When Can We Be Set Free - Sunday's sermon

 

Luke 13:10-17

Jeremiah 1:4-17

       “We worshipping Jesus instead of following him on his same path.  We made Jesus into a mere religion instead of a journey toward union with God and everything else.  This shift made us into a religion of ‘belonging and believing’ instead of a religion of transformation.” – Richard Rohr.

        The work of transformation is the work of the church: the work of healing people, and communities, and the world.  But the reality is that while God may use us to help, the transformation of people, the deep conversion and heart-changing work is really God’s alone.  When change happens, when transformation happens, it is God at work.  When God comes to prophets like Jeremiah, a prophet too young to think he could be influential, to think he could be called or that he could do God’s work, it is God who works through him and therefore transforms those who hear Jeremiah’s words.  When a woman who had been crippled for 18 years passed Jesus by, he came to her, not because she called on him, not because someone else called on him to help her, not because of her amazing faith, but because Jesus, God, is about healing and caring for all people.  Jesus transformed her – not because of anything special about her, but because of something amazing about God.  God chooses to transform, to bring new life, to do something creative and beautiful and good.  That is who God is, and that is what God does.  The difficult part of this for us is that we don’t have a lot of choice about whom God picks, and God seems to pick the most unlikely candidates to be God’s people, to serve God, to be agents of God’s action in the world, to be transformed, to demonstrate and embody God’s love and grace.  God picks a child to be God’s prophet.  And God picks a woman who is not even asking for help, not being cured by her faith, not someone who was able to be part of the community to demonstrate God’s love and healing and care.

               But it’s not just that we have no choice over whom God calls, whom God picks for healing, for transformation, for God’s work in the world, we also have no choice over when God will do God’s work.

        The Pharisees were really upset that Jesus chose to heal the woman on the Sabbath.  And I think it is critical to our understanding of this passage to look at WHY Jesus did heal her that day.  The laws were strict about what could and couldn’t be done on the Sabbath.  And the reality is that surely Jesus could have waited one more day to heal this woman.  After all, she had been crippled for 18 years.  In the span of 18 years, what is one more day?  But Jesus did not wait a day, or even an hour.  He chose to heal her then, breaking laws to do so.  And it is important to understand why.

There are two answers to this.  First of all, Jesus stood by the second Old Testament understanding of Sabbath.  The first understanding of Sabbath comes from Genesis 2:2-3 in which God rested on the final day.  In this understanding, we are to do the same – rest, completely, as God rested from the work of creation.  As Exodus 20:-8-11 puts it, “therefore the people of Israel shall not work on the Sabbath”.  However, there is another Old Testament understanding of Sabbath that comes from Deuteronomy 5:12-15.  In Deuteronomy 5:14, when Moses reiterates the Ten Commandments, he notes the second thing that we must remember on the Sabbath:  "remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the LORD, your God brought you forth from there with a mighty hand and with an outstretched arm; therefore the LORD your God commanded you to observe the Sabbath day".

(from a web-site on Jewish orthodoxy): “What does the Exodus have to do with resting on the seventh day?  It is all about freedom.   In those times, leisure was confined to certain classes; slaves did not get days off.  Thus, by resting on the Sabbath, we are reminded that we are free.  But in a more general sense, Sabbath frees us from our weekday concerns, from our deadlines and schedules and commitments.  During the week, we are slaves to our jobs, to our creditors, to our need to provide for ourselves; on Sabbath, we are freed from these concerns, much as our ancestors were freed from slavery in Egypt.”

