Exodus 20:8,11
Matthew 11:28-30,
Mark 6: 30-32.
Sabbath Blossoms
Folks driving by our church on Friday morning probably wondered what we were giving away! The lines snaking around the block before the White Elephant Sale opened at 9:00 am rivaled the Broadway ticket booth in Times Square. Who would buy the ping pong table, the orange upholstered chair, the surf boards, the 5 million sofa pillows!?
For all of our 200 volunteers who put in countless Herculean hours this past week, today’s invitation to Sabbath rest is made for you.
As Jesus said to his disciples,
“Come to me all who are weary and carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me;
for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. “(Matthew 11:28-28)
And in Mark’s gospel, just before the disciples and Jesus fed the hungry crowds, Jesus encouraged them, “Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest awhile.” (Mark 6:30-1)
Sabbath rest, or soul rest, is rooted in God’s activity of creation in Genesis. It is also the 4th commandment given to the people by Moses:
“Remember the Sabbath …and keep it holy.” (Ex 20.8)
The first holy thing in all creation was not a people or a place but a day… Rabbi Abraham Heschel called the Sabbath
a “sanctuary in time” where work is done for the day and one can delight in the fruits of life and love. Sabbath, Shabbat, meaning, to catch your breath and cease…
In other words, no cell phones, no labor, no to-do list is needed. Only a dedicated time for intimacy with God and those we love.
Jewish Tradition holds that Shabbat is in sacred hands. One day of rest after 6 days of laboring. Just like God. As my friend, Peter, a devout Jewish man is fond of saying, “keeping the Sabbath is a way of living. You don’t pick a flower but sit in the garden with it– knowing that nature is the glove in God’s hands”.
For those who celebrate the traditional Shabbat, two candles are lit -one celebrating the resting from creation; the other, symbolizing freedom as those entering Sabbath time remember that oppression has ended and liberation has begun.
All three of our Abrahamic religions share this marking time in a sacred rhythm each week so that we might remember that we are God’s own.
Given the 24/7 work day and frenzied pace of our current day lives, living into Sabbath Rest is a revolutionary lifestyle choice. How many of us can be conveniently contacted at any time day or night by just the flick of a finger or glance at our Apple watches? Even on vacation we receive work emails and texts! Often, our minds and souls are never really free unless we are in that rare place where there is no internet.
Sabbath is about letting go of productivity and participating in the relentless culture of mass consumption surrounding us. It’s more than the absence of work or a day off to run errands.
Thomas Merton, the 20th century Trappist monk and civil rights activist called our societal addiction to busyness “a pervasive form of modern violence to which the idealist most easily succumbs: activism and over-work.””
Here at our church we are a holy bunch of activists and volunteers, parents and grandparents, caregivers and friends. There is so much to do in this unjust world.
And yet, how might we embrace Sabbath as a regular habit of the heart? How might you live into the holy practice of “catching our breath?”
“Be still and Know that I am God,” sings the psalmist. (Psalm 46.10)
Creating sabbath spaces whether for a whole day or for just a walk in Miss Florence’s garden, or a kayaking with a friend along the Lieutenant River. However, you choose to rest in the beauty of nature, let us find ways to remember that sabbath time is a gift to be nurtured and received from God.
The poets, of course, already know how to cultivate “a Sabbath mood” as Wendell Berry calls it. Writing from the farmlands of Kentucky, Berry recalled how “On summer evenings we sat in the yard, the house dark, the stars bright overhead. The lap and arms of the old held the young. As we talked we knew by the dark distances of Heaven’s lights our smallness, and the greatness of our love.”
What activities might you rest from in this next week?
How might you “keep” Sabbath time so that life slows you into a restful smallness with Heaven’s lights overhead?
Wayne Mueller in his book on Sabbath (2003) comes up with some simple and creative ways like leaving your phone at home when you’re out walking or leaving your cell phone in a homemade Sabbath box with your keys when you walk in the door.
However, Sabbath rest might unfold in your life may it blossom in ways that lift your spirit and refresh your soul.
Hear now a poem called From Blossoms by LI-YOUNG LEE,
From blossoms comes this brown paper bag of peaches we bought from the boy at the bend in the road where we turned toward signs painted Peaches. From laden boughs, from hands, from sweet fellowship in the bins, comes nectar at the roadside, succulent peaches we devour, dusty skin and all, comes the familiar dust of summer, dust we eat. O, to take what we love inside to carry within us an orchard, to eat not only the skin, but the shade, not only the sugar, but the days, to hold the fruit in our hands, adore it, then bite into the round jubilance of peach. There are days we live as if death were nowhere in the background; from joy to joy to joy, from wing to wing, from blossom to blossom to impossible blossom, to sweet impossible blossom.
These are the days, my friends.
Help yourself to a peach!