Sabbath take Five

Part of what can be so vital about the invitation of Sabbath today is we need space to reflect on our relationship with technology and constantly being available.  We are always trying to paint the moving train, we have normalized checking emails on vacation or leaving over 600 million days of time off unused.  We have bought into the cliches that to rest is to rust or that we will sleep when we are dead - there is an uplifting thought.  We want to be necessary, needed, important.  Perhaps deep down we fear that if we were to stop, cease, we might realize that the world goes on spinning without us.

I had to wrestle with that this summer.  For 10 weeks I was away from my job as a pastor.  10 Sundays without preaching. 10 Weeks without filling the role that for the past eighteen years of my life has been an important part of my identity. Who would I be without work?  What would I do to fill the day when there was no worship to plan, meetings to attend, or church to lead?  What would happen back at church?

For eighteen years, those questions loomed so large, as obstacles for me to avoid taking a sabbath.  But, this year...with both my kids now in high school, with my body needing a different pace, with my soul softly whispering, "It will be okay," and many loving people saying the same thing, I took 10 weeks off.

To be sure, I didn't just sit around and binge watch Netflix.  We took an amazing family vacation.  I explored sites of Florida in my own back yard.  I went away for a week of continuing education.  I sat some afternoons lost in a good book.  I did some work around the house.  I played chauffeur for my kids and now have a profound respect for Uber drivers.  I worked on a devotional I'll be sharing this Advent with you on my blog.  I watched some movies and just spent time breathing/being in the world.  It was an amazing 10 weeks that gave me new insights into the holy practice of Sabbath.

Sabbath is a weekly speed bump in our lives.  It is meant to interrupt and disrupt, not just us as individuals, but the whole world.  Walter Brueggemann says that Sabbath offers a different script than, "The advertising game, the liturgy of consumerism in the service of market theology always offering us one more product to purchase, one more car, deodorant, prescription drug, cell phone or beer."  I realize we could read that as some kind of call to go back to Blue Laws where everything was closed on Sundays.  But I think the deeper invitation of Sabbath has always been to cease - not just our physical movement and momentum - but our whole way.

Cease purchasing.
Cease checking emails or social media.
Cease the "shoulds" and "oughts" of life.  As in, I should clean that closet.  I should paint that wall.  Don't should on yourself.

But when we frame the sabbath with the negatives, we miss so much positive.

Sabbath as a time of intentional rest and quiet in a noisy world.
Sabbath as a time of community connections - face-to-face.
Sabbath as a time to worship, to be, as Charles Wesley wrote, "Lost in wonder, love, and praise."
Sabbath as a different rhythm that sings softly to our souls.

Some of our Jewish brothers and sisters don't cook for the sabbath, don't shave, don't drive or do anything that takes energy away from attending our relationship with God.

That is what is so central in Sabbath - space to attend to our relationship with God.

For me, it isn't about a day, it is an invitation.  The need for Sabbath Speed bumps perhaps every day in our lives and to be open to what is called, "ordinary holiness that can only be seen when we cease."

I pray that invitation is like a seed that starts to grow in the soil of your soul like a trace of God's grace.