The Tyranny of Hurry
Mark 1: 29-39
Rev. John P. Wesley
February 5, 2012
Someone told me the true story of a woman here in Bowling Green who got pulled over one evening by the police. She was on the way to church. The officer asked the older lady if she knew she was going over eighty miles an hour. “Goodness no!” she said. “I really didn’t know I was going that fast. I didn’t mean to. But officer, when you are as old as I am you have to get there quick, before you forget where it is you are going.” The officer let her off with a warning.
The tyranny of being in a hurry, of having to rush from the time you get up until you go to bed is something a lot of people understand. Folks who have families and jobs and social commitments find their day consumed by a mad rush from one place to the next. Modern technology was suppose to make life easier for all of us, but often folks find themselves doing two or three things at the same time. Drive your car, talk on the phone, or worst yet, text, and listen to the news on NPR all at the same time. The next time you are at a restaurant see how many people are having lunch with someone while they are checking their email or texting another friend.
When I attended seminary in the seventies, one professor talked about the shortening of the work week. He remembered when it was cut from 48 hours to 44 hours a week, then to 40 hours a week. In the late sixties and early seventies some unions and some government agencies were reducing the workweek to 38 hours a week. This professor said one of the challenges people would face in the future would be what to do with their leisure or excess time. Well, that professor wasn’t a prophet. Somewhere between then and now our world went from slow down to warp speed. Very few people get by on a forty hour a week job. They may not be at the office as much, but they are at home on the computer or on their IPhone doing hours of research, contacts, work after the doors to the business are closed. The last three decades have seen substantial increase in the employment of both parents, stressing schedules even more as there is more and more to do and less and less time in which to do it.
There used to be a few things built into the social structure that forced people to take a break, to slow thing down if but for a day. When I was a child Sunday was still viewed as a different kind of day, at least in the south. There would be church in the morning and the afternoon was simple. There weren’t any stores open so there was no temptation to go do shopping for the week. Some might go to a movie with a friend, but often Sunday afternoon was a good time for a leisurely walk or a nap.
Such structures are all but gone in our busy world today. Sundays aren’t seen as days to rest, but days to get caught up on whatever you didn’t get done the other six days of the week. There is little difference in what the business world looks like on Sunday. Most everything is open for business and there are a few extra things like ball tournaments scheduled for this day when the kids are out of school. Hurry is a way of life, but is it a way of life that is sustainable? Does it add to the quality of our days or does it have a way of blinding us to the richness of life?
Jesus was not a lazy person. He was constantly on the move. In our reading today, he first is in the home of Simon Peter, restoring health to Peter’s mother-in-law. In our passage today we recognize something that is true of life today. When you have a little success, it just demands more of you. Jesus healed a few people and soon word got out and people were lined up outside waiting for an opportunity to be touched and healed by Jesus. Note that he continued with his work well into the evening, until after the sun had set. Jesus was a busy man. He was not afraid of hard work. But also notice here and in other places in the gospels, as busy as Jesus was he had learned how not to be consumed by the tyranny of hurry. On the day following this pressing day of healing, before the sun came up, Jesus slipped away from everyone and spent some time alone, in prayer. It was his practice of slowing, it would seem, that enabled him to keep a perspective on his life and on the busy demands that were made of him. Jesus practiced slowing by being intentional about his pace, by seeking solitude periodically, by saying no when it was necessary. Sidney Macaulay wrote, “Busy-ness in a profession can be a way to avoid God.” Jesus was a busy person, but he learned to practice slowing so he would not lose touch with the source of his life, the one who gave him each of his days, the one in whom his heart was to rejoice.
Fighting the tyranny of hurry with the art of slowing doesn’t begin by resigning everything we do. It begins by incorporating a little more patience in what we do every day. It involves setting a more intentional pace. Jesus never got so busy that he couldn’t take time to talk with children. He never go so involved in traveling somewhere else that he did not have time to talk to an isolated woman. He remained sensitive to what was going on in the present moment, so much so that when someone touched him he knew it and could respond to their need. People caught up in the tyranny of hurry often aren’t aware of what is happening around them and lack the ability to read other people.
John Ortberg, a minister and author, wrote a book about slowing down. He encouraged people to intentionally put themselves in situations where they are forced to change their pace. On the highway, he wrote, pull your car over in the slow lane and go the speed limit for a change. Let everyone else pass you by, but feel some of the stress and tension of being a part of the road race relax as you slow down. Or he suggests, instead of hurriedly counting the number of people at the check out lane, and trying to get into the fastest lane, pull in behind someone with a lot of groceries, and think about all the work they are facing when they get all those groceries home. He goes on to suggest we intentionally spend a week trying to chew our food more and actually talk with the family at the table.
