In our Gospel reading today, Jesus offers the Apostles an opportunity. They had been so busy, they had no opportunity to eat, let alone rest. They had just come from the mission he sent them out on back in Thursday’s Gospel reading. So he invites them on retreat: “Come away by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while.” He gives them a chance to recharge, to rest and grow. Meanwhile, Jesus continued the ministry of preaching and teaching.
I think that opportunity for rest is one that we often neglect in our daily lives. Like the apostles, we have so many things that demand our attention: the demands of family, work, and community. We need that sabbath rest in order to recharge, rest, and grow. If we neglect it long enough, we end up burnt out and bitter, not helpful to our salvation, or the good of those we are trying to serve and live with. So today, we come to be fed by the Eucharist and nourished in prayer; we come to receive the gifts that we need to live our lives and serve those we are meant to serve.
None of us is meant to do what we are put on earth to do all by ourselves. Our Lord wants to give us what we need. That’s why he told the apostles on Thursday to “take nothing for the journey but a walking stick – no food, no sack, no money in their belts.” If they packed everything they’d ever need, they would be burdened carrying it all, and, they wouldn’t need him. But the only way they really could do what he needed them to do was to rely on him and the gifts he wanted to give them. In today’s reading, they are bubbling with excitement, reporting all they had done and taught. Because they relied on Jesus.
We too are called to rely on Jesus, and his gifts, and to come away by ourselves and rest in him.
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