Exhausted, Renewed

1 Corinthians 9:16-23; Mark 1:29-39; Isaiah 40:21-31

I’m exhausted. Are you?

It happens every time I read this part of Paul’s letters to the Corinthians: “I became all things to all people”, he says. I do everything, anything, for everyone, anyone, “so that I might by all means save some.”

I can’t do that. Can you?

None of us really can be all things to all people, and many of us have been feeling the strain of trying during this pandemic.  If not quite being all things to all people, many of us are trying to do too many jobs and tasks we’re not trained for, balancing too many people’s needs. Others of us have had to be all things to ourselves, thanks to lockdowns and changes that separate us from the services and the people we usually rely on.

A friend shared an article this week suggesting that a lot of people are hitting walls of exhaustion these days. (I’ve seen similar articles about every two months since last March, and they seem just as true every time.) 

[When the choir recorded our introit this morning, Vernon mentioned that he thought some of us might be feeling “heavy laden” at this point.]

Then on Friday, the Harvard Business Review emailed me an article about managing burnout. 

They’re all right. It’s a basic truth: extraordinary effort isn’t sustainable for human beings.

Except, apparently, for Paul.

And for Jesus, of course.

As Mark tells the story today, Jesus’ healing and teaching rush forward at an urgent pace.  In the four sentences that describe the arrival at Simon’s house and the healing of his mother-in-law, Mark uses the word “immediately” three times.  And when Jesus has cured a whole village worth of sick in one evening, he’s ready early the next morning to move on, and do it all over again in the next village, and the next, and the next.

It’s exciting that God can do all that healing and teaching. 

But Simon – Peter – can’t keep up. I can’t keep up. We can’t keep up.

We’re invited to join in God’s work, offered a share in Jesus’ power. It’s exciting. It’s wonderful what God can do, it’s flattering we’re invited to join in.

But, oh, sometimes it just looks way too hard.  

I can’t keep up with Jesus. Or Paul. Or even Peter.

And that makes it hard to want to try even a little.  

The problem is that if we step back; if we wave Paul and Jesus on ahead without us, waiting until we have energy to spare, we’ll miss most of the miracles. The ones that would heal us, as well as the miracles that help others.

Sometimes those are one and the same, after all.

A conversation with my friend Amber this week reminded me that when Jesus heals Simon’s mother-in-law, and she gets right up from her sickbed to “serve them,” that’s not a sign of subordination. It’s a sign of restored community. She takes up the things that connect her to her family, takes up her part in the divine work of this extraordinary teacher who’s staying in her house. And that heals the whole community, the community that’s been out of balance, broken, without her.

I don’t want to miss that. I need my community restored. 

I need the miracles more when I’m tired, when I can’t keep up. Maybe you do, too. And not just miracles at a distance, to watch. I need that healing and renewal and energy and wonder and hope in my own heart and legs and hands and soul.

And that’s part of the answer, right there.

Even the young, the strong, the athletes will “faint and be weary”, will be exhausted trying to keep up with God, Isaiah tells us. “But those who wait for the Lord will renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles…” says the prophet.

Isaiah isn’t talking about sitting back until God does the work. No, those who “wait for” God are those who focus expectantly on God, who lean in to readiness for God’s action, and are renewed and strengthened; lifted and energized.  

That’s how Jesus does it, by the way.

You noticed, maybe, that after healing all those people on Simon’s doorstep, he goes off to a place where he can pray. He’s “waiting for the Lord” there; focusing his attention and heart on what God is doing next. And then he’s ready for more. And more.

My smart friend Amber, the one who reminded me that healing one of us restores the whole community, also points out that healing and restoration are not exclusively hard work and heavy lifting. So I’ve realized that sometimes, healing and expelling demons actually feels like love, like creativity, like empathy, like laying down the burdens of hurt and expectations, impatience and shame.

[Jesus tells us – the choir sang it for us – that joining Jesus is about laying down those burdens.  That taking his “yoke” – absorbing his teaching, obeying his direction, and taking part in his work – will actually give rest to our souls.]

I suspect that this is what Paul is talking about, underneath that exhausting “all things to all people” language. 
About laying down the burden of expectation – what others expect of him, as a strong, righteous, Jew – to connect with people unlike him, however and where ever they are, to share the confidence of Jesus’ grace. And about getting to remove the burdens of expectations and shame from others, who know, who’ve been taught, that they aren’t good enough, can’t keep up with God. 

I think he’s actually describing that as…well, not restful, (Paul never seems restful) but energizing, renewing, freeing – as filling himself with those benefits of the gospel.

It’s what Jesus is doing, as he heals and teaches. He’s steeping himself in the will of God, and finding more and more miracles in his hands; God’s strength constantly renewed in him.

Over and over again, this year, I’ve prayed with one of you when my heart has had no more energy for someone else’s troubles that day.  And I’ve found myself refreshed, more hopeful, less tired. Healed, just a bit, by praying to heal someone else.

Or I’ve gone into meetings about our buildings, programs, or budget with the Vestry or staff or other leaders, feeling too tired to be creative. And come out energized and hopeful again, because someone in that meeting needed me to say what God has energy for. 

And hearing that, I could trust God again. 

I don’t know what that is for you. 

Maybe it’s taking up a giant jar of peanut butter, or a pile of deli meat, when you’re really tired of meal planning and meal prep and taking care of other people, and making sandwiches for Cathedral Kitchen, and discovering that you feel more energized when you drop off twenty or forty sandwiches than when you started making them.

Maybe it’s calling someone who has received bad news, even though you can’t take one more sadness, or loss, right now. And hanging up the phone ten minutes or an hour later with a soul refreshed from weeping together, or a stronger sense of love in the world from the stories and lousy jokes you shared.

In other seasons, it might have been the feeling of renewed hope and strength when you left a full day of Habitat house building you didn’t have time for.

The work that renews won’t be the same thing for all of us, but it’s important – it’s essential – in this pandemic, and always, to pay attention to where work renews you, to where taking on one task makes all the others lighter, to when an all-out effort fills you with restful joy, or a difficult, listening, stillness gives you energized peace.

Because those are the places where you or I become like Paul – renewed, strengthened, capable of so much; amazing to others.  Not necessarily all things to everyone, but so much more than we expect of ourselves.

Seek those things out, in the times of exhaustion. 

For those who wait upon the Lord will renew their strength, soar with the eagles, rest in the energy, hope, and wonder of the heart of God among us here and now.