Pause

Luke 5:12-16

August 25, 2012 • PF Hope

Sometimes, you just have to get away. In the summer of 1989, Cathy and I worked in the inner city of Chicago, on the west side, in the Austin community. And it was hard work, seeking to share the love of Christ with people who didn’t really care a lot of the time. We worked with a day camp, and most of the parents didn’t care where their kids were, as long as they didn’t have to worry about them. But we pushed on, and in many ways shared Jesus’ love with those kids, believing that if the kids came to know Jesus, they’d bring their parents to the church as well. So there was the daily work, and there were also the pressures that built up among the team. There were ten of us living in a four-room apartment—three men, seven women, and the only air conditioning in the apartment was in the girls’ dorm room. The men made do with fans during one of the hottest summers on record (perhaps until this year). And one day, I’d had enough. I didn’t realize it until some of my supplies came up missing and, really for no good reason, I lost it. I went off on the person who took my supplies, and then I stormed out of the building, got in my car and started driving. I didn’t even know where I was going. I just headed west. And once I had run out of steam, I stopped, bought a candy bar, and drove back. Sometimes you just need to get away. Sometimes you just need to have a bit of a rest in order to begin again. Sometimes you need a pause.

Of course, from the beginning, we’re told we need those breaks. We don’t listen well, especially today when our culture insists we have to work 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. I mean, really, does anyone seriously NEED to shop at Wal-Mart at 3:00 a.m.? And yet, they’re open. To have a grocery store or a restaurant closed on Sunday seems odd to us. But we were not meant to live that way. Enshrined in the Ten Commandments, God’s basic instructions for life, is this command: “Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord. On it you shall not do any work” (Exodus 20:9-10). Sabbath is another word for “pause.” Stop. Cease. Don’t do any work. Allow your body and your soul to rest. Humans were made for a rhythm of six days of work and one day of rest, but we, of course, have done God one better. We now work seven days and often feel guilty if we rest, if we pause. Soldier on, keep going, don’t stop—that’s the message we get from our culture, and sometimes from each other.

And yet Jesus, the Son of God, didn’t live like we do. Jesus, who only had about three years to accomplish the ministry he came to do, took the command to rest seriously. We see that in the Gospel passage we read this evening. It’s a busy time in his ministry. He’s just called his first disciples to follow him, and now he finds himself confronted with a leper. Lepers in Biblical times were outcasts. They were kept outside of town, as commanded in the Old Testament, and if anyone approached them, they were to call out “Unclean!” No one wanted them around, because leprosy was highly contagious and there was no cure. One scholar put it this way: “To the rabbis the cure of a leper was as difficult as raising a person from the dead” (Marshall qtd. in Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels, pg. 463). However, it was expected that one of the signs of the arrival of the Messiah would be the healing or cleansing of lepers. So this leper, who perhaps has heard about Jesus and has heard the whispers that he might just be the one, the savior, the Messiah, calls out to Jesus when he sees him passing by. Luke says the man fell on his face and begged Jesus for healing: “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean” (5:12). And Jesus does what no one was supposed to do, what hadn’t been done to this man since the day he was diagnosed with leprosy. Jesus touched him. Jesus reached out, across the distance that separated them, and he put his hand on the man. Think about that for a moment. Leprosy patients could live as long as twenty years with the disease (ZPEB, Vol. 2, pg. 139), so depending on how far along he was in his leprosy, it could have been a very, very long time since anyone has touched him. They say that one of the most isolating parts of being in the hospital or being in a nursing home or even just living alone is that no one touches you. There is great healing power in human touch, in knowing you are connected to someone else. This man had been isolated for a long, long time, until Jesus touched him and said, “Be clean!” (5:13). “And immediately,” Luke the doctor says, “the leprosy left him.”