In this understanding of Sabbath, the Sabbath practice or observance is not just about resting – it is a day of doing a holy work, and especially a holy work that is all about freedom.  What could be more holy than healing, or freeing a person from their infirmity, from a crippling condition, from a life of estrangement, alienation and isolation from their communities (since they were considered “unclean” and could not be touched or enter many places, including the temple)?  What could be more holy than honoring God and God’s people by transforming them from the physical slavery of infirmity into life?  For Jesus this was absolutely vital, absolutely important that the healings he did BE done on the Sabbath, on that holy day, on the day when holy works and acts of freeing and freedom are to be done.  Yes, he could have waited one more day.  But Sabbath was the right day, the appropriate day, for him to do a holy work.  Just as the Israelites were freed from slavery, in remembering that, the woman was to be freed from her affliction.  As the animals of the Pharisees were freed, even on the Sabbath, to drink, this daughter off Abraham was freed in the kingdom of God to receive life.  Jesus transformed Sabbath, even as he transformed the woman.  Jesus focused on freedom, even as he freed the woman.

Additionally, after 18 years, for God, that one day mattered, that one hour mattered.  Laws be put aside, or as Jesus said it, “The Sabbath was made for humans, NOT humans for the Sabbath.”  Therefore, if the day of rest is not serving the needs of the people, then it is not observed in the way the Pharisees understood it needed to be.  God’s timing is not our timing.   God’s creative, transforming love comes every day because every day is holy for God.  God’s understanding of law is always to be surpassed by God’s commitment to love.  And on this particular holy day, Jesus would not and could not wait to heal this woman whom God loved.

               The Pharisees hated this.  They hated it for many reasons.  But I want to read you a quote from one of my favorite commentaries, “Feasting on the Word” about the Pharisaic understanding in all of this.:

The desire to control Sabbath observance is critical for maintaining another social order as well. The slavocracy of the American South was in part maintained by the restriction of "doing good" on the Sabbath. Reflecting on religious practices in the slaveholding South, Frederick Douglass notes:

It was necessary to keep our religious masters at St. Michael's unacquainted with the fact that, instead of spending the Sabbath in wrestling, boxing, and drinking whisky, we were trying to learn how to read the will of God; for they had much rather see us engaged in those degrading sports, than to see us behaving like intellectual, moral, and accountable beings.

While enslaved Africans desired to worship God and to educate themselves, literally to "do good," they were prevented because their improvement represented a threat to the social system that circumscribed their lives. Although the plantation setting is clearly not a direct parallel to the situation Jesus faces, similar issues of power, control, and order are present in both cases. The control of Sabbath practice in both instances represents a convenient way of maintaining an oppressive system whereby some people are forced to endure perpetual suffering by others who are more concerned with sustaining a system that benefits them than alleviating the burdens of those it cripples.

(Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary - Feasting on the Word – Year C, Volume 3: Pentecost and Season After Pentecost 1 (Propers 3-16).

             For the Pharisees control of religious laws and rules was very important.  But God cannot be controlled.  God cannot be contained by our rules and laws and even our understanding of who God is or what God is about, who God can use, when God can use them and why.  None of this can be controlled.  I’m reminded of the quote from C.S. Lewis’ the lion, the witch and the wardrobe, in reference to Aslan who is the Jesus character, “He is not a TAME lion, you know.  He is very good, but he is not Tame.”  We want God to be tame – or rather contained.  We want to be able to understand, to expect certain things and to count on them.  But that is not who God is.  God is not TAME.  God can’t be controlled by our prayers, our thoughts, our wishes, our hopes, or even our ideas of who God really is.  And the truth is that ultimately I’m not sure we would want a God who could be because that God would not be big enough for all of who we are, all of our needs, all of our hopes, and all of our lives.  God’s dreams for us are bigger than our own, and that is VERY good news.  Just as the woman in today’s story could not look up, hunched over for 18 years, she could only see the dirt in front of her and could not imagine a life free from her infirmity, Jesus had bigger plans for her, bigger dreams for her. 

