God worked hard for six days creating the heavens and the earth and on the seventh day God rested, the Sabbath, the time to rest.
And on the eighth day God got up and got involved in the world.
Not every day is like every other.
Not every place should be treated like every other place.
There is a time to rest, there are places that are set apart not to be filled up with frenetic activity and entertainment.
This is part of the warp and woof of creation and humanity.
Times and places set apart, times and places that are deserted and empty. We rest, we empty out the calendar of busy things, we stay in the Sabbath place deserted of ambition, anxiety and productivity.
When we ignore this part of existence we ultimately pay a high price.
Jesus took his disciples to a deserted place.
It didn’t last long, they were at work again soon serving, feeding and healing.
But this is an important pattern to notice and to follow.
Christians have always set apart time for this, time for daily contemplation and devotion, time for the weekly Sabbath rest, a whole day, periods of retreat away from work and entertainment to be still and silent.
Those are the traditional ways that Christians have observed the setting apart of time as holy.
The result of this setting time apart is always the same, it is much more than just being rested and relaxed, it results in vocation, calling to serve, to be involved in the world, feeding and healing.
Contemplation and action, action and contemplation they both lead to the other.
It is in times of devotion, contemplation and silence that we see the pain in the world and are drawn to meet God there.
It is in being involved in the world, in connecting with the pain in the world, that we are driven to be in deserted places, to silence and rest and contemplation of the holy mysteries of God.
When we do not take part in this holy dynamo of contemplation and action we no longer see the world as it really is, we no longer truly live, we lose perspective, our time, our attention is consumed in the trivial and the shallow and the destructive. Illusions distort how we see and live.
Setting time apart and serving the pain in the world, we can not afford to ignore this, this is where we meet God. Be suspicious of any piety or devotion that only leads to comfort and complacency, true piety and devotion disrupts the patterns of our lives, it rearranges how we see time itself, and it always drives us into the pain in the world and out of our own self occupations.
The Gospel lesson today is not some sweet lesson to put up on the shelf and forget about.
It is the road out of hell and damnation and into salvation and eternity.
Meeting God rearranges things, it changes how we see and use time, and when time becomes something different, more than billable hours and consumer activity, when time becomes something that is holy, then we see the world rightly as the place where God is encountered and served and loved, and that changes all of our relationships.
Come away to a deserted place and rest.
When we get there we will see the gaping wound in the world and we will see God healing and feeding and serving, sanctifying the very bones of humanity and the very dust we walk upon.
Follow Jesus to this place and learn to be alive.