Rest & Resistance | A Quiet Revolution
- highlandspcwy
- 3 days ago
- 7 min read
Scriptures: Acts 1:6–14
1 Peter 4:12–14; 5:6–11
John 21: 1-14
The disciples wanted to know if Jesus was going to make it all better.
“Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?”
They wanted to know, will Jesus save their own troubled nation?
Would they be redeemed from their Roman occupiers?
Many of us might relate to the disciples' question.
Lord, is this the time when you will redeem the United States?
Will you restore us to our role as global leader? Our moral status? Our sanity?
Lord, is this the time when you will restore our kingdom?
And basically Jesus responds, "it’s none of your business!" He wasn't so glib, but he basically shuts the question down. But its not because the disciples were asking a stupid question.
Jesus had just spent 40 days since his resurrection teaching them about the Kingdom of God. The themes of governance, belonging, and their political future were understandably at the forefront of their minds.
Furthermore, as faithful Jews, they were aware of all those prophecies about the restoration of Israel. And from the beginning of his public ministry Jesus preached, “The Kingdom of God is at hand.” And there are many moments during his ministry which seemed to surely speak of Israel’s restoration.
The Messiah is expected to purify the land and rule over the nations.
And so the apostles are expecting him to do the thing they imagine this all means. Perhaps now it is finally time!
But Jesus instead of answering the question, Jesus, as he so often does, responds by reorienting his questioners. The disciples still don’t quite know what Jesus is up to, and so Jesus lays out his true agenda—
“It is not for you to know the times or the seasons…. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses … to the end of the earth.”
Notice how Jesus is flipping the script.
The disciples ask, “Are you…”
Jesus replies, “You will….”
While they are focused on reclaiming power for the their nation. Jesus is focused on forming a people who can bear witness to another way of living to people of all nations. .
They were looking for Jesus to do something for them, to serve their interests, to be their servant, but Jesus is calling them to serve the world.
They say, “At this time….”
Jesus says, “It’s not for you to know the times….”
They are anxious to know the timeline, and Jesus is saying, that all of time is in God’s hands.
And I think that matters for us, because anxiety so often comes from wanting to control what we cannot control.
We want to know how this all turns out.
We want guarantees that justice will win, that the world will change, that our efforts will matter.
And we do have our assurances—
that one day justice will roll down like water, and righteousness like a mighty stream. (Amos 5:24)
That one day, God will wipe away each tear. That death and mourning and crying and pain will be no more. (Revelation 21:4)
And we also know that someday we shall overcome some day. (Civil Rights Anthem "We Shall Overcome.")
But there remains so much we do not know. So much to be anxious for.
But as the author of the 1 Peter instructs, “Cast all your anxiety on God, because he cares for you.”
So when Jesus says “it is not for you to know.”
Perhaps that is a gift. A lesson. An another kind of assurance.
We need not carry this burden.
We don’t need control.
We can cast that anxiety on God.
And we can rest easy knowing that ultimately time is in God’s hands… even as we work to follow Jesus' agenda… and to serve as his hands and feet here on earth.
Because God cares for us.
This message seemed to help the disciples too.
As the story goes, after this talk, Jesus ascends into the clouds while the disciples stand there…
staring upward into heaven….
And suddenly two men in white interrupt their gawking— “Why do you stand looking up toward heaven?”
In other words: don’t get stuck staring into the sky.
Jesus' disciples are not to become so heavenly minded that they forgot to do earthly good.
And so with that final redirection, the disciples turn back… back down the mountain… back toward to the city where it had all gone wrong… back to do as Jesus instructed.
And as they arrive to Jerusalem, they take residence in an upper room. There they commit themselves to prayer.
It’s a powerful reminder of the relationship between prayer and effective action.
Prayer has inspired activists throughout history.
Abolitionists and suffragists of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries labored together in prayer to ensure the human dignity of enslaved peoples and women were inseparable from the teachings of Scripture and our liberation in Christ.
Prayer also drove the Civil Rights Movement. It kept direct action participants grounded and clear on their mission. Prayer fostered collaboration throughout its leadership, especially as the movement grew increasingly diverse and broadly based in its support. Strikingly, the prayers of the movement also exposed a lack of empathy and complacency among white Christian communities.