            Again, from ‘Feasting on the Word,’  “We are like the woman bent over and unable to look up and see the sun. We know only the dust and dirt underneath our feet. We struggle to see the path before us by straining and twisting, because we cannot look straight ahead. To ask for healing helps us step into Jesus' invitation to mend our souls as we mend creation. There will be times when we will "know" this in ways that are too profound for words or reason. There will also be times when God seems far off and the pathway unclear, but seek healing we must.”  Yes, we must.  We must seek freedom from all that binds us, whether it be physical, emotional, social, psychological or even political.  But again, we have to remember that God is not a tame lion – and therefore God’s plans for us and God’s timing for those plans will remain in God’s hands, even as we are called to seek healing.  The good news is, though, again, that God’s dreams are bigger than our own.  And God’s call for us to find life is more insistent and immediate than we could even hope.  It comes down to this…”Where Jesus is, things begin to be made right…. In the reign of God, the world will be repaired.”  That is a promise we can count on.  That is the good news.  The challenge then for us is two fold – one to take the Sabbath seriously as both a time for rest and a time to do a holy work towards the freedom of all God’s people.  And second, to trust that God is the force and power behind any transformation towards freedom.  But that God will use us, no matter what our condition, our age, our situation, if we are open to God’s calling.  Amen.

Sermon: The Year of Jubilee

Lev. 25, Luke 4:16-19

As you probably remember, one of the big ten commandments is to take a Sabbath day every week. While many of our commandments are hard, this one is not so much hard, as it is discounted.  I think that we don’t take it very seriously because, in this “protestant work ethic” culture, we don’t honestly see the value in rest. While a Sabbath sermon is really another conversation, the idea of Jubilee is deeply and closely related to Sabbath.  Sabbath is a day of rest every week.  Then, as we heard in today’s passage, the land is also supposed to rest every seven years for a year.  This, by the way, is where the idea of a Sabbatical also comes in.  Most pastors take a sabbatical every seven years, which is an extended period, usually three months, of break, study, family time, or rest.  I’ve never had one because the timing of switching jobs has never really allowed for it.  But I think that time of renewal and rest is usually very renewing for both pastors and congregations when it does take place.  And, frankly, there is biblical support for all of us having time of sabbatical, time of rest.

So that brings us to the third part of the Biblically mandated Sabbath - the year of Jubilee.  What do you know about the year of Jubilee? Was this passage surprising to you?  As you look at it now, what strikes you?

We go from having one day out of seven to rest, to having one year out of seven for the land to rest, for the forgiveness of debts, for the freedom of slaves, to finally, having one year every seven times seven years plus one - every fifty years, for a more complete renewal and regeneration of all that has come to pass.  Several things are to happen in this year of Jubilee.  Again, the freeing of all slaves, again the releasing of the debts, again, the resting of the land.  But also during this time, no land owner has exclusive claim to what is produced on their land: everyone can eat of the land regardless of who owns it.  Wildlife is to be given a chance to repopulate itself.  No interest is to be charged on money loaned: no one is to make money off of another’s need.  But then, if that wasn’t radical enough, we come to the even harder parts. All land is to return to those who owned it originally, and all people are to return to their place of origin.  Again, all land is to return to those who owned it originally, and all people are to return to their place of origin - to their family’s land, to their ancestral home.

The themes of freedom, and of trust are once again the focus of this jubilee year also.  It is a three fold freedom - liberty for the slaves and the imprisoned, liberty from the toil of cultivating the land, and liberty for the person who lost his inheritance and can now return to the land of his or her ancestors.  And again, trust: we trust that God will provide even though there are basically two fallow years in a row for the land (the 49^th year, being seven times seven years of sabbatical followed by the fiftieth year, the year of jubilee), even though all debt is erased, even though all slaves are set free, even though everything is open to everyone: all food that grows in this year is open for use by anyone who needs it.

We don’t hear about too many of these jubilee years actually haven taken place over the course of history.  But in the passage from Luke, Biblical scholars believe that Jesus was declaring or re-instituting the year of Jubilee: the year of the Lord’s favor is a phrase that references and proclaims the jubilee year.  And the things Jesus includes to announce the coming of this year tell us much about his priorities for the year of jubilee as well.  Freedom for the imprisoned, sight for the blind, release to the oppressed.  In other words, all who are captive, including prisoners are to be set free.  All who are suffering physically will be freed from their ailments and physical problems.  All who are oppressed shall find justice and be brought into equality.  The releasing of debts and the returning of the land are ways to bring about that justice and equality as well.  Every fifty years, everything is to be forgiven, returned, set free, and allowed to rest.

