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Last
Sunday before renewal leave
June 13, 2010
“Sabbath”
Reverend Michael D. PowellMatthew 6:25-34 |
As everyone knows, this is my last Sunday preaching before taking an eight week Renewal Leave. I’m hoping that the next two months are going to be a time of Sabbath for me. (Slide # 1) The term Sabbath derives from the Hebrew Shabbat, "to cease", which was first used in the Biblical account of the seventh day of Creation (Genesis 2:2-3). Not observing the Sabbath is actually breaking the law and is punishable by death!
(Slide # 2)
You yourself are to speak to the Israelites: ‘You shall keep my Sabbaths, for this is a sign between me and you throughout your generations, given in order that you may know that I, the Lord, sanctify you. You shall keep the Sabbath, because it is holy for you; everyone who profanes it shall be put to death; whoever does any work on it shall be cut off from among the people. For six days shall work be done, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of solemn rest, holy to the Lord; whoever does any work on the Sabbath day shall be put to death. Therefore the Israelites shall keep the Sabbath, observing the Sabbath throughout their generations, as a perpetual covenant. It is a sign for ever between me and the people of Israel that in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested, and was refreshed.’ (Exodus 31:13-17)
Observation of Sabbath is one of the Ten Commandments (Exodus 31:13-17), and traditionally has been understood as the day during which God rested after having completed the creation in six days. It’s a time of rest, and is supposed to be dedicated to God and to spiritual refreshment. The way I understand the “punishable by death” part is that a spiritually sensitive, receptive part of us withers and dies if we don’t take time to be with God. Well, probably most of you don’t take a literal six day creation very seriously, and I also suspect that most of us don’t do a very good job of honoring the Sabbath, at least in terms of being disciplined about spiritual renewal. It remains to be seen how well I do! I want to live, and I’m sure you do too.
I wrote in my pastor’s page about how Kate recommended I tell everyone I was in Africa. But I also confessed that, although I don’t consider myself much of a worrier, I do find myself worrying that there’ll be a crisis in my absence. Jesus addresses the subject of worry in this morning’s gospel story. “Why do you worry?’ Jesus asks. “Consider the birds of the air and the lilies of the field. God takes care of them.” Yeah, I know. But I’m not a flower and neither are you. It’s hard to look at things the way Jesus looks at them. It’s hard to see with his eyes and trust with his trust.
Slide # 3: The Greek word for “consider” means “to look carefully at” or “closely examine.”
The Greek word for “lilies” means “wild flowers.”
The wild lilies or wild flowers of Israel do not look like what we think are lilies.
There are no less than 39 different wild species that grow in and around Israel.
Slide # 4
Slide # 5:
Jesus said, “Look at the birds of the air. They neither sew nor toil nor gather into barns, but you heavenly Father takes care of them? Are you not more valuable than the sparrows?” The most common bird of Israel is the lowly sparrow.
There’s a play called “The Cotton Patch Gospel,” a romping, bluegrass musical that depicts the life and ministry of Jesus “as if it had occurred in the cotton fields and Baptist churches of rural south Georgia.” A preacher who saw the play describes an episode. “During the scene depicting the Sermon on the Mount,” he wrote, “the man playing Jesus
suddenly turned from the group on the stage toward the audience, pointed to the blank auditorium side wall, and said, ‘look at the lilies in that field . . .’ He stopped, almost as if he had forgotten the next line, peered around at the disciples, focused again on the audience and repeated, ‘Look at the lilies in that field . . .’ Once more he stopped and seemed to be searching for the next words. The audience began to shift uncomfortably. His hand extended yet again to the blank wall, and this time he spoke the words slowly and deliberately, ‘Look . . . at . . . the . . . lilies . . .”Now he turned to the disciples, shrugging his shoulders, and said, ‘I can’t get them to look.’ The room filled with laughter as it dawned on the audience that he really wanted us to look. And, sure enough, when he gave one more try, ‘Look at the lilies in that field . . .” every head in the audience turned toward the side wall. (Thomas Long, Shepherds and Bathrobes, CSS Publishing, pp. 70-71)
What I hope and pray I will do on this sabbatical is to stop and smell the roses, take some “empty time” and discipline myself to take a long, hard, Sabbath look at the miracle of God’s creation, attempting to see with the eyes of Christ and to trust that the creator has a master plan, that God and the people of God can get along just fine without me for a few weeks.
We’ve just finished Annual Conference and I’m very pleased to report that I’ve been reappointed to Morningside, but I am going to be out of the pulpit for the next eight weeks, and I’ve lined up some fine preachers. Try to treat them nice, ok? I want you to love them, just not too much. Not more than me.
It’s hard being a substitute preacher. I read about a preacher who was filling in for one of his colleagues who was away on sabbatical. After worship he was in the coffee hour and everyone was so kind and polite. But then one man came up and said, “That was without a doubt the worst sermon I’ve ever heard.” Then he turned and walked away. But he was soon back and this time he said, “Your sermon was trite and shallow,” and walked away. But he returned a third time and said, “And your delivery was just awful.” An usher then came up to the preacher and said, “Oh, don’t pay any attention to him. He just goes around repeating what he hears other people say.” Be nice, ok?
God has a plan for Morningside. In fact, I believe God has a plan for your life and for every person’s life. You may remember Rueben Job’s little book entitled (slide # 6) “Three Simple Rules: A Wesleyan Way of Living.” The rules are: 1. Do No Harm 2. Do Good, and 3. Stay in Love with God. The third rule, staying in love with God, is what makes the other two truly possible. Unless we are rooted and grounded in God’s love, all the good we do can still end up doing harm, because our personal wills and our individualistic ways have a way of distorting things and making life very complicated. I have a feeling that if everyone took Sabbath a little more seriously maybe we wouldn’t be quite so frenetic, so busy working to make sure everything turns out the way we think it’s supposed to turn out. A lot of what makes things so complicated is that we’re constantly worrying about what we perceive to be errors and omissions in God’s master plan. And we can do a lot of good, we can dig deeper wells and split atoms and harness energy. But we can also do harm, can’t we? So often we take it upon ourselves to do things better, correct God’s errors and fill in those empty Sabbath spaces that God has intentionally left blank.
I believe the creator has a master plan. I believe that God created the earth and declared it good. And I believe that each of us were created in God’s likeness and are meant to be co-creators with God and faithful stewards and caretakers of God’s gift of this good creation. We were put here to be gardeners in paradise, agents of reconciliation and instruments of God’s peace, justice and love. I also believe that Sabbath is part of the master plan, and we neglect it at our peril.
Although it’s not usually associated with Sabbath, one of my favorite scriptures is (slide # 7) Philippians 2:11: “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant.”
The connection with Sabbath, for me, is that the word that is translated as “empty,” (as in “Christ emptied himself”) in Greek is kenosis. (slide # 8) In Christian theology, kenosis is the concept of the 'self-emptying' of one's own will and becoming entirely receptive to God’s will. The paradox and the mystery of this emptying of oneself is that it is in fact the very thing that makes it possible for us to be filled, to become increasingly sensitized to the Holy Spirit and aware of the divine grace that is continually flowing into our hearts and minds, filling us with the awareness of God’s presence.
So, thank you in advance for this time apart. My love and my prayers will be with you. And, my prayer for myself during this time of Sabbath renewal is that I will truly practice letting go and letting God. Watch over the good people of Morningside, O God. Open the eyes and the ears of my heart, and grant us all your Sabbath peace. In Christ we pray. Amen.