WORN OUT

I knew something was wrong. I was sitting at the table having soup with my fellow Maundy Thursday worshippers when I realized something was wrong. Soup. I was having a hard time swallowing it. Every sip of soup felt like it was going down an un-opened tube.

I did what I had been doing for days already and what is rewarded in America when we are not well – I powered through. I finished leading the casual communion service around the tables that night. And after pronouncing the “Amen” at the end of the blessing, I grabbed my things and headed straight for Urgent Care.  Diagnosis? The third case of strep throat in three months.

Our bodies cannot run constantly without some noticeable damage. Years of over working, eating poorly, and sedentary lifestyles take their toll on our bodies with various ailments that, when they arrive, demand to be noticed. Strep throat, even the third case in 3 months, was just a warning signal that my life was out of the natural rhythm for which God designed us. 

But other symptoms of a life lived out of rhythm come with greater force. The heart attack that nearly takes your life. The loneliness from years of neglected friendships. The stroke that leaves your gait and speech forever affected. The divorce papers that speak of an ignored marriage. The pain in your back that when you finally get checked out, you discover is a tumor that has been growing for far as long as the pain has been there. The unreturned phone calls from children who predominately remember you as an absent parent to their younger selves.

God has created us with a natural rhythm to our lives, one of work and rest. I once heard Barbara Brown Taylor remind us that God gave us six days to work (or produce) and one day to rest, and that each was made more holy by the other. God commanded the Israelites to observe a rhythm of work and rest. Their memories were fresh with years of slavery in Egypt that forced them into a work every moment of every day mode. God wanted them to have and share the freedom of living with one day a week where your personal worth and value was not connected to what you could produce, but connected to your identity as a beloved child of God.

This week in worship, we are going to look at Elijah’s pure exhaustion that leads him to a Sabbath rest, and we will explore what Sabbath rest might look like in our own lives.  I hope you’ll join us and invite a friend to join you online for worship as we explore the God-given rhythm of production and rest.

Blessings,

Pastor Becky Jo