What do you think practicing the year of jubilee would look like today?  What would we look like if we practiced this, as a country?  As a people?  As individuals?  First of all, if this was practiced at the beginning of the founding of our country, most of us would have needed to vacate the United States and return the land to the Native Americans a long time ago.  If we started the year of Jubilee today just returning to where we were fifty years ago, I wonder where we’d be? Where would you be?  Where was your family fifty years ago that you would need to return to?  Since we are an older congregation, many of us would probably still be here, actually, but if we were to actually practice this each fifty years, where would you have gone back to 100 years ago?  More, what would it mean for people to be completely debt free once every generation - all countries, all individuals, all families, everyone set back to ground zero - with no debts, and with no interest on loans.

But in the face of the reality that instituting the year of jubilee would probably be a big challenge for any of us, we are called to look more deeply at the reasons behind this command to keep a year of jubilee, to look at the purpose behind it and what the call to keep a year of jubilee means for each of us in a world that does not practice Jubilee.

The passage from Leviticus talks about the underlying belief of Jubilee, of the returning of  the land to the original owners.  It begins with a deep recognition that nothing here, nothing here really belongs to any of us - the land, the earth, and all that is on it belong to God.  God in turn has lent it to God’s people and while individuals or families may lose their piece for a while, it is God’s part to decide who the land goes to the end, where it serves, who it serves and how it serves. God doesn’t like a few people accumulating at the expense of the many.  That goes to the very heart of the year of jubilee and the deeper purpose behind it which is about justice: a basic justice which says that the rich should not be getting richer off of the backs of the poor.  Jubilee was an extension of the Sabbath - and began with the Day of Atonement: making amends.  And in the year of Jubilee, this amends is all about correcting the gain of a few at the expense of others. 

Our society is not set up like this. Small farmers are constantly losing their lands to the big corporations who are accumulating at the great cost to the poor. Small companies lose their business to bigger companies. The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer, especially in this country.  815 million people of the 7.6 billion people in the world, or 10.7%, were suffering from chronic undernourishment in 2016.  https://www.worldhunger.org/world-hunger-and-poverty-facts-and-statistics/  . In the United States, More than 13 million children in the United States live in "food insecure" homes. https://www.nokidhungry.org/who-we-are/hunger-facts.  In California, a Forbes study said 1/3 of all families here struggle to meet basic needs https://www.forbes.com/sites/chuckdevore/2015/08/12/a-third-of-california-households-cant-afford-basic-needs-government-is-a-big-reason-why/#422462592289 .  Poorer countries are often stuck in a vicious debt trap in which they cannot afford to repay their national debts without neglecting their people’s basic needs.  For instance, in 2005/06, Kenya’s budget for debt payments was as much as for water, health, agriculture, roads, transportation, and finance combined. 

At the same time as in our churches we ask people to tithe ten percent of their incomes - to give ten percent to the care of others, of the world, of creation, our federal budget gives less than one percent to the care of the poor.  Less than one percent.

In response to this need, and in response to the Biblical mandate to practice the year of Jubilee there has been a movement which many of you may be familiar with.  It focused originally on declaring the year 2000 as a year of jubilee. Since then, the debt of 20 small countries was relieved of debt, countries like Kenya which were being torn apart by the large debts which they had incurred. There is a foundation called Jubilee USA Network and its current grass roots organizer, Brian Swarts wrote in his blog, “God’s creative and redemptive acts are not limited to a single day or confined to “religious” activities or people. The biblical teachings on Sabbath have as much to say about everyday life issues like agriculture, economics and politics as they do about religion. Or more accurately, from a Sabbath perspective there is no distinction between religious practice, and ecological, political and economic practice. .....This redistribution limits… the monopolization of wealth… The Sabbath vision of economics was that each family would be assured enough to meet its needs, but it would discourage people from accumulating significantly more than they need. This, of course, is heretical in today’s economic system where the mantra is ‘more is better.’”

