St. Paul’s United Church Sunday, July 23, 2006

What’s Your Hurry! – Rev. David Mundy

2 Samuel 7:1-14a Mark 6:30-34, 53-56

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Two weeks ago we travelled to the United States to visit family. In that time-honoured tradition of vacationers, we mooched off their hospitality, staying in a couple of different places, including the home of the adult children of cousins. Actually, we were in their beautiful, spacious house but we really weren’t with them because they worked through the weekend, leaving the house to us.

We did meet at a restaurant for breakfast and heard about their schedule. She works full-time at a community college and then every Friday drives to the tourist town where her husband is a manager of one of the biggest bars in America. She works with him most of the weekend because he is working anyway.

While the place is always busy, in the summer he often putting in fourteen hour days and nights. It’s not unusual for him to fall into bed at four in the morning, only to get up and start the frantic pace again within a few hours. We met in a restaurant because that’s the way they “refuel” on many days. They are just too busy to make meals. Needless to say, they don’t have children. Although they would like to start a family this is being deferred until a more opportune time.

While he has a Master’s degree, this job is far more lucrative than any employment in his field. He admits that while he originally planned to do this for two or three years to “get ahead” it has stretched to seven years. They plan to pay down the mortgage on their home as quickly as possible, as well as on the condominium which is their weekend residence. But what toll is this frenetic pace taking on their bodies and spirits? By his own admission he is to the point of burnout at the ripe old age of thirty-one.

This may sound like a verbal version of “biting the hand that feeds you” but rather than being critical I was struck by what a lovely young couple this is, open and friendly and generous to a fault. They obviously have a strong work ethic, an attribute in the U.S. and here in Canada. Some would say that this is what young people often do, but where is the balance and the sense of pleasure and spiritual well-being in the everyday experiences of life.

What’s your hurry! That’s an expression we mutter when a car races past us on the highway or someone pushes into line ahead of us. A word or two gets added to the phrase when we are particularly annoyed.

What is our hurry? Is it a sin to lead the hurried life, or is it a virtue?

This morning our gospel passage reminds us that while we live at a fast pace in the twenty-first century we didn’t invent hurry by any means. In fact, during these quiet Sundays of the summer we hear several passages in which Jesus and the disciples were forced to deal with the stressful, relentless demands of those who were hungry and sick and desperate for spiritual help. The disciples were just that -- disciples and students of Jesus. At the same time they were pressed into the roles of event planners and bouncers.

Earlier this month we listened to the passage of scripture where a woman reaches out and touches Jesus’ clothing as he made his way through the press of a crowd. When Jesus asks who it was, the disciples say, in essence, “Look around at all these people. How could we possibly pick the person out?”

Next Sunday we will hear the story of the feeding of the thousands who came for an impromptu picnic on the shore of the lake called Kinnneret, or Galilee. It’s actually wedged between the two gospel sections we heard this morning. Jesus tells the disciples to find food for everyone and they are exasperated by the request.

The overall impression we get is that during his ministry Jesus was constantly under pressure to perform, and those closest to him were caught up in that whirlwind of activity and need.

Again in today’s story we read that Jesus was hounded by those who were sick in body and spirit. Finally he says “into the boat boys, we need to find a place where our spirits can catch up with our bodies.” “Let’s get away” proved to be easier to say than to actually do. I was struck by two phrases used to describe the pursuit. In verse thirty three we’re told that when Jesus and the disciples tried to get some distance the people “hurried there” and then when they actually got in a boat to avoid the crowds, their pursuers “rushed about” to find them. Jesus doesn’t get angry at them though. We are told that he has compassion for them because they seem lost, like sheep without a shepherd.

What is our hurry? Hurry may not be a sin, but it can be a sickness of the spirit. It’s always easier to talk about a balanced life than to actually live one. I find that I am not a particularly patient person and while I like the idea of a more restful pace to life I find that when I attempt to slow down I am often restless.

