I’m delighted by this motion [a motion asking for clergy to have up to 36 hours off a week in their terms of service]. I love the description of Archdeacon Grantly’s working day in Trollope’s The Warden. ‘On entering his sacred study he carefully opened the paper case on which he was wont to compose his favourite sermons, and spread on it a fair sheet of paper; he then placed his inkstand, looked at his pen, and folded his blotting paper; having done so, he got up again from his seat, stood with his back to the fire-place, and yawned comfortably’
Unlike Dr Grantly but in common with many clergy, I’ve struggled with addiction to work. Pastoral reorganisation, an increasingly bureaucratic society, growing pastoral needs, the technological possibility of being able to do more and, most of all, the kudos of busyness have all contributed to this. I’ve been helped to address my addiction by the way God rests in the Bible.
God’s rest is about his sovereignty. God rests on the seventh day, not because he is passible, but because his work is completed: there is nothing left that needs to be done and no threat needs his attention. The accusation that God is asleep in Psalms 7 and 35 is not a claim that he is tired, lazy or uncaring, but that God knows his rule is not threatened. Sleep is about sovereignty. Rest is about rule. But, in fact, God is not asleep, because he does not sleep. Psalm 121 – he who keeps Israel shall neither slumber or sleep. Because God does not sleep, the pilgrim does not need to worry. Indeed, as Christopher Ash says in his little gem of a book Zeal without Burnout, you can sleep because God does not. Because God is the one who works tirelessly, you don’t need to. Psalm 4 – in peace, I will lie down and sleep, because you alone, Lord, make me dwell in safety.
As Ignatius of Antioch wrote to Polycarp of Smyrna, in Jesus Christ, the impassible God became passible. When Jesus slept on a cushion in a storm at sea, he did so because of his sovereignty, knowing that the power of his divine word could bring order out of chaos. He is the one who is at work in the ministry of his Gospel. Fellow vicars, please accept his invitation to rest. Accept it, because God is sovereign and you are not. Accept it because addiction to work is not a virtue, but a failure to trust that God is the one who works, who neither slumbers nor sleeps.
Benjamin Sargent 