What is interesting about this is that current global research is showing that economic growth only brings us real satisfaction up to the point of meeting our basic needs (which costs about $50,000 a year in California). In other words, the people in this country who make a salary of billions a year are not any happier than those of us who just barely make ends meet.  Does this surprise you?  People deserve a living wage, adequate health care, and food security, but beyond this we spend most of our time working to acquire wealth that does not make us any happier.  What if in recognition of this fact we stopped trying to gain money to buy more for ourselves or our families but instead really put ourselves to the task of caring for the world with the money we make that is beyond providing for basic needs?  Just think what we could do!  It’s the idea of the manna all over again.  God said to the Israelites in the desert, only take what you need for today and tomorrow will be provided for.  Can we do that?

Brian Swarts continued, “Today, the Jubilee … movement is working to restore the vision of Sabbath to the global economic system. This is an international, faith‑inspired movement calling for a jubilee for the world’s most impoverished countries: a cancellation of debts and an end to economic practices tantamount to debt slavery!...In ancient Israel debt often became a vicious trap: The poor ..(would often) lose their land to wealthy creditors. In the end, their only option would be to sell themselves or their children into slavery.  The indefinite continuation of this process and the permanent enslavement of the poor is what jubilee was meant to address.”

Bono, the lead singer for the Christian rock group U2, at the 2006 National Prayer Breakfast spoke eloquently about the need for a year of jubilee, about debt relief and about our job as Christians to care for the poor in this very concrete way.  He told this story:

“A number of years ago, I met a wise man who changed my life. In countless ways, large and small, I was always seeking the Lord's blessing. I was saying, you know, I have a new song, look after it. I have a family, please look after them. I have this crazy idea...

“And this wise man said: ‘stop.’  He said, ‘stop asking God to bless what you're doing. Get involved in what God is doing ‑ because it's already blessed.’

 “Well, God, as I said, is with the poor. That, I believe, is what God is doing.  And that is what He's calling us to do....Look, whatever thoughts you have about God, who He is or if He exists, most will agree that if there is a God, He has a special place for the poor. In fact, the poor are where God lives. Check Judaism. Check Islam. Check pretty much anyone....The one thing we can all agree, all faiths and ideologies, is that God is with the vulnerable and poor.  God is in the slums, in the cardboard boxes where the poor play house. God is in the silence of a mother who has infected her child with a virus that will end both their lives. God is in the cries heard under the rubble of war. God is in the debris of wasted opportunity and lives, and God is with us if we are with them. ...It's not a coincidence that in the scriptures, poverty is mentioned more than 2,100 times. It's not an accident. That's a lot of air time, 2,100 mentions. (You know, the only time Christ is judgmental is on the subject of (our failing to care for) the poor.) 'As you have done it unto the least of these my brethren, you have done it unto me' (Matthew 25:40).”

Bono also points out that we can and have made a large difference as churches to the debt relief programs. As he says, “when churches started demonstrating on debt, governments listened ‑ and acted. When churches starting organizing, petitioning, and even ‑ that most unholy of acts today, God forbid, lobbying...on AIDS and global health, governments listened ‑ and acted.”  But this is not easy.  He continues, “It's not about charity, it's about justice. And that's too bad.  Because we’re good at charity. Justice is a lot harder....It's annoying but justice and equality are mates. Aren't they? Justice always wants to hang out with equality. And equality is a real pain.  You know, think of those Jewish sheep‑herders going to meet the Pharaoh, mud on their shoes, and the Pharaoh says, 'Equal?' A preposterous idea: rich and poor are equal? And they say, 'Yeah, 'equal,' that's what it says here in this book. We're all made in the image of God." And eventually the Pharaoh says, "OK, I can accept that. I can accept the Jews ‑ but not the blacks.'  'Not the women. Not the gays. Not the Irish. No way, man.'...So on we go with our journey of equality. On we go in the pursuit of justice.  Preventing the poorest of the poor from selling their products while we sing the virtues of the free market...that's a justice issue. Holding children to ransom for the debts of their grandparents...that's a justice issue. Withholding life‑saving medicines out of deference to the Office of Patents...that's a justice issue.  And while the law is what we say it is, God is not silent on the subject.”

