Last Sunday I was on vacation. It felt odd taking time “off” after being mostly at home for the last three months. But the stress of preparing and recording on-line worship each week, plus trying to do some form of pastoral care, council meetings, Bible study, etc. via Zoom and telephone had taken its toll. So Beth and I checked out, turned over worship and various on-line meetings to others, and rested. We needed it.
And I did actually get away for a couple nights, camping at Gold Lake near Willamette Pass. I was out of cell phone range and my worries were reduced to a few mosquitoes and what I was going to eat. I got in my float tube and finned leisurely across the lake trolling a couple flies that occasionally hooked a lovely trout. I was doing stuff, but in a way that refreshed rather than drained energy. That’s a picture of the kind of life to which Jesus invites in this Sunday’s Gospel reading from Matthew 11:16-30.
The text begins with Jesus’ chiding those who found neither John the Baptist nor Himself satisfactory. He compares the people who reject both Him and John to bored children wishing to be entertained, but unhappy with any form of entertainment offered.
Such boredom is one of the results of pre-COVID-19 frenetic modern life, when we are engaged in constant activity but enjoying none of it. We keep expecting that the next job, the next purchase, the next romantic partner or business venture will somehow be more satisfying than those that preceded. So we rush on toward what is ahead, imagining that our activity will produce happiness.
That pursuit of happiness by endless activity is perhaps why weeks of stay-at-home have generated so much restlessness and so many people who refuse to take it seriously any longer. They suppose that the answer to their boredom is to get out and do something, even if it recklessly exposes them and others to coronavirus.
In the middle of the text, which the lectionary skips over, Jesus addresses cities in Galilee which had ignored and even disbelieved the miracles done in their midst. It’s a warning to us to pay more attention to what our Lord is doing and will do right in our midst, in our own homes and lives, if we will pay attention. Going out to shop or get a haircut or attend a party will not really offer near the personal fulfillment we suppose it might after a long stay at home. Instead, time in prayer or conversation on-line or deeper Bible study may actually provide both peaceful rest and a more satisfying relationship with our Lord.
So the text for Sunday appropriately ends with a call to take up Jesus’ easy yoke. Just prior to that, Jesus points out how the gifts of His Father are not given only to the wise and brilliant who pursue them tirelessly, but to those who come like children, willing to receive without boredom or distraction. His gifts are like those fish I caught last week without trying all that hard. May our Lord make this huge pause in so many of our lives a time when we discover again the blessings of that easy yoke.