Before he could go back to his old life, though, there were some things he had to take care of. He needed to go to the priests and have them certify him as healed; that was a directive given in the Old Testament. So go do that, Jesus says, and don’t tell anyone else that you’ve been healed. Got that? Don’t tell anyone. And so what does the man do? He does what we would probably do. He tells someone. I imagine he tells everyone, though Luke doesn’t say that. Instead, Luke says, “The news about him spread all the more” (5:15)—him being Jesus. Of course, the former leper might have only told one person, and they told one person, and they told one person…and you know how that ends up. Pretty soon, everyone knows. So something like that happens here. And Jesus’ popularity skyrockets overnight—not because of what he was teaching, but because of the healing. People want to see the show. So Luke says, “Crowds of people came to hear him and to be healed of their sicknesses” (5:15). Crowds of people. People everywhere. People who want something from Jesus.

So what does Jesus do? Well, if we were his advisors, we’d draw up a marketing plan, get him on “Good Morning America” to talk about his ministry, make sure the evening news covers his latest speaking engagements, and be sure to highlight the fact that he can heal people. We’d take advantage of the “word of mouth” publicity, and we’d have Jesus out there seven days a week, 364 days a year (we’d probably let him have his birthday off). But that’s not what Jesus does. Luke says when the crowds grow, Jesus withdraws. In fact, he often withdraws. He goes out to the “lonely places” in order to pray (cf. Card, Luke: The Gospel of Amazement, pg. 78). The disciples don’t seem to understand that. Over in Mark’s Gospel, there is another occasion where people come to see the show, and Jesus goes off by himself, early in the morning, to a “solitary place” to pray. And, the way Mark tells it, when the disciples get up and can’t find Jesus, they go looking for him. When they do find him, up in the hills, they say, “Everyone is looking for you!” In other words, “What are you doing up here, wasting your time praying? People are waiting for you. You have obligations, responsibilities! You don’t have time to pray!” And do you know Jesus says? “Let’s go somewhere else. Not back down to the crowds. Let’s go preach somewhere else” (Mark 1:35-39). I can almost see the dumbfounded looks on the faces of the disciples. Why wouldn’t he want to dive back into the crowds, into the popularity? Why would he spend so much time praying?

There’s another occasion in Matthew 16, again at a time when large crowds are gathering. In fact, in the previous chapter, Jesus feeds 4,000 people with seven loaves of bread. And he’s argued with some of the religious leaders, so perhaps he’s just had enough. Jesus decides it’s time to get away. Far away. As far away as he can. He takes the disciples on a retreat, way up to the northern part of Israel, to a place called Caesarea Philippi. To find a more religious place in first-century Israel would have been difficult. Caesarea Philippi had altars to all the popular pagan gods. In fact, we stood there, perhaps in the place where Jesus took the disciples, this summer. There are ruins of former pagan temples, and a cave that is sometimes referred to as “The Gates of Hell.” The Temple there was dedicated to Pan, the Goat God, and all sorts of other temples stood next to it. It was a whole smorgasboard of pagan worship. So many scholars think it was here, next to these temples, that Jesus asked the disciples who they thought he was. Peter was the only brave enough to blurt out, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God” (16:16). And Jesus praises him, telling him, “You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church,” and then, perhaps pointing to the pagan temples behind him, he says, “and the gates of Hades [or Hell] will not overcome it” (16:18). In other words, these pagan religions will not stand. Nothing will overcome the one who confesses Jesus as savior. But, you see, this time away, this pause in their ministry and activity and busy-ness, was exactly what the disciples needed to be able to see Jesus clearly, to know who he was and is. 