The Sabbath laws give us clear mandates, that sets before us very clear challenges. First, as a Sabbath day, we are seriously challenged to take a day of rest, prayer and time with your family.

Second, in answer to the call to a Sabbatical, we are called to reflect on debts you hold and to find ways to take a larger break from long term activities, focus some time on forgiving others and find ways to create Sabbath places for others, especially the poor and oppressed.

But when it comes to Jubilee, the call is to really reflect on ways we participate in the injustices in our world and to search for ways in which we can participate in a true Jubilee -freeing the oppressed, bringing sight to the blind, and returning God’s wealth to all God’s people.  Start by asking yourself the question, where did you come from?  How have you gotten to where you are today?  And how can you return the same grace God has given you throughout your life to all the people in God’s world?  Amen.

Days of Rest: Sabbath

           Lent is an incredibly busy time.  There are extra worship services (Taize, ecumenical activities, Ash Wednesday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Easter Sunrise), there are preparations to be made for those services, there are special activities (Financial workshop, Immigration classes) as well as our usual meetings and planning.  In my own family, there are birthdays during this time , as well as in the congregation surgeries and hospitalizations – all of it takes up time, takes energy, takes work.  Much of it is good, but it is busy.  I know you find the same.  There is stuff to be done, lots of it, and time to rest is just not in the cards for many of us. 

               And yet, one of our basic commandments, one of the ten biggies, focuses on taking a day of Sabbath each week, a day of rest, an intentional time to not be busy, every single week.  It is a commandment, not a suggestion, not a recommendation, but a commandment. Frankly, I think this commandment, one of the ones that is most life-giving to all of us, is the hardest one of the ten to keep.  Not many kill others, not many of us steal, and I hope not many of us cheat on our spouses or partners. We try not to speak slander against our neighbors, we work hard not to covet what we can’t have, and we try to be respectful of our parents.  I don’t think worshiping other gods or making graven images is an issue for most of us. All of these are obvious to us in their value, and we work hard to keep them.  But keeping the Sabbath?  Taking a day where we truly do not do work, do not do errands, do not run taxi services for our kids and grandkids, do not run around but simply rest?  This is something most of us simply don’t do.

               I write this from the place of being one of those who is not good at following this commandment.  I am not good at it.  Period.  I’m aware of it.  I’m aware of the need for a time of rest, a need for a time to not be running around crazy.  Yesterday, though, brought this home for me again in a very concrete way.  I was struggling to find something to write my newsletter article about.  I had made four different attempts at writing something and each time the subject and my writing on the subject fell flat, only to be discarded.  Sandy said, “go for a hike.  It clears your mind and you will think better.” 

               “Ha!” was my reply, “Hiking is not in the cards today or any day this week or next.”  I proceeded to talk through the day, every hour of which, until 11PM as it turned out, was scheduled with an activity that could not be postponed or moved.  A meeting to plan the Far East Presbytery meeting, a visit to the hospital to see a parishioner, a meeting about a problem going on with one of our members, preparing for Thursday evening Bible study, preparing for my lesson in handbells with the church kids for Sunday, finishing worship for Sunday evening.  And when work was over? Driving a child to tutoring, driving another child to dance, the kids’ school band concert, a quick run to the grocery store and then helping kids with homework until late, late, late.  Today’s schedule is worse between three different meetings, visits to two parishioners, writing this newsletter, working on my sermon for Sojourner Truth, Bible study this evening, more taxi service for a child who has counseling and another who has dance…and today is Youngest’s birthday, so somewhere in there dinner and presents must be squished.  A hike?  A nap?  A rest?  Not realistic at all.

               And then as I was heading out the door to take said child to tutoring, I picked up the devotional book that Lyle had graciously given me and in a hurry, in a “I really should look at this before dashing to my next thing” mood, I opened to the day’s entry. 

