"Jesus Wants Us to Take Vacations"

Sermon by The Rev. Cindy Carter 

July 21, 2024

Whenever I see our Gospel reading for today in the lectionary, I am transported back to a time when I preached from this lesson before. It was a sermon I preached from this text at Beckwith, the camp for the Diocese of the Central Gulf Coast on Weeks Bay near Fairhope – a sermon preached to a group of sixty second and third graders.

I served in the Diocese of the Central Gulf Coast for almost ten years before I retired, and I always loved my time at Beckwith. 

Now, if you know me, you know that I am not a fan of big, long meetings. Even multi-day clergy conferences and protracted committee meetings were better if they were at Beckwith. 

Most of all, I especially enjoyed the weeks I spent there with children and young people as the camp “dean.” Beckwith is a beautiful, peaceful place, and the children are sweet, at least most of the time. And it was a place where I could do things I didn’t usually get to do. 

I recall, even these years later, one of the most fun things I did the week I preached the sermon from this text happened when I intentionally arrived a little early for the camp session, a few hours before the arrival of our campers. The camp seemed deserted, and I saw a water slide that had been left from an event held at the camp earlier in the day 

It was still all set up and ready to go. That water slide was just asking for someone to go down it. 

So, I ran to my cabin, put on my swim suit, and I made several private trips down that slide. It was fabulous and fun and not what I usually do.   

The message of my sermon to those little children that week was this – Jesus wants us to take vacations. 

You see for those children (and for me), those two days at camp were definitely a vacation of sorts. 

For most of these second and third graders, it was the first time they had experienced this kind of vacation. It was the first time they had been at Beckwith alone, without a parent, grandparent, or other adult they knew. 

Away from family and the expectations of home, time away from cell phones and video games. Time in a place where you can sing crazy songs and pound on the table at dinner time. Time in a place where you can make all kinds of new friends, do all kinds of new things, and stay up past your usual bedtime.

Jesus wants us to take vacations.

Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest awhile. 

Jesus wants us to take vacations.

That was my message to those precious children.

But, not long after my sermon, those children preached a sermon to me. It was the last night of camp, and we had a children’s eucharist.

As I went up to the altar, I invited them to come up close. And, did they ever come close! 

Sixty little ones all around me and the altar, as close as they could possibly get. A ring of little eyes looking up at me from all around that table. A few chins resting on the altar, precious bodies squeezed in as tightly as they could squeeze. On all four sides of the altar and right up next to me.

13 People were bringing little children to him in order that he might touch them; and the disciples spoke sternly to them. 14 But when Jesus saw this, he was indignant and said to them, “Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. 15 Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.” 16 And he took them up in his arms, laid his hands on them, and blessed them.

The sermon those children preached to me was about the unconditional love that God has for us. Most of the time, I have found that children seem to have a deeper, indeed. better understanding about that love than we grown-ups do, and that night they wanted to get as close as they could to that unconditional love of Jesus at the altar.

It was the kind of understanding that enabled them to trust. The kind of trust that allowed them to get close to the altar that night, just as the children who came to Jesus trusted and were taken up in his loving arms. 

But, for children, it is not a naïve trust that doesn’t ask questions.

One of my favorite authors Rachel Held Evans wrote:

“Those who say that having childlike faith means not asking questions haven't met too many children.” (repeat)

The trust, the faith of children gives them the assurance that questions are okay. 

No matter what they ask or how many times they ask, they will still be loved and 

accepted.

It was God’s unconditional love that caused Jesus to see the crowd and to have compassion on them because they were like sheep without a shepherd. It was God’s unconditional love that caused Jesus to teach and to heal. It was God’s unconditional love that caused Jesus to invite the disciples to “come away…and rest a while.”

It is God’s unconditional love that created us and knows we need times of peace and rest for so many reasons. To get away from all the worries, cares, and occupations of the world; to quiet and still our bodies, our minds, and our souls. 

But I think most of all we need these times to be reminded that God is God and we are not. God is God and we are not. We can trust, rest easy, and ask all the questions we may have or simply be still. Times when we can be taken up in God’s strong, loving arms and know that God can take care of the world and of us for a little while without us.

My friends, Jesus wants us to take vacations. AMEN.