Leighmoor UC. June 14. 2020
Call to Worship
Come, let us welcome the Sabbath in joy and peace!
It brings comfort to our hearts, workday cares are set aside.
On the Sabbath we remember our blessings from God, and our anxieties and heartache are softened.
Come, let us worship our loving God, who modelled rest for us!
Prayer of Adoration and Confession
God of life, you brought all into being.
In you, we are part of the glory of creation.
In you, we receive the mystery of grace.
In you, we find the wisdom of community.
God of all glory, on this first day, you began creation,
bringing light out of darkness.
On this day you began your new creation
raising Jesus Christ out of the darkness of death.
On this Lord’s day, may our hearts praise you as we remember, and are thankful, for all your blessings, including the precious treasure of the Sabbath.
We are aware that we have misused your gifts of creation.
We have not been faithful or careful stewards.
Forgive us for neglecting your planet,
by polluting its waters and habitats,
for allowing species to become extinct or endangered.
Forgive us when we have neglected our brothers and sisters,
of different races, colours, religions.
Forgive us when we have been indifferent to the plight of our indigenous brothers and sisters, for turning away from reports we hear of cruelty in police custody, or about lower life spans, poorer health, and harder access to good education, housing, and job opportunities.
(in a time of silence we remember other things for which we seek forgiveness)
Forgive us for superficial worship,
and if our prayers have been of a selfish nature.
Amen
Words of Assurance.
This is the best of all,
when we are empty, God fill us,
when we are disheartened, God is compassionate,
when we are wounded, God brings healing,
when we confess our sins, God forgives us.
In Christ, through Christ, and because of Christ,
Our sins are forgiven.
Thanks be to God.
Amen
Bible Readings: Exodus 20: 8-11
Matthew 12: 9-13
Today I am departing from my usual practice of following the lectionary readings set for this week.
Genesis is one of my favourite books in the Hebrew Scriptures, the Old Testament, but we have nine more weeks when we can explore those readings, so I am taking this opportunity to address something some of us may be struggling with a little.
The Sabbath.
How to observe the Sabbath, and to keep it special, during this time of lock down.
Do you remember the film, ‘Chariots of Fire’? I noticed it was showing on tv the other night-but by then it was half over. When it came out, back in 1981 (yes, that long ago!) I was very moved by it.
In the movie, Eric Liddell, a Scottish Presbyterian preacher and former Scotland rugby player, is chosen to run in the 1924 Olympic Games in Paris. His sister Jenny fears that running is diverting Eric from his calling to be a missionary in China. (that has never been a problem for me…if I take up running I have lost the plot!)
Eric tells Jenny that his vocation is unchanged, but that he believes it is also part of God’s purpose for him to run. He says to Jenny, “God made me fast, and when I run I feel his pleasure.”
- “when I run I feel his pleasure.”
Does that happen for you? Not in terms of running, but is there a time or activity when you sense God’s pleasure, God’s delight-when you are doing God’s will?
When Liddell, a strict observer of the Sabbath, discovers that his Olympic 100m heat is on a Sunday, he refuses to take part.
Entered instead-at short notice-for the 400 m, Liddell goes on to win a gold medal.
How many runners would have refused to run on a Sunday?
How many sportsmen and sportswomen refuse to take part in sporting activities held on a Sunday?
The reading from Exodus is a familiar one.
‘Remember the Sabbath day, and keep it holy.’(Exodus 20:8)
What is the Sabbath?
The word ‘Sabbath’ comes from the Hebrew word Shabbat, which means to pause, to cease, and to be still.
It is the opportunity to get off the treadmill of life and to reflect on our values and priorities.
Lock down has given us that opportunity, hasn’t it? To reflect, to pause, to out aside activities.
In their book Balance *, Robert Warren and Sue Mayfield write that the Sabbath encompasses six things:
- Stillness: to pause, to be still.
- Rhythm: the pattern of resting one day in seven imitates the rhythm of creation in Genesis 1 where God worked creatively for 6 days and then paused to rest and enjoy all that He had made
(NOT that God needed to rest-God was modelling right practice-humans need some rest and re creation)
- Receiving: Sabbath is a gift from God, a gift of grace, a reminder that all we have comes from God’s creative love.
‘We do not so much practice Sabbath as receive it.’
- Refreshment: it is more than stopping work-it is about restoration, creativity and play.
- Freedom: it is about liberation, wholeness, and well-being.
- Holy: God calls it holy and exhorts us to do the same.
Joy Davidman wrote: ‘How do you make a day holy? By seeing that it is holy already, and behaving accordingly.’
Let’s explore the Sabbath in Scripture.
