Mark 6:30-34, 53-56
July 30, 2000
Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at the First Chinese Baptist Church of San Francisco.
You might as well admit it. You’ve punched it. Stabbed it. Jiggled it.
The “Door Close” button on the elevator. We have one in our new elevator too! You’ve pushed it when you felt anxious, stressed, and late. We can’t stand to wait a nanosecond longer for the elevator door to close.
Our impatience begins while waiting for the elevator to arrive. Elevator manufacturers know that a good waiting time is in the neighborhood of 15 seconds. Because around 40 seconds people start to get visibly upset. We get impatient and irritated. When we wait for an elevator or being in one, we rarely feel productive. So we push the “Door Close” button to get on our way!
And once on board, elevator antsiness only intensifies while waiting for the door to close. How long do you think you generally have to wait? Twenty seconds? Ten seconds? Five seconds? Two seconds?
Answer: only two to four seconds, which doesn’t sound like much, but feels—for some of us—like a life time. This is not just true in the U.S. If you were to travel to Asia at all, the button that has all the paint worn off it is the “Door Close” one. It gets used more than any other button in the elevator.
Culture of Hurry
We live in a culture of hurry. In such a culture, we find it difficult to wait.
In stock trading, we want our stockbrokers to execute our order quickly; lest we miss a golden opportunity. In Oakland, construction crews completed the link between westbound I-80 and southbound 880 more than a month ahead of schedule so that you can now speed through the MacArthur Maze. Applebee’s puts a timer on your table and promises to deliver lunch within 15 minutes or it’s free. I saw that you can now have your day in court on the internet instead of spending time appearing in front of the judge. And just last week, scientists discovered that a pulse of light apparently breaks the ultimate speed limit of 186,282 miles per second. Some are dreaming about this discovery impacting on how much faster information can travel across computers and even the future of warp speed and time travel.
In this culture of hurry, we push the “Door Close” button because we have no time to lose. Oddly enough, the more we fill our lives with time-saving devices and time-saving strategies, the more rushed we feel.
Rest Awhile
In this culture of hurry, Jesus invites us to come away and rest awhile. Jesus wants us to disable the “Door Close” button so that we might discover that it’s not how much faster light pulse can travel or how much faster you can go up to the fourth floor on the elevator instead of the stairs.
The first disciples of Jesus are an awful lot like us—coming and going with no chance even to sit back and grab a bite to eat. They just returned from their first missionary journey and they had much to tell Jesus what all happened. They performed miracles and taught people about Jesus.
But Jesus knows that in our ever-accelerating and fast world, disciples need to also find time to rest. He said to them, “Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest awhile.” For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat.
Doesn’t that sound a bit familiar to us on a Sunday?
Jesus and the disciples went away in a boat to a deserted place all by themselves. But many people saw them and recognized who they were. So as Jesus and the disciples tried to get away, their followers hurried to their deserted place by foot. From all of the different towns, the people got there before the disciples arrived.
For even Jesus and his first disciples, getting away from the hurry of comings and goings was challenging. In this situation, the people flocked to Jesus even when he wanted his disciples to get some rest.
Time to Relax
Today feels like we are right in the middle of the summer, July 30th. And when we think about summer, we think about taking time to relax. And some of you out there are already wondering whether I will practice what I preach! I confess that I am a workaholic and am standing in front of my peers admitting that I need help!
Jesus knows something that today’s best thinkers and managers are only beginning to understand. After the disciples have worked hard performing miracles and teaching about God, Jesus wanted to give them a place to relax, an opportunity for calm discussion and prayer. Jesus is aware that those who engaged in mission and ministry also need a deserted place to have peace for themselves. Jesus is not encouraging the disciples to be lazy, but to search out a place to retreat from others, to have peace in the company of the Lord. They need a place and time to have a peace of mind.
We know that good things take time.
Decomposition takes time. The making of rich, life-giving compost, for example, takes time. You can’t hurry compost for the same reason you can’t hurry love and you can’t hurry a good pot of ox tail stew. Our church’s retrofit project has taken an entire year to
get to this point. And we are pleased with what we are seeing because good things take time. Likewise, grandchildren take time, learning a foreign language takes time, the testing of a new drug takes time, and vacations that truly enable us to rest, relax and recreate take time. You can’t push a “Door Close” button and speed up any of these important activities.
Last weekend, the Sojourners went tent camping at the Pt. Reyes National Seashores. We had amazing gourmet meals. For dinner, we had prime rib and grilled oysters! Thanks to Wes and Sheryl Chan! What camping does is to teach you to take time for the important things in life. Although the food was unparalleled to any camping trip that I’ve been to, it wasn’t the food that we will all remember. It was taking the time to be away from our culture of hurry and spend time with family and friends. The three hours to prepare a meal brought parents, adults, and young people together. This would normally not happen at home. By the way, it usually only takes three minutes to eat! You can’t just push a “Door Close” button and speed up developing rich human relationships.
