Sermon for the 5th of May - Sixth Sunday of Easter

“Come unto me all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.”

With our busy lives, with all their distractions, how do we access the gift of rest?

And why am I talking about rest when it doesn’t seem to link to any of the readings.

In the Sundays after Easter, recognising that our faith is not just about believing in Jesus, but about expressing this by the way we live, we are running a series of sermons to help us think about putting in place rules of life that can provide a trellis for daily living.

 A Way or Rule of Life – as a ‘handbook’ for how a Christian community might live together. The best known of these is the Rule of Benedict. The Rule is about Prayer, Work, Community, Hospitality and Adherence to the Rule. Above all, it’s about balance, how we balance these in our daily lives.

Jesus loved to use metaphors. Just as a trellis helps a young plant grow in the right way, so these patterns help us grow as Christians. The important thing is not what we do, but who we want to become.

We are asking whether each of us can put in place some new rhythms of daily life- that will allow us to grow as a Christian community.

We consider Worship, Generosity, Study, Serving others , and today I want to offer some reflections on Rest.

Cast your minds to the Creation story in Genesis.

Let us remember, that on the seventh day, after all that creating, craftsmanship, and fashioning God rests, delighting in his creation.

Like all things in life, if something is to be done, let it be done well.
So, if we are to rest, let us rest well. And let us also spend time delighting in all that is good. To delight and be thankful, we need to have energy;

St. Benedict tells us that we will live well if we have balance in our lives.

What then should be our approach to making sure that what should be a time of rest does not become a heavy burden.

If you look at your service sheet, you'll see on the cover, a highly unseasonable photo.

Why have I chosen a photograph of Christmas for you to look at in the month of May? Because what should be a time of “tidings of comfort and joy’, for many families becomes a time of burden.

And why have I superimposed it with the logo of the Samaritans. The sad reason is that in the weeks after Christmas, the Samaritans’ telephone lines are busier than at any time of the year.

Life over Christmas has become an intolerable burden for too many people.

If you have found Christmas a burden, start planning now to tilt it towards comfort and joy.

Rest is not just about sleeping though. It’s about enabling us to be at our best.

To be at our best, the mind must be stilled.

These are lyrics from Mendelssohn’s “Elijah” oratorio signpost how we might to do this:

Oh rest in the Lord,
wait patiently for Him,
and He shall give thee thy heart's desires.

Commit thy way unto Him,
and trust in Him,
and fret not thyself because of evil-doers.
( Do listen to this YouTube recording: https://youtu.be/BB3oyo0VEuc?si=fQ7NNNnUwUSj8RRT)

Benedict stresses how a pattern of daily prayer enables us to rest in the Lord. Here at the United Benefice, we have online services during the week. They are short; they could be termed prayers for busy people. I’m not suggesting you attend every day, but if you have access to the internet, and you ask to get our daily email, all you must do is to click on the link and join us for 15 minutes.

What I’m about to say may seem fanciful - I can only put down to sacred mystery; People who attend, tell us that their day seems more fulfilled when they have attended. It’s how, in the words of the oratorio, we can rest in the Lord.
The oratorio continues:
Fret not thyself because of evil-doers.

In this age of the smartphone and rolling news, the activities of the evil doers can be brought to our attention as never before. And we can get ground down by events we can do nothing about but pray for those who need our prayer.

I’m sure that if St. Benedict was alive today, there would be quite a lot in the Rule of St. Benedict about smart phones. Phones can bring great benefits, but like everything they should not be overused. Benedict would stress the need for balanced use.

To be still and know that God is God, to still the mind, to access the gift of rest, to live a life that embraces thankfulness, that allows us to go beyond ourselves and love one another and be intentional in our dealings with others, we must discipline ourselves about how we access news and manage our use of the smartphone. And we need to teach younger users to do this too.

There are studies about how looking at small screens stimulates the mind -not good if you want to sleep. Watch News at Six rather than at Ten. Don’t look at the phone after 10.00pm and leave it outside the bedroom. Get an alarm clock to wake you up.

This morning, I fear I may have exhausted you with my suggestions! I’ve asked you to consider how you can lay aside the burdens of life and access the gift of rest.
To think ahead to Christmas
To consider joining our online Daily Prayer services
To be disciplined in your use of the smart phone.

Let me finish this sermon on rest with the words of one of the greatest and most influential theologians of the Christian church. The African bishop Augustine of Hippo who lived in the 5th century. This is what he wrote:
All shall be Amen and Alleluia. We shall rest and we shall see.
We shall see and we shall know.
We shall know and we shall love.
We shall love and we shall praise.
Behold our end, which is no end.

In this season of Easter, it could be seen as a Resurrection Prayer.
Fullness of life is rooted in the ability to rest, and the courage to be still and attend to what is about us. To delight in people and things.
My friend Fr. Kevin Morris, who will visit us at the end of June, has spoken of “how St Augustine’s prayer has a lovely flowing movement, from resting to seeing, from seeing to knowing, from knowing to loving, from loving to praising.”
Augustine viewed ‘rest’ as a time of harmony, connection, relation, and delight.
Rest well and we see more clearly, and when our vision is clear, we have a better chance of real relationships with others, with the world around us, and with our God.
Peter Wolton
May 5th 2024