Too Busy | Good Shepherd Lutheran Church (ELCA) Manchester MO

Pastor:

Pr. Tom Schoenherr

“I’m just too busy!” “I just couldn’t. I don’t have time. I’m too busy.” Many of us are too busy as we go on this journey of life. Some of us may be saying that we wish we were busier, because we are out of work or we feel lonely and isolated from others. Wherever we find ourselves in this spectrum we may feel lost and dead as we live in this country where we have to measure up to the expectations of others and of ourselves. We live in that country where we have to measure everything we do. Does what we do meet the outcomes and the goals that we have set or that have been set for us? Are we good parents who have our children in the right activities? If they are not busy they may get into trouble. Did we perform well in the interview? Did we meet the deadline? Is there enough time left? What do I do when I no longer count, when people don’t care to have my opinion and my contribution doesn’t seem to matter? I need to be busy otherwise people will think that I am lazy or that I don’t really care. So each day I get on the merry-go-round that is called life and I have to keep going for my sake, for my children’s sake, for the sake of the family, but there are times when I am just too busy.

This could characterize the country in which the father and the two brothers in this story live. It could be the country where we live. How do we make sense of this country, this world of busyness that we call life? But isn’t this the real world? We need to count and the things that we do have to count for something. The only way that the world can keep going in an orderly way is that we have goals and objectives and outcomes that need to be met. How will we know the value of anything and of people unless we measure them, evaluate them? We have to be busy.

But in this unwavering busyness of our lives, we have lost the rhythm that God has built into life; the rhythm between work and rest. Life requires the rhythm of rest. There is the rhythm of daily activity and the body’s need for sleep and rest. There is a rhythm of the way day turns to night and then day again. The growing seasons of spring and summer are contrasted with the dormant times of fall and winter. Our heart needs to rest between beats, and when we inhale there is also an exhale.

The prodigal son took the inheritance and went to the far country, maybe looking for some way to change the pattern of busyness and expectations but it does not work. He wastes his money and he is under the demands of a pig farmer who expects him to be busy, and it seems as though his needs don’t matter, that he doesn’t count. His brother, who has been so busy and who counts everything and makes sure that his father treats him fairly, ends up feeling as though he does not count either. We think that if we could just measure more accurately, do more, work harder, be busier in getting more money, more recognition, more success, more love, more possessions, more security, we will be happy. Like the younger son, we know what it is that no one gives us anything. It always comes with a price. We cannot meet the expectations of ourselves, others, or even of God. Good as God’s commands are in ordering our lives for good, we are left thinking that we cannot rest. Life is too busy even to spend time with God and there is no rest for us. We are killing ourselves.

In the midst of this busy country we know and experience each day, there is another country. It is a country where there is no counting. God does not keep track of our sins. “Father, I have sinned. I am no longer worthy to be called your child.” While we are still a long way off, God the father sees us. God longs to be with us, so much so that he runs to meet us. Even before we can get the words of our confession out, God gives us the ring of his love, the robe of his forgiveness and God sets the table for the celebration. In our world where we have to be exacting and keep track; where we are so busy we don’t have time to pray or be silent; where we are killing ourselves; God’s promise of forgiveness is like the warmth of a fire on a cold day in March. Once we were dead but now we are alive. We were lost but now we are found. We who have lost the rhythm of our lives, God teaches us to dance the Sabbath waltz.

Sabbath is to rest in God, to be renewed in God’s presence. Wayne Muller in his book, Sabbath, shows us what life may look like as we regain the rhythm of rest in our lives. As we are gathered at the Father’s table, there to receive the meal of God’s surprising grace and love for us, we want to spend more time in God’s presence. This is not to say that we reject work or the busyness that we have to live with at times. But in the midst of our busyness to set aside moments for quiet and solitude, to light a candle in a space where you can listen to God and listen for God, to where God meets us with robe and ring and connects us to himself and to one another.

Once upon a time, the story goes, a wise woman stopped by a flooding stream to rest. The rising waters nearly touched the low-hanging branches of trees that lined the creek. There on one of the branches, a scorpion hung on to avoid being carried away by the fast-flowing water. The wise one reached out her hand along the branch to try to save the scorpion from drowning in the stream. Each time she tried to help the scorpion it stung her, over and over again. Someone passing by said, “Don’t you realize that if you touch that scorpion it will sting you?” The wise one said, “It is so my friend. But just because it is the scorpion’s nature to sting does not mean that I should abandon my nature to save.”

Sabbath is to be grounded once again in the One who perseveres to save us, gives us life, the one who is never too busy for us. God sends us to seek and to save the lost. As we rest in him and take time in God’s presence, our work may also be more joyful and fulfilling. He wants to spend time with us in prayer and conversation, to hear our problems and concerns and to refresh us with his peace. To us who feel too busy, who may feel lost, down and out, and just dead, Christ is our resurrection, our rest, joy and peace, who is never too busy for us. Amen.