Rest Is Not A Reward--May 19, 2021

Rest Is Not A Reward--May 19, 2021

"For we who have believed enter that rest, just as God has said, 'As in my anger I swore, They shall not enter my rest,' though his works were finished at the foundation of the world.  For in one place it speaks about the seventh day as follows, 'And God rested on the seventh day from all his works.' And again in this place it says, 'They shall not enter my rest.' Since therefore it remains open for some to enter it, and those who formerly received the good news failed to enter because of disobedience, again he sets a certain day--'today' saying through David much later, in the words already quote, 'Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts'." [Hebrews 4:3-7]

Rest is not a reward earned for your labor.  Rest is a gift of grace made possible by a God in whom we can place our trust.  When we are clear on that, it changes everything.

I want to be clear about that, both because this particular passage from Hebrews can get rather dense and hard to follow, and because our culture has turned rest into a thing you much achieve, rather than an essential part of the rhythm of life.  The symptoms of that misunderstanding are everywhere--and I hope they are obvious.  We treat time off of work as something you have to earn with enough time worked at your job, rather than as something we are made for as human beings.   We worry about whether we'll have the ability to have medical leave when you have a major health concern, because we have built a system around making the company money rather than making sure people can get good care for their illnesses.  We feel guilty when we don't do enough.  We push our kids to max out their free time with extra-curriculars, sports, clubs, and volunteer hours, so that they can stand out from their peers when they apply to colleges--and then so they can set themselves up for more non-stop productivity when they are out of college.  All of this is just part of "the way things are" to a lot of folks. And because we have gotten used to that kind of thinking about work and rest, we have a hard time conceiving of the notion that it could be any different.  We end up thinking it is good and moral and righteous to treat rest as a commodity you earn as payment for productivity, rather than seeing it as part of how we are made, like inhaling and exhaling.  Sometimes we forget, it seems--you don't earn your breath in this life. It is a gift you are given, moment by moment.

If we can hold onto that clarity for a moment, then we can take the deeper dive into what these verses from Hebrews are trying to say about "God's rest."  Again, our author is using the stories of the wilderness wanderings of the Israelites to speak to his own audience/congregation.  And again, he notes that the liberated Israelites who wouldn't trust God in the wilderness never got to experience the peace of resting in God.  But that's not because they didn't "earn" it.  It's because you can't enjoy something you don't believe is really there.  If you don't dare to believe that the world really won't fall apart if you take a minute, an hour, a day, or a week, to rest, you'll never get to experience the renewal of having that down time.  If you don't believe that God really will keep the world running while you are keeping sabbath, you'll never have the peace of knowing the world is in God's good hands.  If you keep turning back to cruel and relentless taskmasters of productivity like Pharaoh for your worth, you'll never be able to trust the word of a God who says, "You are worthy, just as you are, for renewal and rest--it doesn't depend on your accomplishments or your achievements."  So the Israelites who never made it to the promised rest of their destination at the end of the journey weren't kept out because they hadn't done enough--their refusal to trust the God who gives rest meant that they couldn't experience the peace that comes from trusting!

Zooming out even further, the writer of Hebrews notes that God has been offering rest to us human beings from the beginning--we are invited to participate in God's own rest, God's own peace, that comes all the way from the beginning of creation, when God created the world and then rested. That's not because God had to "earn" rest, or because God was "tired out."  God's own being is perfect peace, and so God invites us to participate in that peace in our lives as we trust in God.  It has never been about us needing to do enough to earn some vacation time from the Almighty.  It has always been about God's gift of peace that fills and renews us moment by moment like breath filling your lungs and then being let go into the ocean of air around us.

And so, the writer of Hebrews says, right now--yes, even right now!--we are invited to let our trust in God bring us peace.   When I trust in the love of God, I don't need to worry about impressing anybody else with my job, my income, my accolades, or my status markers.  When I trust that I am accepted by God, I don't have to worry about fitting anybody else's cookie cutter expectations, and I don't have to find some other group to look down on in order to puff myself up.  When I trust that God provides for all, beyond some imaginary category of "deserving" and into the deeper reality of "simply because I am beloved," then I don't have to be envious of what my neighbor has, or use my abundance as a way of setting myself above others, or judge others for needing help from time to time.  All of that brings me peace--it allows my soul to rest.  And not just after I die (that's back to "rest is a reward for productivity" thinking), but right now.  The peace is mine right now, even in the midst of the busyness of this life and the work that is still being done, because God is here in this moment right now, allowing me to participate in the peace that flows just from God's own existence.

If that sounds good to you, I've got great news for you:  it's available to you, for free, for real, right here and now.  No strings.  No catches.  Dare we trust in a God who makes us possible for us to have peace in this moment?  I think it's worth it.

Lord God, let us rest in you today.  Let us rest in you.