You deserve a break today...

"You deserve a break today..." This was once the tag line from a McDonald's TV commercial. Breaks are important. When people don't get them--or take them--we become much harder to live with, don't function as well, and physically deteriorate. That's a fact. Workaholics that many of us are, we lie to ourselves and believe that intense schedules, serial tasks, and never-ending meetings show that we are at peak efficiency. Nope. Nope. Nope. Just ask the people around us if that is what they see in us. We usually just run them ragged and strike a debilitating blow to office morale.

In Mark 6, Jesus calls his disciples to "come away." They go off in a boat to the center of the Sea of Galilee to escape the madding crowds. We're talking Jesus here, the Son of God Jesus! The Son of God took frequent breaks in his schedule to pray, meditate, and to "come away." Who are we that we think we are better than Jesus, and that we don't need these refreshing, edifying and restful breaks? Just deceived, I guess. In fact, I'll bet we need more time away than the Savior took. I'm sure you are now realizing that I'm writing this piece just before the two most "busy" weeks of the American vacation season, don't you?

I'm about to take only the second three-week vacation of my working life, and I'm pretty stoked about it. It took me 32 years in ministry before I finally yielded to my wife's requests for a longer vacation period. Last year, we spent the first two weeks in Hawaii, where our daughter and her family had temporarily relocated for her husband's job. The third week we did one of those "stay-cations," enjoying our home and taking a couple of "day trips" to local sights, including one of my favorite places, Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater. Upon returning to St. Paul's, I felt much more rested, and at least in my head, my creativity and passion for ministry had been enhanced (I'm not sure that my co-workers didn't think I was just nuts). I certainly felt better. This year we are going to spend a week at a little cottage on a bluff overlooking Cape Cod Bay. The ocean is such a calming influence. Science says that we are drawn to the water because we came from the water. I like that. Mind you, I don't go into the ocean, as there are things there with teeth and tentacles, but walking along the surf at dusk assuredly soothes the spirit.

When Jesus and the boys arrived at the shore after their brief "come away" party, the met, again, the madding crowd with its host of needs, demands, and questions. So it is with the pastor returning to her congregation. But, like Jesus, we love these people, and we just can't deny them our best efforts to sort out their lives, find a lasting redemption, and heal their wounds. Notice, I said our best efforts. Are they getting these if we are not rested up, prayed up, peaceful within our own souls, and yet fully and healthily in touch with our own human frailties and suffering? Nope. Nope. Nope.

So, my friends, you deserve a break today. Don't get up and go away to McDonald's--just get up and go away! And if you can't afford to go away, "come away" by discovering for a time how to focus passionately on something other than your job. Take in an art gallery or a zoo, a science center or a State park. Borrow a bike and ride it. Fish at North Park. Read a book that has absolutely, positively nothing to do with church or Trump or anything else that keeps you up at night. Pray. And not the laundry list intercessory kind, but the put-on-the-symphony-or-the-Beatles kind where you just groove in the score and thank your brains out to God that you are alive, even if it is just for a short season. Love someone. Love them real hard. Just stare at your partner, your children, your grandchildren, or that hound who will stare back at you with its own kind of thankfulness. Paint something--a room, a car, or a picture. Eat something you're not allowed to eat, but just enough that you don't get sick (I'm talking to you diabetics here, not peanut allergy people!). Make a really hot cuppa' joe and sip it on your deck or porch early in the morning and thumb your nose at Starbucks. Sing. Even if you sound like the Keurig at the end of its brewing cycle. Sing. Oh, and sleep. Yes, sleep. Sleep in, sleep soundly, sleep naked, sleep it off, sleep with someone you love, sleep under the stars, sleep in a tent, but sleep. The Son of Man may have had nowhere to lay his head, but thanks be to God, you do. And in the best of worlds, you have someone's shoulder to rest yours on. Taking a break is the beginning of true shalom, dear ones. Make it so.