“The idea of a day of rest was not just ceremonial, but necessary to survival. If we are to live full and healthy lives, we all need occasional rest.” 1

Bam.  Message received, God.  Always, message received.  But today?  Message ignored because there are all these things that I MUST do.  Hm.

               The reality is, when we don’t get enough rest, we are not the people God calls us to be.  I see this in myself.  I become snippy, short, tired, weary.  Without my reserves, I am not the patient mom, I am not the pastor who listens, I am not the friend who is giving, I am not the person that I strive hard to be.  I don’t take time to do the things I value the most: making phone calls, reaching out, writing thank you notes, expressing gratitude and appreciation both to God and to those around me, when I don’t have the energy to do those things.  I don’t write well, I don’t think clearly, and I am not as kind as I want to be.  I can’t speak for all of you.  But it would not surprise me to find that you, too, need that day of rest to rejuvenate and to be the people God calls you to be.

               Lent is a time of self-reflection.  It is a time for repentance, for looking hard at the things we need to change and making an effort to actually change those things.  For me, that change looks like it needs to start with intentionality around Sabbath.  So I’ve put it on the calendar for next week: a day of rest.  And I will strive to do this for the rest of lent as well. 

Is this something that is a challenge for you too?  Do you take the time to rest, to pray, to meditate, to be with yourself and God in an intentional way and with intentional time each week?  Rest will help you to think clearly, love more fully, face the days' challenges with strength. It is a commandment given to us out of love because God wants wholeness for us, wants health for us, wants us to have meaningful and productive lives.  Blessings to you as we all move forward on our journeys.  May you find times of rest this lenten season.

1. Haberman, Hardy, Shouts in the Wilderness (Fl: Adynaton Publishing, 2017) p77

A Day of Rest

     Last night Youngest came down with that horrible stomach flu that is going around.  She was up almost every half hour throughout the night being "sick".  That meant that all of our plans for today were thrown out.  And we have been home.  I've slept a lot of the day (after all, I hadn't slept much during the night...and what sleeping I had done was frequently interrupted), and we watched "Columbo" murder mysteries for part of the day.  Right now I am listening to my eldest daughter read to the other three of us (well, as much as one can do that while typing!).  But basically, out of the sky has been dropped into my lap a literal day of rest - something we are supposed to take on a weekly basis, and something that most Americans (I think) really don't know what to do with - including myself.
     We had an incredibly busy weekend - friend over Friday night, Saturday was Eldest's birthday party which meant the day was spent cleaning, setting up, having the party, then cleaning again, Sunday involved church and then I had people over again for Women's Movie Night.  And the calmness of today is an incredible gift of grace.  I can see it for that...I am deeply tired, in so many ways, and next weekend will also be incredibly busy with an out-of-town trip.  So the gift of a day in which we have no choice but to slow down, to take time, to just "be" and rest is such an amazing blessing, even if it did come at the price of a difficult night and a sick child.
    But the truth is that all of us have trouble knowing what to do with this gift of rest.  The idea of simply being, of existing together, of resting, of not running around or being entertained or working hard every minute of the day has been challenging for each of us in different ways.  My eldest has been weepy and complaining of boredom, to the point of even calling other adult friends to see if they could take her somewhere.  My middle child has been causing havoc out of his sense of "I don't know what to do with myself".  Youngest, because she is still sick, has just rested on the couch.  And I have struggled with an overwhelming sense of guilt, recognizing all that I SHOULD be doing while choosing to actually rest and be with my children instead.
    But finally we made the decision to embrace the spirit of the day.  As I have come back to myself, especially over the last 5 months, I have filled my family room with plants, rocks, water and candles.  In a spirit of embracing the Sabbath that was given to us, we lit the candles, turned on the fountains (to listen to the running water), played soft music, and chose to be together as a family.
     Here are two pictures of part of our space...

    I pray that the gift of this Sabbath day would inspire me to be more intentional in taking Sabbath more regularly, inviting the Spirit more fully into our space and into our lives, and learning how to simply be, without needing to do in every moment.