Finding true rest

Matthew 11:16-30

16 “But to what will I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling to one another,

17 ‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we wailed, and you did not mourn.’

18 “For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon’; 19 the Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds.”

20 Then he began to reproach the cities in which most of his deeds of power had been done because they did not repent. 21 “Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the deeds of power done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. 22 But I tell you, on the day of judgment it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon than for you. 23 And you, Capernaum, will you be exalted to heaven?    No, you will be brought down to Hades.

“For if the deeds of power done in you had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. 24 But I tell you that on the day of judgment it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom than for you.”

25 At that time Jesus said, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants; 26 yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. 27 All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.

28 “Come to me, all you who are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

“Come to me, all you who are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.”  That’s a comforting statement, but it immediately follows Jesus saying things like, “I’m sending you out as sheep among wolves”, and “do not think that I have come to bring peace but a sword”.  The life of discipleship as Jesus as just described it - a life where, if necessary, you’re expected to hate your family - sounds the opposite of comforting.  “Take up your cross and follow me” is not an obviously appealing instruction, and indeed if we follow him he always leads us to that cross, to the point of pouring out yourself as an offering.  This does not sound much like “rest”, his words have been anything but “gentle”.   This yoke does not seem easy; this burden does not seem light.  

It’s almost like Jesus got to the end of his pitch and realized that he had maybe made the whole discipleship proposition not so attractive, so he tries to end on a more positive note.  There seems to be an obvious tension between what Jesus says is demanded of us and what the experience of  following those demands will be.  How might we square this promise with the demands that precede it?  What is “rest” anyway?  

Almost every day Franci will tell me that she’s tired.  Every one in a while I’ll respond by asking, “When’s the last time you weren’t tired?”, to which the answer is the time before we had children - but really it extends further back than that.  It’s hard to remember a time when we didn’t feel short on time and energy - and I don’t think we’re especially unique in that.  If you have young children, like many of us do, it’s easy to blame fatigue on being a parent, but I think that feeling, in our time and place, transcends circumstances and stage of life.  Everyone is exhausted; no one has rest.  

A few years ago I came across the work of the sociologist Hartmut Rosa who identifies this feeling as the very nature of what it is to be a “modern” person.  The pace of life only quickens, never slows down.  There’s always a new way of maximizing efficiency or productivity, some new technological innovation to incorporate, the whole logic of capitalism pushing us to ever greater levels of consumption even as we become increasingly discontent.  

Even the kinds of activities we think we ought to want to do become one more thing we have to do.  Many times I’ve seen people feel like they ought to attend Bible study, even has a genuine desire to do so, in the hope it will give life only for it to become another demand that further drains their energy.   And so what we want most is to nothing at all, to carve out the space and time where there are no demands, which nowadays almost inevitably means going online.  

But rather than rest we find the opposite.  The internet in general and social media in particular force upon us an essentially infinite sense of what is happening, what must be consumed, what must be known and addressed.  You wake up and there are emails waiting, news to absorb, reels to watch, our attention fixated on what is happening to unknown people on the other side of the planet.  It all seems inevitable even as it’s also dissatisfying.  Our world is never a settled place; it’s always in flux.  That is exhausting. 

Even if we can’t quite identify it, we feel alienated from from one another, from ourselves, from existence itself.  We don’t really know what it is to be human.  The most natural way of addressing this, for people like us, is to look inside for that which makes us special, that which - personally - provides meaning, to identify who we truly are.  Humans have always been preoccupied with their identities, but never before have we been so inclined - not to inherit a given identity - but to create one for ourselves, to locate meaning in the personal project of us - a project which is often very online.  But the curated self can never find rest.  And the only place many experience any sense of belonging is online “communities” even as our neighbors remain strangers. 

I’ve noticed that in recent years that it’s very difficult to find time to meet with people.  Almost inevitably if you ask someone to meet the response is something about how busy the person is.  And this is the response even when people don’t really have anything to do.  The sense of busy-ness, the lack of energy, is not actually so strongly correlated with the demands of outwork and familial responsibilities (often the actual busiest people are the easiest to schedule time with).  Everyone feels busy; everyone is exhausted; everyone is looking for some rest.   

But when we hear Jesus making his discipleship demands, it sure sounds like it’s going to increase the demands on us, which can only further deplete our reserves; the promise sounds nice, but we’re not exactly buying it.  

The problem is how we think about what rest is.  Rest to us calls to mind images of sitting on the sofa staring at a screen, or maybe just not having to go to work and/or taking a break for your kids.  And while it’s certainly true that we need periods of down time, space to space out, this isn’t what brings life, what overcomes our alienation.   

We feel exhausted even though we enjoy, by far, the highest material standards for living ever know to humanity.  We do far less physically demanding labor both at work and at home than any previous generation.  Despite how we feel, we have more leisure time than any people who have ever lived.   What we lack (generally speaking) is a sense of who we are, what life is far, our place and purpose in the world.  I think this is the most important factor in the low birthrates we see throughout the Western world.  We’re not really sure why we’re alive so we don’t see the point of giving life to others. 

True rest comes not from the absence of activity but from knowing your place in the world and finding contentment in it, having sense of mission and purpose, a goal towards which you are oriented and progressing.  And this we find less by avoiding what is difficult, more by embracing it.  What Jesus offers is precisely what we lack, not by promising ease and comfort, not by clearing our schedules and creating more leisure time, but by offering us a life worth living - a life congruent with our deepest needs and desires, that satisfies what it is to be a person made in God’s image.   He frees us from the struggle to figure out who we are, what we’re meant to be doing; we no longer have to find our identity or curate one for public consumption - we are given our true identity.  

Augustine famously said, “Our hearts are restless until the rest you”, and no amount of activity and no amount of leisure is going to change that equation.  It is only when we live into the life for which we were made - a life revealed by Christ not only by his words but in the very shape of his own life - that we find what we’re looking for.  Rest is found only when you discover that you’re exactly where you need to be.  

Following Christ might not look like it brings rest - when did he get to rest, after all! - and the yoke upon us seem anything but light - but then maybe were not actually the best judges of what the good life is and how to find it.  

We are here, after all, which suggests that maybe we are indeed searching - and searching in the right places.  Hopefully we all can honestly say that, to some degree or another, we do know this rest, that we have found by taking on the yoke of Christ that, rather than it weighing heaving on our shoulders, we have felt unburdened, that by following him we have found that meaning and purpose, even destiny.  

But may also be that we’re still a bit restless, that we still feel like we’ve reached our limit.  And if so, we should at least consider that the answer is not to withdraw or to put up a wall but instead to further take on the yoke of Christ. We just might discover that he keeps his promises.