Come to Me

When we bought our house, the downstairs front facing windows were fitted with wooden blinds. I wasn’t crazy about them, but we couldn’t afford to replace them, they served a purpose, and so they stayed in place for the next twenty years. About a year ago, I was drinking my morning coffee and decided there and then to take down the wooden blinds, which had, by then, become permanent residents. The difference was transformational! Sunlight flooded into the living room and kitchen, and I was able to fully enjoy the trees on our property. I wished I had taken those blinds down years ago because they had been obscuring both the light and the view.

I share this story because, for me, it illustrates the difference between handling life on our own and letting God be the primary agent in our lives. In today’s Gospel, Jesus says “Come to me all you who are weary and heavy burdened, and I will give you rest”.

We are all weary and heavy burdened in one way or another.  The flood of world news and the personal challenges that each of us carries, do weigh us down and overwhelm us. I know the burdens that many of you carry, and I know that some of your burdens are long-term and not easily resolved.

It is instinctive in times like this to close the shutters in our lives and do our best to cope on our own, but Jesus invites each of us today to take down the blinds and let his light in. We were never meant to navigate life on our own; we need God, and we need the presence of Jesus that we experience in one another. We need the strength that is given to us when we gather together to hear the Word of God proclaimed and to celebrate the Eucharist. And we need to nurture our personal relationship with Jesus through prayer, in whatever form that takes for us.

Gathering as a faith community to rest from our labours and participate in the eucharistic meal is a central part of our life together as a faith community. Jesus’s reminder to the disciples to take time to rest, away by themselves is also a message to the contemporary church. We all need times when we return from our busy lives and even our ministry in the world, to come back together and re-form ourselves as the body of Christ. Otherwise, we may find ourselves so depleted that we struggle to be useful as God’s hands and feet in the world. We may become so caught up in many important activities that we forget to spend time with the one who gives life to our ministry, the one who directs our path.

We don’t come together each Sunday because we have so much in common. We don’t come together because we have the same taste in music, or the same political views or because we share the same interests. We might share some things in common, but they are not essential for Christian unity. The most fundamental reason for Christian community is that we are called into the community of Jesus. And as Christians, we must find balance between service and replenishment, between growing in our relationship with Jesus and carrying out the work he is calling us to do. We need to listen, and that requires prayer, both individually and communally.  

There may be times when, like Jesus and the disciples, we plan some quiet time, only to have to put it on hold because someone is in need of our care and attention, but it is essential, always, to return to Jesus as the focal point of our lives and to look to him for comfort, encouragement, forgiveness and direction. Jesus never promised that being his followers would be easy but he did promise that we would never be alone, that he would always be there beside us in all the circumstances of our lives. Amen.