Overload
My greatest business always is to keep free from business. Gregory of Nazianzen, 4th Century
Today I received an email from a man I am mentoring, apologizing for missing a meeting due to a demanding work schedule; “I am approaching overload”, he said. I replied that I understood, and offered assurance of my prayer.
Overload. The truth be told, I have felt it myself - more times than I care to recall. Why is it that is so easy to be busy and so hard to be still? I recently read a rather striking passage from Leviticus which speaks to this:
"This is to be a lasting ordinance for you: On the tenth day of the seventh month you must deny yourselves and not do any work-- It is a sabbath of rest, and you must deny yourselves; it is a lasting ordinance.” Leviticus 16:29, 31 (NIV)
You must deny yourselves - and not do any work! Contrary to popular assumption, the most basic instinct in many of us is not so much to slack off as it is to burn out. It is quite telling that God should make a point of telling us – twice – that we must deny ourselves and rest!
But productivity is the prevailing principle in the postmodern world; it is one of the ways in which we seek to justify our existence in it. Rest, Sabbath? Bah, Humbug! Though we are not likely to hear those words, the attitude is real enough and it is all too common. It is especially distressing to see this atheistic belief (for that is exactly what it is) embodied in the lives of Christians. We should know better.
The following quote is from the personal correspondence of two prominent church Fathers, Gregory of Nazianzen and Basil the Great. These two heroes of the faith were the closest of friends. In a prior letter, Basil had asked Gregory to accept the oversight of a group of churches in Cappodocia. Gregory refused, to which Basil responded by accusing him of “laziness and idleness”. Here is Gregory’s response:
You accuse me of laziness and idleness because I did not accept your assignment…but my greatest business always is to keep free from busyness... so much do I value freedom from busyness, that I think I might even be a standard to all men of this kind of magnanimity, and if only all men would imitate me the Churches would have no troubles; nor would the faith…
This comes from a letter over 1,600 years old, but its wisdom is timeless. We would undoubtedly be better off if we focused less on “busyness” and more on God. I suspect one of the reasons we call Gregory “the Great” is that he knew how to discern the difference between calling and opportunity.
Perhaps like Gregory, we should think about rest in the service of a greater productivity. The root of the English words scholar and school is a Greek word whichliterally means leisure or the deliberate withholding of oneself from work. And as we all know, scholarship is not a lazy man’s pursuit. The scholar is not the slacker; she is the one who sanctifies in the pursuit of a higher goal. The Sabbath principle in a nutshell is the idea that there must be sacred space in our lives so that we might reflect and remember what is higher, what is most important.
There is perhaps no season in the Christian calendar year speaks more eloquently of need for sacred reflection than Advent, with all of its profound mystery. And yet, ironically this is often one of the most hectic times for us. May God grant us all the grace to unplug so that we can be refilled.