Once again this week I was aware of God’s sense of humour which is sometimes at my expense. I changed our sign out on Church Street to include the sermon title “What’s Your Hurry?” As I returned to my study, I noticed an elderly couple getting out of their car to have their feet attended to at the clinic that is held here every week. Both were using canes so I waited to open the door for them, and waited, and waited some more. I really didn’t have any reason to go anywhere fast, but I found myself mildly impatient. Why?

When I do slow down, I realize I don’t need to go any faster, but I would be a better person if I could go deeper. There has been a lot of publicity given to street racing lately, the disturbing “need for speed” amongst some young car drivers. When we hear about the accidents and deaths that result from this illegal trend we shake our heads in dismay. Yet in other ways we are constantly tempted to follow the adrenaline rush, “fast and furious” lifestyles which can be destructive in their own way.

There ends up being no deserted place for our souls, no physical or psychological or spiritual safe havens where we are restored. Two thousand years ago no one including Jesus could have known that in our day there would be temptations beyond imagining to keep us from restfulness, including the technology which many of us in western society depend upon these days.

You may have seen or heard the announcement this past week from the company called Research in Motion which produces the Blackberry. If you are thinking that you enjoy blackberries with a bit of sugar, or in a pie, this capital “B” Blackberry is a wireless handheld device which allows the user to check email and phone messages and generally stay connected wherever they go, anytime of the day or night. There are more than five million of these in use now and RIM is confident that sales growth has them on track for a target of ten million.

While this accessibility may seem attractive, the Blackberry is often called the Crackberry, an allusion to crack cocaine, because its users become addicted to staying in touch with work all the time. The opportunities to step away from our activities are necessary for creativity and perspective but they are increasingly difficult to find. And at times it appears that the increase in information available to us is reducing the wisdom which comes from reflection and renewal.

A few moments ago I said that hurry is not a sin. Perhaps that statement should be revised. I’m sure that you have heard of the Seven Deadly Sins and may have actually participated in a few! One that doesn’t get much attention is Sloth which we assume is laziness. Those of us who grew up with the Protestant work ethic would probably agree that laziness is a sin. But sloth is actually something different from laziness. It is the spiritual state in which we can no longer enjoy the goodness of the life God has given us, for whatever reasons. It is possible to be frantically busy and slothful at the same time.

So how many of you believe that the world will be a better place if we hurry more? How many of you feel that we could benefit from greater wisdom and spiritual depth? Let’s be disciples then. Let’s be followers of Jesus and find the balance, as best we can.

Rather than living the hurried life, we can make choices on a daily basis to live a measured life and a balanced life and a spiritual life which is centred on our relationship with Christ rather than as an afterthought. We can choose to take a few minutes for prayer and reflection at the beginning or the end of each day. We can choose to eat a meal with loved ones and speak with them about the things that are important. We can choose to go for a walk or engage in some other form of exercise which will keep us healthy. We can choose to allow our children and our grandchildren to play without structure and schedules. For years I had the motto of one of the great industrialists of the last century on my desk “Always do one less thing each day than you think you can do.” As Christians we can live with intention and purpose but without hurry.

If we establish that balance in our personal lives, we may actually develop a clearer picture of the kind of world we want to live in. A few weeks ago we went to see the documentary film called An Inconvenient Truth. It is a film version of former vice-president Al Gore’s PowerPoint presentation on global climate change. It is extremely well done and both thoughtful and sobering. The film makes it clear that we are hurrying toward the degradation and destruction of the planet which is our home. At the end of the screening we attended, the full house broke into applause and then most people just sat there and chatted for a few moments or watched the credits. As Christ’s community we can live differently.

I’m almost done! At the end of today’s passage we are told that Jesus and the disciples continued to be chased by the sick and the needy. And we heard that they were healed.

If being healed means becoming whole, Christ can still heal us. Christ will heal us if we are workaholics, or if we feel that we are indispensable to our families, or if we have simply never learned any other way of being.

What is our hurry?