‘Sit Down’ – James

Tom writes:

We’ve been having conversations recently at one of the chapels I work with. Conversations about a bench. This bench is outside the chapel, on our property, ideally located in a place where people walking by, as they do, might choose to sit down and take a little pause, a little breather, before carrying on their way.

The reason we’ve been talking about it is that it needs some restoration. We’re all agreed that work should happen, but the challenge has been that some were not keen on directly replacing the text written on the bench. For, on the bench, is written some text. Whoever wrote it was familiar, I would suggest, with one of the older translations of scripture available. For it reads: “Come ye apart, and rest a while.” (A shortening of Mark 6.31.)

More than one of our folk suggested, not unreasonably, that to come apart was not understood today as it once was. Indeed, one person wryly noted that coming apart was precisely what the bench was currently doing itself! As part of our conversations, we did consider whether simply removing the bench would be appropriate. This suggestion was swiftly dismissed – the bench is a part of our mission. A very small part, admittedly, (no-one is expecting the bench to be the centre of a great revival) but nonetheless it is a gift to the local community, a place, a space, a point on the landscape where a pause is possible, where someone can rest, and think, and talk, and pray in the midst of whatever journeys, physical or otherwise, they are undertaking.

The opportunity to do this is a truly open gift. Neither the bench, nor the community of faith who offer its use to the wider neighbouring community, makes any request other than a willingness to cross the threshold of the church property. You don’t have to be religious, or spiritually inquisitive, or a seeker of faith; you can be happy or sad, in company or on your own, heading somewhere specific or just wandering around: whoever you are, wherever you’re at in life, if you want to sit down then the bench exists for you.

And the opportunity to pause, to spend time resting, recovering and recuperating, is one of the opportunities Lent offers. We don’t often see it like that. We see it as a time of putting down things we’d rather keep hold of, or picking up things we’ve mistakenly let go of. In other words, we see it as a time of effort. Yet within that opening reminder that we are dust and to dust we shall return, is a reminder that we cannot obtain grace through our own efforts. Within that opening reminder that we are to turn away from sin and be faithful to Christ is a reminder that we are called into relationship with one whose yolk is easy, and whose burden is light, and who calls us apart to rest a while. I’ve often mused on the strange juxtaposition of the call to carry our crosses alongside the call
to carry a yolk that is easy. I’ve never found any kind of solution to its seeming paradox. But I’ve learnt to trust that by resting in Christ there is strength to do far more than we could possibly imagine.

So, the bench will be repaired and repainted. The words will be updated (“Come aside, and rest a while”) but the invitation will remain the same: come, sit down, whoever you are, wherever you are in life, however you’re feeling, and pause for a moment in the busyness of the world – and perhaps, just perhaps, while sat beside a building that stands for God’s presence in the world, you might come to feel the great love God has for you, and the peace that only God can give.

Find out more about James at https://wearejames.com/