Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Lectionary: 107

He said to them,

“Come away by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while.”

People were coming and going in great numbers,

and they had no opportunity even to eat.

During my year of supervised ministry, as a deacon, I asked a priest, "When do we get a break?" He replied, "A break is doing different kind of work."

But I was already working as assistant pastor, assistant retreat director and director of religious education in the parish, plus a few other chores. Many years later, when the VA offered me a "full time" job of only forty hours a week, I grabbed it. Forty hours is practically retirement for a priest.

"Rest a while!" Jesus says.

Is that like a command?

Someone remarked recently that with new technologies people will need to work only twenty hours a week. "On which planet is that?" I wondered. New technologies permit fewer people to work fifty hours a week while many more people suffer full time unemployment. Americans would rather despise the unemployed than work fewer hours. It's called the Protestant work ethic,​ the obsessive belief that one is saved by continuous, meaningful and compensated work, rather than by the saving blood of Jesus.

How do I justify my existence? Or the right to eat, sleep, breathe or stink? By work.

May I be tired sometimes? Only if you've worked hard enough to deserve it.

"Rest a while!" Jesus says.

Do I have to?

For he is our peace, he who made both one

and broke down the dividing wall of enmity, through his flesh,

abolishing the law with its commandments and legal claims,

that he might create in himself one new person in place of the two,

thus establishing peace,

and might reconcile both with God,

in one body, through the cross,

putting that enmity to death by it.

We erect and maintain innumerable dividing walls, all in an effort to distance ourselves from the pathetic human beings around us. "Thank God I am not like the rest of men. I work for a living!" we say, to reassure ourselves that, despite our feelings of inadequacy, fear and helplessness, we're still somewhat salvageable. "If my work doesn't save me then nobody is saved!" we hope.

But the Lord comes to us in all meekness -- "riding on a colt, the foal of a donkey" -- and encourages us to rest a while.

"Can one be saved through rest?" we ask.

"I don't think so!" we answer.

"For he is our peace."

Eventually we do break down. Depression, alcoholism, cancer, heart problems, or whatever: the human being is peculiarly vulnerable to many illnesses and disabilities. Unlike other animals, we choose life styles that cause disease. One by one we fall back on each other for support. Even the wealthy must rely on underpaid health care workers sooner or later; often the very migrants they fought against. Barriers break down; things fall apart.

We're all in this together, a vast crowd, like sheep without a shepherd. His heart is moved with pity by our desperate efforts to save ourselves. We're like cars stuck in mud, our wheels spinning furiously; or dinosaurs mired in tar pits, descending helplessly into extinction.

....for they were like sheep without a shepherd;

and he began to teach them many things.