Let us pray: Come Holy Spirit. Show us the one thing we need. Help us to rest in you. Amen.
Such a familiar story, right? The two sisters, Mary and Martha, and Martha’s just busy and doing all the work and Mary’s just doing nothing, not helping her sister at all. “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself?” Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things…
Right? Me too. Us too? There are SO many things in our world right now that are truly worrying. SO many things that are distracting us. We’re SO busy that we can’t even remember what we’re supposed to be doing. We’ve got SO much going on, SO many things that we’re trying to balance, SO much multitasking going on that we lose track of why we’re even doing all the things, or where we put our keys or our water bottle, or what time we were supposed to be at that place for that thing. I was supposed to pick up the kids from camp? I thought your parents were getting them this week! Aaaah!
In today’s story Martha is distracted, just like us, she has too many things to do, too much on her plate. She is worried and her mind is spinning from one thing to the next. And then Jesus comes along and says: There is need of only one thing.
How very Zen of Jesus! One thing? Really? Just one thing? Well, alright, go ahead and tell me what it is then!
Where is that we need to place our focus, our attention, and our efforts in our overwhelmingly distracting world? Jesus. The one thing we need is to focus on is Jesus. A return to our roots. A recentering on God come down to know us and be us and show us how to live our human lives. Like Mary, we need to just sit. And be still. And listen to Jesus. In the busyness and the myriad competing demands for our attention, we need to stop, slow down, and find our rest in Jesus. I hope this is what we do here on Sundays and in the chapel on Wednesday mornings at 9:30. But of course, our time spent at the feet of Jesus is in no way limited to once or even twice a week. No. It can happen is so many ways. We can listen to Jesus as we read scripture, devotionals, and other holy books. This fall there will be several opportunities for bible study and book groups and I encourage you to check them out. As a part of our recent pilgrimage, we adopted the practice of finishing our day with compline from the prayer book, p. 127. This is a lovely way to slow down and end your day with Jesus. There are forms for morning prayer, noon day prayer, and evening prayer in the prayer book as well. What about our little Forward Day by Day booklets with a reflection on the scriptures for each day and a prayer?
Being still is good. Silence is hard, but good. Can you find time to be still and invite God’s presence? On the 2nd Saturday of each month in the Guild Room at 5 p.m., and at the Church of the Resurrection on the 4th Saturday, there is a lovely opportunity for us to practice contemplation, meditation and silence together. In this service we intentionally slow down. After we hear the gospel, we spend 20 minutes in silence, quieting ourselves and opening up to God.
We are SO busy as United Statesers. It’s part of our capitalistic system. And the demands that it places on all of us are not healthy. When Creator God made the earth he built in a day of rest, Sabbath. God knew! We need to rest, to reconnect, to rejuvenate, to incorporate times of sitting at Jesus’ feet into our lives.
I’ve spoken about theologian, author, and podcaster Kate Bowler before. Here is what she has to say about rest, in her recent post entitled: The Summer of Too Much: Practicing Holy Underachievement:
“Our calendars and our capitalism say go-go-go, and then toss us a cold beverage and call it rest. But God's version of rest? It’s not productivity in disguise. It’s not something you earn. God’s rest says: You are loved before you’ve done anything at all. You can stop. You are allowed to stop. Wouldn’t it be lovely if rest weren’t simply optional but mandatory? That’s what the Christian tradition has always understood. After creating the entire universe, God took a break.
God. Took. A. Break.
God called it the Sabbath and declared it holy, set apart, necessary.
St. Ambrose of Milan once said that God rested, not from weariness, but to teach us the value of measured labor and rest.²
(From: Kate Bowler from Everything Happens <katebowler@substack.com> ) The Summer of Too Much: Practicing Holy Underachievement: July 17, 2025)
I recently started reading a book by Tricia Heresy called, “Rest is Resistance.”
She talks about resting as a way to push back against our society and its systems that constantly push us to go, go, go, to produce and consume more and more and more. In it she shares 20 practical ideas for what resting can look like. I encourage to take up a practice of rest this week.
1. Closing your eyes for ten minutes.
2. A longer shower in silence.
3. Meditating on the couch for twenty minutes.
4. Daydreaming by staring out a window.
5. Sipping warm tea before bed in the dark.
6. Slow dancing with yourself to slow music.
7. Experiencing a sound bath or other sound healing.
8. A sun salutation.
9. A twenty-minute timed nap.
10. Praying.
11. Crafting a small altar for your home.
12. A long, warm, bath.
13. Taking regular breaks from social media.
14. Not immediately responding to text and emails.
15. Deep listening to a full music album.
16. A meditative walk in nature.
17. Knitting, crocheting, sewing, and quilting.
18. Playing a musical instrument.
19. Deep eye contact.
20. Laughing intensely.
Of course, this list is not exhaustive. But I hope it gives you some ideas. My prayer for us this day is that we all recognize our need to rest and that by resting we are connecting with our bodies, with creation and with our Creator God. Amen.