Charles Swindoll, a Christian writer, told of a time when he was facing a lot of deadlines. He knew he had over extended himself. He rushed from place to place. At dinner one night, as he quickly choked down his food, his young daughter spoke up. “Daddy, I wanna tell you something and I’ll tell you real fast.” He realized that his tyranny of hurry was being spread to those around him, that the only way he was allowing people into his life was if they’d catch up to his speed.
So fight the tyranny of hurry by practicing slowing, by intentionally putting yourself in an environment where you have to be patient, and see if something good doesn’t come out of that.
Jesus not only intentionally put himself in a place where things had to move slower, but he valued the experience of solitude, of being alone. He found it essential to spend time understanding his own heart and conversing with God. Solitude causes people to have to look at themselves and think about what they’ve made important. It also invites us to be in conversation with the one who has given us life and blessed us with opportunity. No wonder some folks run from solitude because they fear what they might learn of themselves.
One mother said the only way she could be alone to pray was by locking herself in the bathroom. If that’s what is required, then make that place a holy, sacred place. If we don’t find and claim those places of silence and solitude, they won’t find us and we will lose touch with the person who lives inside and the God who wants to walk with us.
Ortberg wrote, “Solitude is the one place where we can gain freedom from the forces of society that will otherwise relentlessly mold us.” The apostle Paul wrote, “Don’t let the world around you squeeze you into its own mold.” We need times apart so we can recognize the pressures being placed on our lives that are not helpful, that take more than they give, that lead us away from God. Thomas Merton wrote the early church fathers placed such a premium on solitude because they considered society to be a shipwreck from which any sane person must swim for his life. These people believed that to let oneself drift along, passively accepting the tenets and values of what society said, was purely and simply a disaster.
We need moments in the day when we can be alone, even if it’s just for five minutes. We need that moment to breath, to relax ourselves into the God who is always there. And we need a day from time to time when we pull away from our normal comforts and securities and live in quietness alone. Henri Nouwen said these times of solitude allow us to remove the scaffolding we use to keep ourselves propped up. In solitude we have no friends to talk with, no phone calls or texting or meetings, no television sets, no music or no books. In that time it’s just us open to God’s presence, God’s power and God’s direction. Such moments can keep us in touch with the core of our existence and can tie things together in such a way that we are less likely to be slaves to the tyranny of hurry.
A final thing Jesus did as he fought the tyranny of hurry was to say no. There were more people who came to him for healing. They were back in town waiting. But he saw that there was something more important for him to do. He needed to go somewhere else. He had to say no and move on.
Saying no to important things so we can say yes to the most important thing is an art of slowing that enables us freedom from the tyranny of being over committed. The old adage is true. Ask a busy person to do a job. They’ll get it done. The person who is always available may not be worth much when they are available. Busy people get things done. But those who are busy, must be wise enough to say no to those things that don’t fit into the goals and directions they’ve chosen for their lives. Out of those times of solitude and prayer, God makes us aware of what needs to be of ultimate importance to us. And those are the things we need to say ‘yes’ to. Those yes things will demand enough from us, but we do not need to also be giving our time to things that will make little difference to God or to anyone else over time. All are familiar with the term burnout. It plays havoc with those caught in the tyranny of hurry. People who were once productive, joyful, energetic, find themselves exhausted, depleted, without passion or desire. If we don’t practice the art of slowing by saying no to some things so we can care for ourselves, we most likely will be incapacitated by a lifestyle too much in a rush to accomplish much of anything.
If we are to ultimately find God, discover God’s will for our lives, if we are to be energized and reenergized by the spirit, we have to slow down, take the time that allows God to speak to us, and we have to say no.
In Directions, James Hamilton wrote, “Before refrigerators, people used ice houses to preserve their food. Ice houses had thick walls, no windows, and a tightly fitted door. In winter, when streams and lakes were frozen, large blocks of ice were cut, hauled to the ice houses, and covered with sawdust. Often the ice would last well into the summer.
“One man lost a valuable watch while working in an ice house. He searched diligently for it, carefully raking through the sawdust, but he couldn’t find it. His fellow workers also looked, but their efforts proved futile. Then a small boy who heard about the fruitless search slipped into the ice house during the noon hour when no one was there and soon came out with the watch.
“Amazed the men asked him how he found it.
“I closed the door,” the boy replied, “lay down in the sawdust, and kept very still. Soon I heard the watch ticking.”
Do you feel like you’ve lost something in the busy, rush of life? There is a way to find it again.
