Bedrest & Lizard Boy Summer

Pr. Jaz Waring |

Advent 3 December 10, 2023 Luke 1:46b-55 46b

My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord,   47my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, 48 for you, Lord, have looked with favor on your lowly servant.   From this day all generations will call me blessed: 49 you, the Almighty, have done great  things for me   and holy is your name. 50 You have mercy on those who fear you,   from generation to generation. 51 You have shown strength with your arm   and scattered the proud in their conceit, 52 casting down the mighty from their thrones   and lifting up the lowly. 53 You have filled the hungry with good things   and sent the rich away empty. 54 You have come to the aid of your servant Israel,   to remember the promise of mercy, 55 the promise made to our forebears,   to Abraham and his children forever. At the end of my two-year intense seminary program, I was burnt out. I remember around this time two years ago I was deep in my winter finals writing punishingly long essays in the midst of the holiday season. By the time I graduated, my brain was like a fried chicken nugget. I needed some rest! In order to keep myself accountable to this season of recovery, I decided to adopt the ethic of a lizard. For the next three months I only did what a lizard did: take naps, lay in the sun, eat cute snacks, go to the beach, and do a push-up every once in a while. I called it, “Lizard Boy Summer.” At the end of the summer, I was ready for “Girl Boss Fall” and it's been a rocket ride since. Rest is one of my favorite theological topics to talk about. You might remember a sermon I gave a couple years ago about “The Liberating Power of Naps.” I was so excited to hear Pastor Jennifer’s series on rest for Advent this year. Coincidentally, The Table is also focusing on rest this Advent, so it looks like Spirit is trying to teach us something. Last week, Pastor Jennifer preached on John the Baptist’s single-minded focus of his purpose and mission in the world: to prepare the way of Christ. We are called to let go of distractions that are sucking out or energy and rest in our belovedness. We don’t need to prove our worth or earn our keep in the Kingdom of God. This week we are celebrating the third week of Advent, which is traditionally Magnificat Sunday. This is the week where we remember a pregnant Mary boldly proclaiming the coming age of justice through Christ, where the mighty are cast from their thrones and the lowly are lifted. The hungry will be filled and the rich are sent away empty. We light a candle with joy knowing our current pain is temporary, and our world is about to turn. If Advent is about waiting to give birth to Christ among us, then we are on mandatory bedrest. Our world is in need of deep healing, and working like business as usual is not going to save us. Wages are not keeping up with the rate of inflation, so people can’t make ends meet. Babies are being pulled out of the rubble of bombed hospitals. Mass shootings are the new normal. All the while the threat of climate change is an ever present reality. I’ll say it again: if Advent is about waiting and preparing to give birth to Christ among us, then we are on mandatory bedrest. It’s very easy to fall into the trap of using rest to ignore the world around us. Sometimes we can spiritually bypass suffering by curating a worldview of “good vibes only” and shield ourselves from the suffering of Christ in the other. Rest does not mean we lower our eye masks and neglect justice. Rest is a justice issue. Ask a refugee living in an encampment when was the last time they had a good night’s sleep. Get in a time machine and ask an enslaved African in the South when was the last time they took a nap. For working class folks, rest is a luxury and a privilege. I remember seeing my grandfather, with only an 8th or 9th grade education, work every day as a janitor in his small business and worked manual labor well into his 70’s. I’d find him around lunch time asleep sitting up on the couch while “watching” the soccer game on Telemundo. My grandparents were not able to retire until they moved back to Chile over ten years ago. Rest is not a luxury, it is necessary for our survival and is a human right. Sleep deprivation is a warcrime according to the Geneva Convention. Why are we committing war crimes against ourselves and our neighbors? Christ, have mercy on us. So then, what does rest look like in the face of injustice? First, we need to get out of heads that rest is supposed to make us more productive. Yes, we can do more when we’re not tired, but the point of rest is not to become a better capitalist worker bee making money to buy more things. The kind of rest I’m talking about is a robust theological understanding of claiming our baptismal promise of our belovedness. When God created the sabbath as a holy day of rest, God was speaking to a people who were enslaved for generations, who’s worth was based on how many bricks they made or how much grain they can carry. Sabbath was created to remind God’s people that they are free. God created the sabbath because even God almighty rested after creating a “very good” world. Rest is the resistance of the idea we have to earn love and acceptance from society and the embrace of our identity as beloved children of God. Rest is an act of faith and a deep trust that God will help to provide for your needs through community care. This is our foundation from which we move and act in a weary world. We work from a place of rest, instead of working to a place of rest. We’re not working for the weekend, as if rest and leisure is a prize to be won or is a reward. Our week begins in sabbath, whatever day that is for you where you are not doing your job. For me, it’s Mondays. All the work we do in the days after our sabbath is our response or is sourced from that reservoir of rest. When we work from a place of rest, we have the capacity to pour ourselves out into others, helping our neighbor get set free and rest. Our liberation from the oppression of grind culture, violence, and suffering is not individual. Our liberation is collective and intertwined with each other. Which means I am not free until my neighbor is free. I cannot fully enter into rest if my neighbor cannot rest. If we could have the singleminded focus on our purpose and mission like John, casting off anything that is sucking our energy away from pursing Christ…think how much the world would change. If you’re having trouble finding what your purpose or mission is, I’ll tell you. Our purpose is to love God, love people as you love yourself. Our mission is to join in and participate in God’s reconciling and liberating work in the world. Whatever we do that falls under this is up to you. This past summer a couple of friends asked me if I was going to do “lizard boy summer” again, because they wanted to join in this year. One person just got out of a really toxic work environment and was taking time off to change careers, and an other person felt overloaded with clients. More people heard about it and wanted to join Lizard Boy Summer! Anyone who wanted to take time over the summer to play, say no to overcommitments, take naps without guilt, and lay in the sun, was welcome! During this time, we had the capacity to help put on a drag brunch fundraiser for The Table’s mutual-aid fund. The mutual-aid fund is something we started this year to help members at The Table who are experiencing financial hardship. In the first five months of having the fund, we spent our budget for the year because the needs were so high. We put on this fundraiser to fill up the mutual-aid tank and continue our commitment to community care. It was an amazing event, and we raised over $2.8K, almost triple our goal! None of this would have been possible without our volunteers, and it would not have been as successful if we had not taken the time to begin from a place of rest, and rest some more after. Eventually all of the lizard boys got tattoos to commemorate this summer, and to remind ourselves to take time to be a lizard whenever we can. Because Lizard Boy Summer is not just for the summer…it's a lifestyle. Our world is in need of deep healing, and working like business as usual is not going to save us. If Advent is about waiting to give birth to Christ among us, then we are on mandatory bedrest. Rest is not a luxury, it is necessary for our survival and is a human right. Rest is claiming your baptismal promise that you are loved for who you are, not what you do. Remember, we work from a place of rest, instead of working to a place of rest. Remember, our liberation is collective and intertwined with each other. Which means I cannot fully enter into rest if my neighbor cannot rest. And if you are having trouble getting started with this journey of rest, just ask yourself, W.W.L.D? What would lizards do? Amen.