As I said earlier, it is that wonderful rhythm from Genesis 1: ‘In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth…’
‘So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all the work that he had done in creation.’
It is sharing God’s enjoyment of creation (a return to Eden from the curses in Chapter 3 when Adam and Eve were evicted from the garden-so it is a return to paradise)
The Sabbath is to be kept holy, treasured.
The Sabbath is essential for the well being of society, for the community, and for the environment.
In today’s reading: ‘you shall not do any work-you, or your son or your daughter, or your male and female slave, your, livestock, or the resident alien in your towns.’
And in Leviticus 25 (on entering the land of Israel): ’When you enter the land that I am giving you, the land shall observe a Sabbath for the Lord. Six years you shall sow your field …prune your vineyard, and gather in their yield, but in the seventh year there shall be a sabbath of complete rest for the land, a sabbath for the Lord: you shall not sow your field or prune your vineyard.’(Lev 25: 2-4)
Principles of justice and jubilee stem from the 1 in 7 pattern that the Sabbath establishes, which benefits all (foreigners, slaves, livestock).
To keep the Sabbath is a reminder that all things come from God-that God is the source of life and salvation, that life is a gift.
When Israel wandered in the wilderness, even the manna that was provided, followed a Sabbath rhythm. Gathering quail in the evening and manna in the morning.
‘On the sixth day they gathered twice as much food…When all the leaders of the congregation came and told Moses, he said to them, “This is what the Lord has commanded: ‘Tomorrow is a day of solemn rest, a holy sabbath to the Lord…’(Exodus 16: 22-23).
Throughout history, Sabbath has been a symbol of identity for the Jewish people. In the Jewish tradition, Sabbath is a time for community events and shared feasts-celebrations of holy days (the origin of our secular ‘holiday’).
Jesus observed the Sabbath.
He challenged hair-splitting observance of the Sabbath (Matthew 12: 8: the Son of Man is lord of the sabbath), restoring the person-centredness and wellbeing that are at the heart of true Sabbath keeping.
In the time of Jesus, there were 1,521 things you were banned from doing on the Sabbath.
What are some of the things we don’t do, or refuse to do, or are reluctant to do, on our Sabbath? On Sunday?
Washing? Grocery shopping? House work? Playing sport?
Jesus saw the Sabbath as a time to benefit humanity, an opportunity to bless and enrich others.
In the Early Church, Christians celebrated Sunday (the first day) as the Lord’s Day-this became a symbol of their Christian distinctiveness-the first day of the week (grace over law).
In 321 CE Constantine formally declared Sunday as a day of rest.
It is seen as a foretaste of the heavenly rest and as a symbol of the age to come.
Have we lost that sense of awe and wonder?
We need to rediscover the rhythms of work, rest and play more than ever.
Perhaps during lockdown they have moulded into one.
Remember the Mars Bar ad: ‘A Mars a day helps you work, rest and play.’
Perhaps it could be ‘A Sabbath a week helps you work, rest and play.’
If we practice and explore the Sabbath, it will have a profound effect on our wellbeing, our prayer life, and our approach to life.
It is nothing short of being revolutionary!
Being in lockdown echoes some of these elements:-it cuts across our pressured, workaholic culture
-it cuts across materialism and the wish to have more,
-it cuts across the idea that non-productive time is time wasted.
It reminds us to value relationships and families.
It enables us to rekindle a sense of awe and wonder.
It cuts across the need to make ourselves feel important by always being busy (this can happen in the church so easily!)
But, most importantly-it reminds us that we are not self-sufficient-we are not God.
Many of you have said you have been reminded of what is important, during lockdown.
Think back to Sundays growing up.
What was Sunday like back then? One church service, two? Maybe three, or children’s church as well.
What was forbidden?
Were there elements of those Sundays you miss nowadays?
What are the pressures in our communities/families that make observing the Sabbath difficult?
I remember when our son was about 6 years old, his rugby team was trying out to be the team to play during the intermission at a Canberra Raider’s game in Canberra, where we lived. On the one hand, we were hoping the team would be chosen (how exciting for him! What proud parents!), but on the other, that they wouldn’t be chosen, because the game was to be held on a Sunday, and at that time I was minister in a country church an hour away, so he would have to miss playing the game if the team was chosen (they weren’t-thank you God!)
When I listed six qualities of the Sabbath: stillness, rhythm, receiving, refreshment, freedom and holy, there was one category missing.
All of those qualities aid this one-
Remembrance.
Remembrance.
Remembrance is central to the Sabbath.
‘Remember the Sabbath…’
Why?
Because of God.
