after the funeral, but lovely to be in a place I relish with people I love.

And, as most of you know, as soon as I got back from co-directing the conference, Frank retired 3 weeks later. It was incredible to be the interim head of staff in this place—all of you were so incredible and gracious; I learned so much about myself, and, with your help, I discovered so many new gifts I had for ministry. At the same time, I happened to meet a guy, a sweet, gentle, and kind man for whom I fell deeply and quickly, someone I thought I could spend my life with. It was a lovely time—me discovering new gifts here and really living into my ministry; the guy and I getting to know each other and reveling in being together. At age 40, I felt better than I ever had, on top of the world, more confident and strong and happy than I had ever been.

What I didn’t know then that I know now after sabbatical reflection is that it would be more difficult than I thought to step back into the associate pastor role once our transitional pastor got here. It had to happen that way, but I had no way to anticipate what a whirlwind of change that would be. Once God’s Spirit works through you to help you discover new gifts and new energy, it is hard to go back, hard to revert, hard to not preach and plan worship every week, hard not to do pastoral care with folks of all ages, just hard. What I also didn’t know then that I know now about my new romantic relationship was that his prior divorce was more hurtful and harmful to my boyfriend than either of us could imagine, and we spent the next year dealing with the implications of it, taking breaks, getting back together, trying to figure life out separately and together. I put every single bit of my heart and soul into the relationship, hoping for it, praying to God that it would finally happen, yearning—and it was deeply painful when it couldn’t work. I was hurt in ways I never could have imagined going into the relationship, something that was so hopeful and exciting in the beginning, something that ended up hurting me worse than I had ever been hurt before.

I spent last year in a whirlwind over so many things—missing Frank and Lisa terribly, feeling like I let our students down because I was weary but not really knowing what to do about it, physically hurting and in the worst pain of my life from a shoulder injury, trying to deal with change each day here, and confused, brokenhearted, and lost about my personal relationship. I walked away from him on my 41^st birthday, May 1^st. It was one of the most difficult things I’ve ever done. I guess it’s just harder, different, in your 40s, to lose the love you truly believed you had finally found. Everything was so hard, and my heart and soul felt so heavy, so burdened. Finally, as most of you know, I woke up in an ambulance on my last day of work before sabbatical on May 14^th. The seizure was caused by stress, by a lack of sleep, but not eating well, by weariness and sheer exhaustion. I’ve never been so scared by anything in my life. I think my body and my brain just finally colluded and said, “Enough, Rachel. Enough.”

“Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.” Come to me, Jesus says, when you are exhausted and weary, come to me when you are carrying burdens weighing heavily on your heart. Come to me. In Leviticus, we are invited by God to rest a while from our work, to live off of what has been sown, to just be; in Matthew, we are invited by God’s Son to come and rest in him, to let him carry our burdens for a while, to just be. And that’s what sabbatical season was for me—what it should be for all of us—a time just to be. A time to accept God’s invitation of renewal and rest. My sabbatical season, my Sabbath mood of renewal and rest, could not have come at a better time.

And I did the best I could! As soon as the cat and brain scans and the MRI came back clear after the seizure, I headed across the pond with my best friend. London was amazing in so many ways—we stood in the crowds at the changing of the guard; we looked for Mr. Darcy in Jane Austen land; we marveled in incredible architecture and rode to the top of the London Eye; rode a double decker bus and played in a red phone booth; geeked out as we stood at Poet’s Corner in Westminster Abbey (the perfect place for the English major and seminary graduate in me to come together); we rested in the Queen’s beautiful gardens as schoolchildren played; we saw “Antony and Cleopatra” at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre. From London, I went to New York with my nephew, where it was such a joy to watch a 17-year-old kid experience a huge city for the first time, watching such diverse and interesting people, marveling at how fast everything moved, being overwhelmed by the 9/11 Memorial, the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island; laughing and singing at the musical “Jersey Boys,” both of us moved by the beauty of the famous Gothic Riverside Church. We had such a great time. I was able to spend time at the Chautauqua Institute in a very different part of New York, a gorgeous, little quirky part of the earth where I listened to folks talk about the expansion of the American West—the people there, the influence of Mormonism and Scientology, how the West grew because of religious folks. All of these trips were renewal for me as I saw new places and met wonderful people, ate delicious food and saw different parts of the earth.

