Nowadays, at the end of each work day, and even more so in recent weeks, I’m less tired physically and more tired mentally. There’s hard thinking to do, and problems to be solved, and conversations that require real attention, errands to be run and meetings to participate in. In modern terms, like many of you, I multitask, and while the labor isn’t always physically taxing, it’s mentally draining. Bed still feels good each night, but in a much different way then it did back during landscaping days.

You all know those two types of fatigue very well, I’m certain. In one your mind is alert but your body can’t keep up, and a good night’s sleep can make all the difference. In the other, your body may be ready for action, but it’s your brain that can’t keep up. That sort of mental fatigue is helped—though not always cured entirely—by sleep, and sometimes requires exercise or distraction or even vacation to be overcome entirely. One way or another, we all get tired and need rest and renewal.

And for people of faith there’s yet another kind of fatigue that has a real impact, too; often overlooked, not always adequately addressed, the sort to which both our Scripture lessons for this morning refer. It is fatigue of the soul, and it’s something altogether different from a tired body or an overworked mind. The tired soul is drained of passion, it cares but not really, it has a hard time generating hope. For example: the people of Israel are in exile, and they have been for years when Isaiah speaks to them. It’s not that they don’t believe in God, or have necessarily fallen into evil ways. But Isaiah recognizes that the ordeal has been going on for so long that the people have stopped caring, stopped paying attention. They’re still Jews, they’re still managing, but there is less thirst for God’s presence, less enthusiasm for doing anything more than going through religious motions, and, consequently, Isaiah can see that less of God’s grace is getting through.

And in this morning’s gospel lesson, Mark describes how Jesus heals Peter’s mother-in-law of a fever, news of which soon brings crowds clamoring for cures. Mark tells us how he “cured many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons.” Imagine how Jesus must have felt getting into bed that night: he had spent the whole day with people pressing in all around him; for hours he had to be intensely attentive and expend great energy, confront great suffering or an ugly spirit and then move on to the next person in line. But notice what Mark also tells us: Jesus went to sleep that night, presumably not far from the rest of the disciples, but gets up before dawn and goes to what Mark describes as a deserted place and there he prays. A good night’s sleep didn’t fully renew Jesus because it was his soul that was still tired from giving so much. He may have been physically ready to face the new day, but his spirit had not been renewed to the point that he could do the work he was supposed to be about.

And in his own way, Isaiah knows the same thing: to this listless, soul-weary people Israel, he says those words we love to hear: “Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He gives power to the faint and strengthens the powerless. Even youths will faint and be weary, and the young will fall exhausted; but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.”

These are two lessons about weary souls, about faithful people who have seen enough, done enough, endured enough, and are having a hard time mustering the level of enthusiasm necessary to receive God’s grace or carry forward God’s will with intention or purpose or joy. And while the dramatic level of the exhaustion is certainly not as high for us, soul weariness is not a foreign experience to us, either: so many responsibilities, such a fast pace of life, so many instances of injustice and unfairness and even evil getting the upper hand, coupled with so few clear manifestations of God’s power making a difference. Our souls, the part of us that is open to mystery and grace, that can trust despite intellectual doubt, that can take faithful chances even though the evidence might say don’t; that part of us holds sway, guides us, mostly in short bursts. Our souls get tired easily. Like Israel, like Jesus, our souls need healing and rest.

And on top of all the individual challenges that fatigue our souls—the household budgets and the needs and dramas of our children and the small and large disappointments at work and the loss of friends and death of loved ones—now we add on a time of transition at the place that we value as our soul sanctuary, the church. I was there to see the responses when the news of Stacie’s resignation was announced, and I’ve seen it since my own, and the common denominator was a sigh, a sag and shake of the head, the physical acknowledgement that there is now more work ahead—jobs to be done, questions to be answered, differences of opinion to be navigated, contacts to be made, committees to be formed, and a long season of changes to adjust to. It’s enough to make weary the hardiest of souls.

But, by the grace of God, there’s good news coming—and in this sermon, too—and because that’s so, let’s just keep going and name some other pieces of church family life that might be the cause of some soul fatigue in the days ahead: a budget to run the church and to care for others needs to be funded, and this is not going to be an easy season to do it, and hard choices will be necessary. The visioning we did this past fall was a time for our souls to speak and express hopes and longings, and now that vision, perhaps driven by finances, but perhaps by identification of new goals and priorities, is going to be put to the test. The Open and Affirming process will be drawing to close before long, and the collective soul of this congregation will be called upon once more to embrace mystery and grace to finish that work faithfully. Like a day of hard manual labor that exhausts one’s body, or a day of one meeting after another to get business done that exhausts the brain, the coming season of this church’s life may lead to some soul-fatigue—maybe not unlike Israel in exile waiting, or Jesus at the end of a day in the midst of crowds.

