Mark 6: 30-34, 53-56
Come Away
“Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves
and rest a while”
and rest a while”
Mark 6: 31
Imagine a place where the pressures of life, the time
frames, deadlines and bills aren’t piled on top of your head like a cold, wet
blanket thrust upon your head and shoulders. A place where the dog doesn’t need your immediate attention
yet again, another sermon doesn’t have to be written or a presentation
completed, or the demands of family illness or issues don’t consume your daily
living.
Imagine a place where birds can be listened to and watched
uninterrupted for a few hours, where the clouds roll by, both white and grey,
against a virgin Mary blue sky, where you can walk a straight path between a
wheat field and a sunflower field and turn your head upwards to see mountains
around you and a big sky, big, big sky, a place where the work for the good of
the community in the glory of God is first and above self.
Imagine Grandchamp.
A monastery in the Canton of Neuchatel Switzerland inhabited by the
Sisters of the Communaute of Grandchamp where work is performed in silence and
is punctuated by prayer in the Taize tradition four times a day. A place where you are left alone to
meditate or pray, stroll or hike the Jura mountainside, ride a bicycle, or sit
in the garden under the apple trees and eat Swiss chocolate or drink herbal tea
and taste and remember once again how sweet life really is.
They needed time away from the hungry throngs of people that
would soon be upon them and they needed to be at rest. You see they had had no time for
themselves, not even did they have time to eat it had been so harried. So they
boarded an old fishing boat on a calm Sea of Galilee and sailed away to their
deserted place.
It was Jesus’ idea for them to rest, to stop what it was
they were doing and take a break from the usual, the everyday, and from all
that depleted their strength and their energy. It wasn’t a question that he posed to them, ‘will you come
away with me?’ or ‘do you want to get a way for a while?’ but it was an
imperative that he gave them:
“Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while”
I do not have to imagine Grandchamp, I have just lived
Grandchamp and what it means to come away to a deserted place and rest. It is a community ‘…out of the Reformed
churches rooted in the monastic tradition and in ecumenism marked by prayer,
work and the spirit of the Beatitudes: Joy, Simplicity, and Mercy.’[i]
For three weeks I worked in community with the sisters and
other volunteers, mostly in silence.
I prayed and worked alongside them throughout the day and evening and
when I was free, I was left alone to rest in whatever way that I wanted to. To
walk, to sleep, to read or stay in my room, to explore the beauty of Switzerland,
the land that my grandmother was born – all of this was there for my personal
retreat.
It was an incredible gift of grace and I was able to renew
my spirit, examine my life, think about what matters most to me and to absorb
the absolute goodness of our earth that God has entrusted to us for this short
while.
Grandchamp however is by far not a deserted place! What I came to understand about this
piece of scripture is that when Jesus says go to a deserted place he doesn’t
mean to go to a forsaken place, or a place of abandonment or some barren and
dried out wasteland where there is nothing that can possibly renew your soul, a
place that is void of the very essence of life itself. What would be the use of that? He actually meant the opposite.
When he said to go to a deserted place, he meant to come
away to a place that is life giving but different from the usual places of your
life. It is a place that suspends your daily challenges and tasks for just a
moment in time. It is someplace
that will allow you the time to commune with God and be in prayer without
distractions that can ultimately deplete you of your energy and your
strength. It is a place where
unfilled jars can be replenished and empty baskets can be refilled once again.
One of my tasks at the monastery was to slice bread for each
meal, funny I should get this job, my dad being a baker and all. While this might seem mundane, for me
it was not. It brought back
childhood memories of the bakery and it gave me a sense of being of value to
the community doing the work of Christ, which is to feed others. My father used to say, ‘bread is the
staff of life’, meaning we need it to function. Like a shepherd needs his staff to negotiate the rocky
terrain of life and keep the sheep in line, we need wholesome bread that will
steady us and keep us filled and help us stay in line when we wander to far off
the path. We all need to be
fed. Slice after slice I thought
about him as I smelled the bread and placed them into the baskets.
Jesus also came to mind when he said, ‘I am the bread of
life, he who comes to me will never hunger.’ (John 6: 35) Christ is so very present in all
aspects of living at the monastery.
As I filled the empty baskets with the sliced bread I couldn’t help but
think of the words of institution from our communion liturgy, take and eat, this is Christ, given for you
so that you might have life.
Everything at Grandchamp is intentional, every task is
accomplished in silence with the presence of God in your heart. For me living into the presence of
Christ in silence was life giving and the rest that it provided was enriching
and so beneficial to my well being.
Who knew that slicing bread would bring me inner peace?
Yet even the sisters need a break from their daily tasks and
each Monday morning is what they call their ‘desert’ day. There are no communal prayers, and work
that needs to be done can wait. It
is a time of rest and trust. Rest
from work and trust that God will sustain them until they resume their activity
once again. It is like a breath
being held for as long as it can be and then released or like the sadness of
Good Friday’s death held in tension until Easter morning when death finally
relents and gives way to life.
Rest is not a new invention. From the beginning of time, ‘God blessed the seventh day and
hallowed it, because on it God rested from all the work that he had done in
creation.’ (Genesis 2:3) Even God
rested. Why should we think that
we don’t need rest?
We work so hard don’t we? All of us, no matter what it is that we choose to do with
our lives, are driven, especially here in the Northeast. If you don’t step aside and cease what
you are doing for a while how will you know how far you’ve come? How will you know that what you are
doing is the right thing and the decisions that you have made for yourself are
accurate decisions? How will you
be able to listen for God speaking to you if you don’t set aside time to
listen? How will you be able to
discern your future in light of your past and in the fullness of the
present? How will you ultimately
get rest?
None of us are superhuman, all of us need a break. Even if you love what you do, which I
do, Jesus still tells you to rest.
He certainly did, we hear of him leaving his disciples and going off by
himself to pray. It was essential
to him and he is a role model for us.
He wants you to cease what you are doing – I mean really stop. The Iphones, Ipads, MacBook Pro’s all
powered off! I am convinced that
this was one of those times where his human nature is in total sync with ours
because the compassion he shows for his disciples is rich. His life was difficult and he knows
that our lives are difficult too. We need rest.
The poet and author Maya Angelou once said, “Each person
deserves a day away in which no problems are confronted, no solutions searched
for. Each of us needs to withdraw
from the cares which will not withdraw from us. We need hours of aimless wandering or spates of time sitting
on park benches, observing the mysterious world of ants and the canopy of
treetops….a day away acts as a spring tonic, it can dispel rancor, transform
indecision, and renew the spirit.”[ii]
Grandchamp was the place for me to receive my rest but it
may not be for you. Where might
you retreat to that will give you rest?
It could be as simple as your backyard or in your easy chair for the
afternoon. The place doesn’t
matter so much as how you choose to spend your time of rest. It is in those moments of rest that
God’s presence and peace can be felt and absorbed. Rest is essential.
Rest is an imperative. To rest separates the past from the future and
allows you to come to God in your totality and just be.
One of the songs that we sang very simply says it all, “Take
O take me as I am, summon out what I shall be, Set your seal upon my heart and
live in me.”[iii]
Let this be your prayer. That in your moments of truthfulness before God, when your
rest has lowered the iron shields of pretentious living and you can breathe
deeply once again, you can sing out for God to take and use you just as you are
knowing that God has set his seal upon your heart, never to be broken.
“Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while”
Amen.
To view more of Grandchamp and the vicinity continue to scroll down
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