Rest and Renewal                                                                 7/27/41

 

Scripture:  Joshua 22: 1-6

 

This portion of Scripture mentions the rest which God had given to the people under Joshua’s leadership.  They had led a strenuous life under him - conquering and settling a new land where they were to make their homes.  And now the job was well enough done so that they were promised some rest.  They were not to loaf for a few years or even a few weeks.  But the relief from war and uncertainty was welcomed as a blessed change because now they could go to their own tents, their own homes, and take up normal pursuits.

 

Apparently people, like other creatures, need some variation in their living in order to thrive.  If a man uses one set of muscles at a given task too long he becomes fatigued and ineffective.  He has to shift the load to another set of muscles, or rest altogether for a while.  Our minds seem to work best by concentrating on a problem or task for a time and then shifting to something else, returning later to take up the first problem with refreshed ability.  A college friend of mine told me that he seldom studied over his lessons at home for more than half an hour without getting up and stretching his arms or taking a brief walk.  Having done that, he returned to his studies refreshed and able to do a better job.

 

Manufacturers have learned that men generally work better on an 8-hour day than on a 14-hour day.  The man or woman, boy or girl, who sticks to a job for 14 hours of unbroken monotonous grind slows up and makes mistakes through being over-tired.  Those who work the shorter hours are able to work harder, more efficiently,  and more accurately, because their hours of rest have been longer.

 

People need rest at longer intervals, too.  The old Hebrews learned, thousands of years ago, that it is a good thing to rest one day in seven.  The Fourth Commandment is rooted deep in the need of man for rest and change.  And it is important enough to be elaborated, in the book of Exodus, more than any of the other Commandments.  Two others are given in a single verse of four words each: “Thou shalt not kill;”  “Thou shalt not steal.”  But the Fourth Commandment is given in 4 rather lengthy verses.  (Exodus 20: 8-11).

 

“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.  Six days shalt thou labor and do all thy work; but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God; in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates;

            For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested on the seventh day; wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it.”

 

That is quite a bit of emphasis to put on one proposition, isn’t it?

 

But it is one of the eternal truths that man needs rest from the routine of daily labor in order to worship, to rest, to be re-created.  We have even learned by experience that a longer interval than that of the week may be broken with profit by longer periods of rest or change.

 

Most of us can remember how a school year began to drag in the spring and how we looked forward over the last class, and the last examination, to the vacation period beyond.  (And probably most of us have also had the experience of eagerness to have school begin, when summer ends, because the rest, the change, the travel or a summer job, have renewed the desire for learning and for the fellowship of students.)

 

This is the time of year when many of those we know have their vacations.  We think of families from our church who are traveling away, and of others who come to us for a brief time.  Groups of young people have been in camps and conferences.  Some of the children are varying their public school year by attending vacation activities in music or sports or special craft activities.

 

Once I passed a city shop window and saw what appeared to be pebbles from a mountain stream bed.  They called to mind the possibility, for many, of trout fishing, of mountain camping and hiking.  However, those pebbles turned out to be candy, made to look like worn little stones.

 

The first thing I want to say about vacations then, is just this, they are needed and can be a benefit to us.

 

The second thing I want to say is this: we ought to make our vacations serve us for positive good.  There are some who seem not to know how to use a vacation - even a week end or a Sunday.  I have seen men come back to a job on Monday morning looking like the “wreck of the Hesperus” - sleepy, cross, slow on the job, with dissipation written on their faces, suggesting that they might have spent the time drinking and carousing instead of resting or really enjoying themselves through re-creation or worship.  A vacation, or even a rest day, does those fellows no good.  They had better stay on the job all of the time than to use up their strength and time in wrong ways when off duty.

 

There are perhaps some to whom a vacation is simply a time of running away from their job or their surroundings.  But what they really needed was some idea of how to use a holiday profitably.  For some, being away may be a relief and so seem to do them some passing good.  But there isn’t much fun to be had out of living by just running away, escaping for a time, from the things one dislikes. 

 

The best vacation is one which you plan.  Many a man who gets tired of leaning over a desk at his job, plans to get a vacation that will take him out of doors and tone up muscles that haven’t been used enough.  Lots of people whose work doesn’t give them time to read plan a vacation that will enable them to read one or more good books.  And they feel ever so much better after it.

 

I used to know a man who was an especially fine preacher.  One wondered how he could find so many excellent, interesting ideas to preach about, Sunday after Sunday.  (I suspect that he sometimes found it hard.)  But when the time for his summer vacation came, he and his family would get in their car and go on a long camping trip.  One year they would study the birds that they saw; another year, perhaps the plants - trees, bushes, flowers, vines; another season would find them concentrating on learning more of rocks, soils, mountains, minerals - the whole fascinating field of geology.  When Dr. Ketelle came back from his vacation somehow he had ideas and illustrations from it that made his sermons interesting for weeks thereafter.

 

Some people who can’t go to school for the information they would like to get as they encounter problems in their work, like to go to school for a vacation.  I know doctors who like to go back to school, and visit other clinics, and hospitals, without taking care of patients themselves for a while, so that they can learn what they need to know to be better doctors.

 

A good vacation ought to be a time of rest and of change.  It ought also to be a time or re-creating our energies and renewing our enthusiasm.  (Dr. Ozora Davis)

 

Of course the bast vacation of all is one in which you get a vision of how to live and work better.  Tired, and perhaps baffled with matters you can not satisfactorily handle, you throw your job to one side for a while.  As you rest and release your energies in some other activity for a while, you find your powers renewed, re-sharpened.  And, like a blessing from on high comes a vision of your job done better as you return to its discipline.  (Bishop Tuale).

 

Even the earth bears better crops when, after several years of planting and harvesting, it is allowed to lie fallow for a season.  Without that it must have cultivated renewal.  How much more surely, then, may people, who have not only the capacity for rest and for work, but for high understanding and fair vision, be renewed as by the hand of God in a good vacation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Hymn (No. 453 in “The New Church Hymnal”) by Molly Anderson Haley.

 

Thy blessing, Lord, on all vacation days!

            For weary ones who seek the quiet ways.

Fare forth beyond the thunder of the street,

            The marvel of Emmaus Road repeat;

Thy comradeship so graciously bestow,

            Their hearts shall burn within them as they go.

 

Grant those who turn for healing to the sea

            May find the faith that once by Galilee

Flamed brighter than the glowing fire of coals,

            And when Thou hast refreshed their hungry souls,

Speak the old words again, beside the deep,

            To all who love Thee, Master, feed Thy sheep!

 

Be Thou with those who bide where mountains rise,

            Where yearning earth draws nearest to the skies!

Give them the peace, the courage that they ask;

            New strength to fact the waiting valley task.

New light to lead through shrouding valley haze;

            Thy blessing, Lord, on all vacation days!

 

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dates and places delivered.

 

            Pilgrim Church, July 9, 1939 AM

            Wisconsin Rapids, July 27, 1941