Now I imagine that your beds at home are as comfortable as you like them, and that you do everything necessary to ensure you get a good night’s sleep. And I’m also certain that you know exactly what relaxes and renews you when you’re mentally wound up—from vacations to exercise routines to hobbies and pastimes. But what are we doing to strengthen our souls? How do we, as individual disciples and as a church of Jesus Christ, renew that inner strength that allows us to trust God and carry out the demanding work that is before us—in this or any season?

Isaiah tells us: he says even when young people will fall exhausted, “they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, shall run and not be weary, shall walk and not faint.” Despite the imagery, he’s not talking about physical fortitude; he’s talking about strength of soul, strength that lasts even when our bodies and minds are worn out. And what is “waiting for the Lord?” Remember what Jesus did. He got up, went to a deserted place—some translations say a lonely place—he went by himself and he prayed. Worn out from the day before, sleep didn’t give him all he needed to carry on, but private time with God somehow did. Look at his response when the disciples finally find him. He simply looks up and says, “Let us go on to the neighboring towns, so that I may proclaim the message there also; for that is what I came out to do.” No explanations, no complaints about being found or interrupted, no particular lessons on the need for prayer. By waiting for the Lord, Jesus is renewed in the soul power he needs and just says, “OK, let’s get to it again.”

Friends, all through our lives, and right now, as much as always, we need to make and take time every day to be by ourselves with no other purpose than to wait for the Lord: not to ask God for favors, not to seek particular answers to problems, but to wait and listen for the Spirit to move us and renew us, to heal our souls and give them rest. That’s not an easy thing, not an automatic thing, because we like to be efficient with our time, and, God knows, we feel too often that we have to be doing something. But to “wait for the Lord” is to offer our full, undivided, solitary attention to God without expectation, to be still for no other purpose than to show God our innermost selves and let God set the agenda, even if the agenda is just to apply balm to the places in our souls that ache. To wait on the Lord is to be alone with God. Communal worship is essential, but it should never replace this intimate, solitary time.

By ourselves, in private, there are lots of ways to wait for the Lord. Jesus prays, and so might we—and not necessarily long wordy prayers filled with poetic requests, but simple words of acknowledgement and praise. We might meditate by any number of techniques—which I know people in this congregation practice—use that time to clear the mind of all static and distraction. We might read the Scriptures, not with our normal critical eye, not to draw conclusions or raise questions for debate, but to allow the words to simply play over and through us. And in those set-aside moments of privacy with God—nothing may happen. Or something majestic might. But whether we notice it or not, by intentionally retreating for renewal, our souls will be reminded of, filled with the only truth needed to regain the strength to live faithfully, even in times that test our bodies and minds and souls: “Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable.” With such conviction written again and again upon our hearts by the author himself, a soul is ready to jump up, as Jesus did, and say, OK, let’s get to it again!

Many years ago now, at some moment of my own soul’s unrest, I went on a 48-hour silent retreat at the monastery of the Society of St. John the Evangelist on Memorial Drive in Cambridge, thinking that doing such a Jesus-like thing would do the trick. There was no talking, even at meals. There was, in that Episcopal tradition, chapel service 6 times a day. I was given what was truly a monk’s cell, sparse and narrow. I got exactly what I wanted, and within three hours I was climbing the walls. It seemed forced and weird and claustrophobic. I went to all 12 chapel services, though, and I did keep my mouth shut, and it ended up not being entirely horrible, but it was not easy. And still, on the way home, I realized I did feel better. All my problems were still there, but I felt stronger, more willing and able to do what I knew I was called to do. Somehow God reached me through all my squirming and I was renewed—I now know because I intentionally set aside time for no other purpose than to receive whatever God had in store.

My point is that waiting for the Lord, however we choose to do it, may feel like a frustrating pursuit, may not seem to give results we can see. But the act itself, the discipline, is a sign to God of our intent and our surrender, and God will use such moments of openness in ways we cannot always appreciate, but that will always bring healing and rest to our souls.

To have the kind of faith that outlasts any exhausting day, any sharp and painful personal sting, any time of transition at work, or in our families, or in our church, you and I must attend to our souls every day with the same commitment that we care for our bodies and our minds. Let us all, going forward, resolve again to take time for God, and in those moments pray simply, meditate quietly, let the words of Scripture play over us. Whether we squirm our way through those moments, or find ourselves filled with holy healing light, our discipline is the invitation and the opening God wants to lift us up and fill our souls with healing and rest to do whatever will come tomorrow. “Have you not known? Have you not heard? They who wait for the Lord shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.