Different places, different situations, all with the same result. Jesus knew the value of a pause when things get busy, when they get out of control, when it seems as if you don’t know what to do next. And that brings us to tonight, because after tonight, we’re taking a “pause” from PF Hope, a hiatus if you will. And I want you to know this was not an easy decision. In fact, it’s a decision we’ve probably put off too long; it’s one we knew was coming. There are a lot of factors that have come together to bring us to this point, but perhaps the easiest way I can sum it up is that for the last several months, the leadership for PF Hope has been running in a spiritual survival mode. We’ve kept busy. We’ve done all the things that needed to be done. We’ve put on services. We’ve taken field trips. We’ve played music, sung songs, preached sermons, prepared food. And we’ve ignored the model Jesus set for us of pausing and resting and listening, and so now we’ve come realize there is a deep, spiritual exhaustion happening among the leadership and those who help every week to put PF Hope together. I want you to hear me clearly: I do not believe we misheard God when we began this ministry. I believe we responded in the way God would have us respond. But there have been a lot of circumstances we didn’t anticipate, a lot of things have happened that have been, honestly, out of our control, and a lot of choices made that have served to complicate the ministry here. Things have been busy, but busy-ness is not ministry. We still believe that the calling of PF Hope is to reach people who aren’t being reached in any other way with the love of Jesus. The question is: how do we do that moving forward? Because we’re not done. This is not a “stop.” This is a pause. This is a break to give the leaders, and your pastors, time to pray and reflect and rest. These next several months are meant to be a time where we tune in again to where God will lead us next in fulfilling that mission that still burns in the hearts of everyone here.

So, what is next? Well, rest. Sabbath—pausing—is first and foremost about “rest,” about renewing the heart, mind and spirit. Exodus specifically commands rest—and uses the rhythm of creation as a model. God worked in creation for six days and rested on the seventh. We’re to do the same, not in a legalistic way, but in a way that we’re able to do what God calls us to do next. Jesus took those times away so he could reconnect with his heavenly father, so that his spirit would be renewed for the next phase of his ministry. So rest is in order to combat the spiritual exhaustion that has become an ever-present companion. And coupled with that is worship. The band and others who have provided significant leadership to this ministry have been busy leading worship and haven’t really had time to worship God themselves. I know from nearly twenty years in ministry that there is a measure of worship you can do when you’re leading, but you’re also always conscious of all the things that have to happen, or what went wrong with the equipment just before you began—or any number of things. When our family is on vacation and able to worship, just worship, it’s refreshing. And so rest and worship are on the agenda for the next weeks. And while we won’t be worshipping here, we’re still going to have worship at the church building on McCool, three services on Sunday morning. The band will be helping lead worship there. Beginning in October, they will lead a worship service a month. They’re also taking responsibility for one of our Christmas candlelight services this year. So it’s my hope you’ll join us at McCool, and together we will continue to worship.

We’re also going to be renewing our focus on Jesus. Not that we’ve ever taken our focus off of Jesus. But, just like those disciples at Caesarea Philippi, sometimes we need that pause, that break to be able to see Jesus clearly again. You know how you can get so tired you can’t see clearly? That’s a sign it’s time for a rest. And then, ultimately, this time of pausing is for discernment, for listening to God in times of prayer as to what form this outreach will take next. And I invite you to be an active part of that discernment process. Spend some time over the next few months specifically asking God where he is leading us next, and when you think you hear what God is saying, let me know, let Wade know. I believe God speaks most clearly in community—in fact, this decision to take a pause was made in community. There was not one person off by himself in an office who made the decision. It was a community, a prayerful community, who wrestled and struggled and risked enough to be open and honest with each other. So let’s commit to being that for each other. Prayerful discernment is the biggest “task” of this pause, and it’s something we’re all going to have to be involved in.

So where will God lead us next? I don’t know, but I’m excited to find out. Our mission hasn’t changed. Jesus gave it to us in some of his final words to his disciples: “Go and make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:19). Our mission as a church is to become a community where all people encounter Jesus Christ. From the depths of our being, we want everyone to know who Jesus is. We’re as convinced as we ever have been that this is our calling, that this sort of outreach is our ministry, and that God is still leading us down this road. What the road looks like, exactly, isn’t known yet, but I know this: when it does become clear, we’ll see that God has already been at work, preparing the way for us to go. So pause now, prepare your hearts, because I don’t think we’ve yet seen all that God wants to do through you and me and PF Hope.