Resting awhile is not simply a lifestyle option—it is critical for Christians living in a hyperspeed, ramped-up world. Did you know that the old English meaning of the word, “speed” had nothing to do with velocity. It meant success and prosperity. When we say, “Go with Godspeed,” we don’t mean “God hustles you along.” It means “May God grant you a successful and prosperous journey.”
Becoming fertile, rich and mature—in other words, “decomposing”—takes time. It’s like being on a long prosperous journey.
We take time every week to come to church and practice Sabbath-keeping. We learn to discover that we can break-away from our workday world and devote a day to prayer, reflection, fellowship, and rest. The benefits are numerous and far range beyond the spiritual. When a long-distance runner takes a day off from training each week, the runner becomes faster. The “Sabbath principle” is built into our physical bodies. When we take a Sabbath day once a week, our lives are more meaningful and our faith stronger.
The problem is that our society pushes us to work non-stop. We have notebook computers so that we can work when we are on vacation. We talk on cell phones while driving. Usually there are no rewards for carving out time to “decompose” a day a week!
Summer at FCBC
Our church has wonderful summer programs that don’t have “Door Close” buttons. Next week is our week-long Youth Camp where 90 junior highs and senior highs will take time to learn about Jesus Christ and to grow in the faith. And I am looking forward to the relaxed times of having Pastors Conversations with all of you.
We have the All-Church Retreat, the Chinese Summer Conference, and CCAR, the college and career young adults retreat—all at the same retreat grounds but with different programs designed especially for that particular group. Then over the Labor Day
weekend, we have the ever popular Family Camp when families and friends take time to strengthen family relationships and to learn how to be better care-providers. These retreats are like the retreat that Jesus wanted to have with his disciples.
“Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest awhile.” For many
were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat.
And on August 19, we will again have our church picnic with great food from the Social Committee and homemade dessert entries to our Second Annual Bake-Off Contest. The picnic is a time for us to “decompose”—taking time to become good, rich, and life-giving compost to be able to serve the Lord with faithfulness and vigor.
Vacation Cut Short
This is not a call to you to take vacation all the time or to lead a contemplative lifestyle. Rather, it is a cry for limiting our work as we try to cram into every nanosecond of every week. And even when we try, we sometimes discover that our vacation is cut short. We are interrupted from what we realize that we need to do for ourselves.
When Jesus and the disciples tried to get away to a deserted place by boat, they found that the people arrived at their secret hiding place before they did. They recognized them and hurried on foot to get ahead of them. They too were living in a culture of hurry.
But when Jesus saw them, he had compassion for them. He saw them as sheep without a shepherd. So he took time to teach the people even though he wanted to retreat with his disciples for conversations and prayer. And later when Jesus and the disciples crossed over to land at Gennesaret and moored the boat, again the people recognized him rushed him with the sick on mats and those at marketplaces. And Jesus allowed these people to touch the blue fringe of his cloak and all who touched it were healed.
The demands of the villages and cities and farms will always be waiting for you, as they were for Jesus. It doesn’t take long for people to find you and interrupt you and cut your vacation short. They will cry out to you to have you perform miracles for them. But when you are returning from the deserted place, you’ll find yourself full of serenity, strangely stronger and ready to roll up your sleeves and do good work.
There’s a story about some workers who were hired to carry pieces of heavy equipment on their backs to a remote post in the interior of the country. It was like how workers had to carry all the pieces of the Pt. Reyes Lighthouse on mules and on their backs down windy and treacherous rocks before they could assemble the lighthouse. After several days of marching, one day they refused to pick up their burdens and go any further. They sat by the side of the road turning a deaf ear to the appeals of the man in charge. Exasperated, the leader of the expedition asked them, “But why don’t you want to go on?” One of the workers replied, “Sir, we are waiting for our souls to catch up with our bodies.”
Jesus understands that faster is slower, that haste is waste, that stress is mess. We might need to have our souls catch up with our bodies. When we take time to disable the “Door Close” buttons in our lives and realize that when we are in the company of the presence of Christ on retreat with us, we discover that we are valuable simply because we exist.
I hope and pray that you and I will take some time to be holy this summer and know that the peace of mind we may have can only come when we are in the presence of Christ Jesus. And even when we are on vacation or on retreat, Jesus Christ will never abandon us but will interrupt what you and I might be doing or interrupt what he might be doing to show the love and compassion to heal and make us whole.
Let us pray.
Gracious and Loving God, we praise you with the sounds of summer vacations, retreats, and holidays. Bless us in ways that we may become refreshed and renewed for the mission of your church on earth. Keep all of us safe as we participate in this summer’s programs. In the name of Jesus Christ, we pray. Amen.
Koyama’s Push time