‘Remember that I am your God…’
In Deuteronomy 5, Sabbath rest is linked with the memory of slavery:
‘Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm; therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the sabbath day.’(Dt 5:15)
Remember what God has done for you…
In the ritual that marks the start of the Sabbath in a Jewish home, two candles are lit, one for ‘observe’ and the other for ‘remember.’
Remembrance of all that God has done is an essential part of Sabbath rest.
Sabbath, the first day of the week, NOT the weekend!
The Sabbath is meant to sustain us, NOT reward us for working hard all week!
Proper rest will probably make our work more effective BUT THAT IS NOT ITS PRIMARY PURPOSE!
True Sabbath elevates rest, play and celebration above work and productivity.
We are, after all, human beings…not human doings!
Sabbath time causes us to slow down, to live in the moment, to become aware of the beauty around us, of God’s many gifts and blessings.
In a way, we have to become child like-enjoy life as a gift, rather than as a problem to be solved. How would a child answer the question: ‘What is the meaning of life?’
Martin Luther encouraged clergy to spend time with little children and with animals and ‘all that takes life blithely.’
Sabbath is liberation, freedom.
Jesus liberates a crippled woman from physical bondage and the stigma of disfigurement on the Sabbath.
A man’s withered hand –is healed on the Sabbath.
The Sabbath also shows us that rest and relaxation are not only for personal pursuits-but also to remind us that we are stewards of the earth, we work with God.
The Sabbath is a treasure-for us, and for the world.
A gift, rather than a demand.
A reminder that the whole of life is sustained by God’s grace and generosity.
Sabbath is a door: it opens to a new dimension.
It is not so much a day for NOT doing things (misconceptions reinforced by Pharisees and Victorians) but rather a day for DOING the really important things-giving and receiving, rather than buying and selling.
Sabbath is an attitude-not just a day.
Sabbath invites us to take its principles of resting, thanksgiving, justice and generosity into the whole of life, reducing stress, and enlarging our vision.
And, finally,
Sabbath is surprise!
Sabbath is surprise!
The story of Creation has a twist at the end of it. For six days God creates spaces, living creatures, habitats etc-and on the seventh day God rests, and declares that time holy.
How do we speak of time? ‘spending time’, ‘losing time’, ‘time running out’, even ‘wasting time.’
Usually we do not talk about times as a gift, or valuing it as holy.
On this Sabbath, our Sunday, may be rediscover that gift of time, by opening the door to the Sabbath.
It is a time to observe-and to remember.
To remember that we are God’s people
To remember (or count) our blessings.
To be still-and know God.
During this time of lockdown, may our enforced time allow us to be still, to remember, and to give thanks to God for all God’s blessings.
You may want to do something to make Sundays special during lock down. Maybe light a candle for ‘remember.’ Use the good crockery. Perhaps make a special meal, wear a ‘good’ item of clothing or jewellery, even though you are unable to attend church, and maybe no one else will see you.
BUT God will.
And God will smile.
And God will remember why He made you!
Amen
14/6/20
*(Balance: Robert Warren and Sue Mayfield (Church House Publishing, London: 2005)
Prayers of the People
Loving God
whose Son became a refugee and had no place to call his own;
look with mercy on those who today are fleeing from danger,
homeless and hungry.
Bless those who work to bring them relief;
inspire generosity and compassion in all hearts;
and guide the nations of the world towards that day when all will know justice and peace.
We give thanks for the refugees who have come to Australia, and enriched our heritage, and our personal lives.
We pray for those who are now self-sufficient, able to make a living again, and able to hold their heads high, shoulders back.
But we know this is not the case for all, especially during lock-down.
Help us let them know they are welcome here, that we are their brothers and sisters. As we celebrate the beginning of National Refugee Week, where celebrations are conducted through virtual reality,
may this not switch us off, but empower us to become creative, sending messages and support in other ways.
We pray for the world, for those fighting for justice.
We pray that demonstrations are peaceful, that lives are not put in jeopardy.
We continue to pray for the sick, the dying, those looking after them, those enforcing laws, those who are anxious and worried.
Our lives seem trivial in comparison but we are all involved, for we are all God’s family.
In a time of silence we remember other issues that weigh heavy on our hearts…
(time of silence)
Amen
Blessing
We are Easter people,
We are Sabbath people.
We live by a different rhythm.
May the God who blesses us with rest, and re creation,
continue to bless us and sustain us during lock down.
May the Saviour who gifts us with grace, continue to teach us to play, and to laugh.
May the Holy Spirit continue to move through each one of us, opening our eyes to wonder, and awe, and prying open our hearts to love this world and all its inhabitants.
Amen
14.6.20
Rev Barbara Allen
