Bananas and Yokes and Learning to Find Rest
I was making my morning smoothie and…
Half cup of blueberries
Half cup of mango
One bana… What in the world?
[struggling sound]
Why won’t this thing open?!
[angry tone]
What is wrong WITH. THIS. BANANA?!
…I couldn’t open my banana. The harder I pulled at the stem, the more I
mashed the end. The moment escalated. The banana was wholly turned against me. The kids were in the kitchen so I only raised
my inside-my-head voice. Smile and wave,
nothing going on here, just me and this iron clad banana having it out with
each other.
I’m embarrassed by the whole event. I have felt lately like I’m buried under a
mound of straw. The heap is mammoth in
size and weight. A stubborn banana became
the last straw.
On one hand it is silly the things that bear down with
the last weight to break us. On the
other hand it is utterly tragic.
The lives we carve out for ourselves become so complex
and muddled. We live amongst piles of
dishes and clothes and lists and tasks and trials. All bulging girths of straw ready to topple
or try us with every added one.
Small plastic tubes for slurping back soda. Narrow dried up stalks of grass for
fodder. Picture what you will as straws,
but gathered up and overflowing, they will kill us…kill me. Not physically – not likely anyway – but
mentally and spiritually to be sure.
And friend, what’s more is too often we – I do anyway –
pile them on ourselves! We misjudge our
own limits and breaking points. We
presume upon ourselves a will and ability that exceeds our humanity; to be able
to handle one more straw.
On the backside then – or the underside perhaps – I’m
wondering how do I climb out from beneath the pile of straw, stand back and
behold life’s pressing clutter? How
shall I bring myself to sidestep the slinging sticks and stones…and straws, and
begin to sort it all out; to grab a rake and spread the pile across the ground,
thin it all out and see the pieces from the pile?
Two days ago – the day of the banana abuse – I was
reading in the Bible, in Matthew 11, at the end of the chapter, and I found an
answer. Or maybe not an answer, because
that sounds too easy, but a movement or an invitation; yes, an invitation that
moves toward some resolve. Ready for it…
Jesus.
That sounds simple and flat, even trite, I know
that. But in these moments, when the
full wrath of a season of life harassment is nearly taken out on a banana,
maybe simple and flat is as much as I can do?
Jesus says, “Come to me, all you who are weary and
burdened, and I will give you rest…” Rest.
Doesn’t the word almost sound onomatopoeic, like click or boom, it is what
it sounds like? Hold the “s” sound for
one extra breath: Resssst. Just
reading those bright red letters on the page of my Bible already feels lighter,
slower I said to myself (with the same inside-my-head voice I had raised
earlier).
Jesus continues:
“Take my yoke…” That’s the large
heavy wooden stocks that lock onto the necks of a couple of oxen, binding them
together as a team; spreading out the burden; sharing the load. “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for
I am gentle and humble in heart.” You
know what isn’t gentle and humble?
Everything that amounts to an overbearing pile of straw.
Jesus stands away from the pile, yoke dangling from
around his neck, beckoning you and me come and hitch up. There is rest right there by His side. Not lazy-escape-sandy-beach-sunny-skies type
of rest. Rather the rest we find when a
neighbor comes to help dig the hole with you.
Or the rest we find when your spouse joins you in the kitchen to make
dinner with you. Or the rest we find
when your daughter takes the most obstinate banana ever from your hands, flips
it over, and peels it from the other end for you. That’s what makes Jesus’ yoke easy and light. He is our help, and in that is rest…Resssst.
It’s his presence of soul and mind in the moment to
settle the stirring flurry of straws landing one after the next, each one
threatening to break us. It is the
fullness of who He is in me to steady my faith, calm my spirit, redeem my
character, save my soul, and rescue my heart.
I’m entering a season of sabbatical. It is a gift of time off from the work of
vocational pastoral ministry. It will be
for me a length of time – ten weeks to be precise – to step away from some of
what piles up and bears down upon me and rest in the knowledge of Jesus Christ,
God Creator and God Redeemer.
Over the course of these ten weeks I have resolved to do
a few things that I have found to refresh and recharge me in years past. Among them, I have resolved to walk with
Jesus more closely, and to do that I will spend long moments reading and
reflecting on Luke 9-19.
The book of Luke is really three bulks of chapters. In the first
bulk of chapters the focus is on Jesus’ ministry in Galilee. In the third
bulk of chapters the focus is on Jesus’ ministry in Jerusalem, including his
death, burial and resurrection. That second bulk of chapters – 9 to 19ish –
is the journey between the other two. In
it Jesus is taking leisurely passage with his disciples from Galilee to
Jerusalem and talking and teaching and living life together the whole way.
In this season of sabbatical, that leisurely passage with
Jesus between Galilee and Jerusalem is precisely where I want to be, yoked up
together to learn and live. For Jesus
and the disciples it was probably a couple three days’ worth of journey. But it was remarkably rich with insights on
loving neighbors and prayer and hypocrisy and discipleship and much, much more.
I’ll use this space; this nearly 10 year old blog page, to process and reflect and write. I know blogging is a bit way-gone and it is everything to find time in our days to read an email or power bill, let alone a blog post. But, if you are curious to learn from Jesus, you are welcome here; invited even, to process and reflect with me. If not, carry on my friend, and go easy on those bananas.
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