And then there was rest. You can’t get much more restful than spending two weeks at the beach, walking through the sand in the morning and watching dolphins roll through the water; sitting on the porch at night, reading, drinking wine, and waiting for the sun to set. My week at Montreat was cool and lovely as always, worshiping with 1200 teenagers and adults, sleeping and reading a lot.

During all of these weeks away, I tried to observe that Sabbath mood for myself, sleeping late when I could and taking naps when I felt like it, observing a much different daily schedule from my working one, reading a lot (some books about Jesus and faith, some the exact opposite), spending time with my friends and family, taking time to stop in new places as I traveled, knowing that I didn’t have to be anywhere at any specific time or hour. Heck, one of my Sunday mornings was even literally spent traipsing through a field of gorgeous sunflowers. Can’t get much more of a Sabbath mood than that!

But in the midst of all of that, I also spent a lot of time thinking, discerning, watching, wondering, reflecting about my life over these past many months. I spent a lot of time wondering what is going to come next in the next season my life, much of which I can control, much of which I cannot.

I’m not telling you my story today hoping for your pity or asking for your help, because I’m working that out. And I promise I won’t share like this very often because I think that can be dangerous for pastors. I’m sharing because this is the only way I know how to respond honestly to all of you. You all have been the face of Christ for me in granting me this sabbatical time, sending me off and guiding me through it with prayer, with words of love, with hugs and kind words, with lots of work you did in my absence. It struck me each time I saw one of you throughout the summer, forgetting that I hadn’t seen you since the seizure, reminded of that as you asked me how I felt, if I knew why the seizure happened, telling me that you prayed so much for me. What a kind gift.

You all have so kindly asked me, “Are you rested and renewed? Are you ready to go?” The most honest way I know how to answer your questions is, “In some ways yes, in others no.” It was such a joy to travel to new places and revel in friends and family, lovely to eat what I wanted and drink what I wanted and take time just to be without any kind of schedule or calendar in front of me. It was refreshing not to have my Presbyterian planning calendar in front of me, getting away from a schedule filled with committee meetings and Bible studies to plan, lunches to attend and people to meet. It was incredible to observe the Sabbath mood of rest in so many ways. I rested as I tried to wrap my head around the seizure, truly coming to understand the power that stress can have on a body and a mind. It truly is amazing to discover how much a season of rest can lower your stress level! And, in the end, I was ready to come back, ready to fill my planning calendar with those meetings and planning times, ready to plant and sow again, so ready to see all of you.

But I also come back knowing there are still a lot of questions, still a lot to deal with. Things will continue to change here in the upcoming months as God calls a new pastor to be with us—this means more change, change in things that happen every day, change that comes with having to discover someone new, the way they do things, their hopes and expectations for me and our staff and our congregation. It will be lovely, but also hard, a whirlwind n many ways. And I come back knowing that I am still grieving over folks who have left my life in different ways, grieving deeply over a lost relationship. As so many of us know, grief is a strange animal, popping up at different times in different ways, some of which we never expect. I wish that my grief had been dissolved over that sabbatical time, but I know that it is still there—and I know that I will just have to deal with it when it comes, however it comes.

But I know, more than ever before, that all of these things are best dealt with in community, the community of a congregation, the community of people who were created by God and belong together in Christ. I am profoundly thankful that you are my community, that we all belong to one another in Christ. I was reminded Thursday how powerful our community is as I left spent time talking with several members at the church, with Catherine at the hospital as she sat with her mom, with several students in my office that afternoon. My throat was hoarse from talking and laughing, and it was lovely. It was community. And because you are my community, I pray for all of you as I always have, pray that you will be able to establish a sabbatical mood of your own, a sabbatical space in all of your lives, a space for rest a renewal, a space in which you can ask big questions and deal with the things for which you grieve, a space for play and discernment and honesty. I hope we can all find this place, a space where we can find rest for our souls, a space where we can rest in the God who created us all. Thanks be to God.