Understood in this way, we see that prayer should never solely become a monologue about our own worries, needs, and desires, but a dialogue that opens us to God and to one another.
When seen as a practice of both speaking and listening, we see how prayer also leads Christ’s followers into the deepest places of human suffering.
Speaking to a persecuted early Christian community, the author of 1 Peter speaks of this strange union with Christ, facilitated by prayer, where suffering and joy exist side by side.
A life transformed by prayer becomes a life capable of participating in world transformation.
That is why mystics so often became reformers. Why contemplatives so often became organizers.
The two belong together.
And yet, the work of justice and peace is also exhausting.
Resistance to the power and principalities of our day, and the days of Jesus first followers, was long work— holy work—but long enduring. Hence their wish to know just went Jesus was going to turn it all around for them.
Seeking justice, building peace, and loving our neighbor is beautiful work—but it can also be draining work.
Which is why rest matters too.
Perhaps this is part of that quiet revolution Jesus invites us into—rest itself becoming an act of resistance.
Because in a world that teaches us that our value is tied to our productivity. That to rest is to fall behind or reveal some moral failing. That our bodies exist mainly to produce, achieve, consume, and keep going no matter the cost. Rest is counter-cultural.
And as many scholars, activists, and spiritual leaders—especially Black, Latina, and working-class women—have reminded us—that expectation of exhaustion is not shared equally.
Tricia Hersey, founder of The Nap Ministry, writes, “that rest, particularly in black communities, pushes back against capitalism and white supremacy because both systems have always depended upon exhausting certain bodies for the comfort of others.”
While pursuing her Masters of Divinity at Emory University, Hersey was troubled by the long history of how the labor of Black and Brown women has been used to make the lives of wealthier and whiter communities more comfortable, more convenient, and more well rested. They were the women who cooked their meals, cared for their children and elders, who cleaned their businesses, hotels, and homes.
And so for these communities, often marginalized, and their labors hidden from our view, rest has not been treated as a right, but as a luxury they could not afford.
Hersey’s work with the Nap Ministry invites people to claim that God given right, not as a way of making yourself more productive, but as an element of the justice and flourishing that God desires for all of us.
My own awareness of how important rest is, is perhaps why I find this story of Jesus on the shoreline so powerful.
The disciples have spent the entire night laboring. Their nets are empty. Their bodies are tired.
And when the risen Christ appears to them, he does not chastise them for their exhaustion. Oh well I’ve just risen from the grave, so I’ve got it much worse.
He does not demand more productivity. There is no rebuke for focusing on their physical needs for nourishment. There is no sermon or a five-step strategy for world missions. Instead, Jesus cooks them breakfast.
He feeds weary people. He invites them to sit down. To take a breath. To rest, and to receive.
Jesus knows that before they can continue the work of love and witness, they deserve some rest.
And perhaps that is part of what it means to follow him now.
Not simply to seek rest for ourselves, but to ask—who is denied rest in our community?
Who carries exhaustion in their bodies every day?
Immigrants living with fear and uncertainty.
Activists and organizers carrying grief and burnout.
Laborers working multiple jobs.
Queer people trying to stay safe.
People with disabilities exhausted from seeking accommodations.
Parents & caregivers. Teachers & nurses.
Who among us has been told, implicitly or explicitly, that they must earn their humanity through endless labor? Lest they be seen as lazy, as leeching our resources, as weak.
For those of us with access to lots of time for rest and leisure, I wonder how we might become people who make rest possible for others?
How might we be like Jesus on the beach—cooking breakfast for the weary?
Creating spaces of safety, nourishment, slowness, and care? Offering our time, resources, privilege, and presence so others can finally exhale?
Because rest is not just sleep! Rest can be prayer. Silence. Daydreaming. Shared meals. Music. Time away from the endless churn of headlines and notifications.
Rest is whatever helps restore our humanity and reconnect us to God, ourselves, and one another.
As we conclude this final week of the series, A Quiet Revolution, I want to invite us into a moment of silence, prayer, and contemplation.
I invite you to quiet your mind, body, and spirit.
Resist the temptation to run through your to-do list or mentally rush ahead to what comes next.
During this silence, I invite you to meditate on this question, to prayerfully discuss to God:
Where am I being called to receive rest…
and where am I being called to help create it for others?
Sermon preached by Rev. Delaney Piper on 5/17/26.
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