How Can Sabbath Time Help?

This scripture passage this sermon was preached on is Exodus 20:8-11. Click here to read the Scripture passage first.

How can Sabbath time help?

This week we are continuing our sermon series called Restart your life. We started the series talking about how to discover our purpose in life. Last week we talked a little about how to simplify our schedules. Today I’m going to talk some about Sabbath time and next week we are going to talk about how to get personal finances under control.

In undergrad, my degree was in kinesiology, which is the study of how the body moves. Many people who get this degree end up going into physical therapy school or doing sports medicine or sports training. A few of them become personal trainers and not very many of us end up in seminary but that’s neither here nor there. Because of what my degree was in, in college and in seminary I ended up as a personal trainer to many of my friends.

Many of them wanted to learn how to lift weights so I would show them the proper technique and would spot them when necessary. With just about every person, I have ever shown how to lift weights, at some point in the process I would find myself saying to them, “Breathe! Don’t forget to breathe!” And with that, they would exhale a huge breath, they didn’t even realize they were holding. It seems really simple, like how could you forget to breathe? But they were concentrating so hard, on all the other things they were supposed to do. They were thinking about holding their arms in the right position and keeping their shoulders in the right alignment and come up this far and down this far and don’t go too far to the left or the right and oh by the way don’t drop the weight on yourself. They were so focused on all the other things they had to do that they inadvertently forgot to breathe.

It seems silly and yet it’s something that almost all of us are guilty of doing. Life gets so busy, and we get so preoccupied with all of the things we need to do that sometimes we forget to do even the most basic things that sustain our life. John Wesley said that Sabbath time is like our spiritual respiration. Sabbath time, like breath, is what sustains our spiritual lives and keeps us filled with the Spirit. Just like we won’t last very long without breathing, our spiritual lives won’t last very long without Sabbath time.

Sabbath time is time that is set aside to God. It’s a time where we rest from working. But not all rest time is considered Sabbath time. Martin Luther noted that the drunk who’s passed out on the bathroom floor is not working but he’s certainly not keeping the Sabbath either.

So what exactly is the difference between any time off and Sabbath time? As we explore the difference, I think it would be helpful for us to explore the Jewish tradition of Sabbath. Jesus was a practicing Jew and he would have been familiar with the Jewish requirements for keeping the Sabbath.

In Judaism, there are several restrictions of things you are not to do on the Sabbath. First off, you are not to do any of your regular work because God rested on the seventh day. This includes working in the fields or working around the house and doing things like cooking, cleaning, mowing the grass, etc. The Sabbath and the probation on working, reminds us that our worth does not come from what we produce. We live in a society that tells us our worth is based on what we produce, the quality of what we produce and how much we produce. But God thinks otherwise. We have value, not because of what we produce but because we are made by God and God deemed all of creation good. Sabbath is a day to rediscover that our worth lies in who we are not what we do.

Not only are you supposed to rest from working but you are not to make anyone work on your behalf. The scripture that was read for us this morning says, “On [the Sabbath] you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or your daughter, nor your manservant or maid servant, nor your animals, nor the alien within your gates.” In other words, you are not to force anyone to work on your behalf to get more work done. In Judaism today, this has led to a prohibition on commerce. You are not to go shopping or go out to eat on the Sabbath because that would require someone else to work on your behalf.

You are also not supposed to do any gardening or play a musical instrument. You are not to write anything down or draw anything. Basically, you are not to create anything because God rested from creating on the seventh day. Rabbi Harold Kushner puts it this way, “Sabbath rest is leaving the world alone.” When we stop interfering with the world we acknowledge that it is God’s world.

There are not only specific things that are prohibited for Jews on the Sabbath day, there are also some activities that are encouraged. One of the things that Jews are encouraged to do on the Sabbath is worship. That may be worshiping God together in community or worshiping God as an individual at home. This might include singing hymns or saying prayers. You might read scripture or sit in silent prayer. Worship on the Sabbath gives us an opportunity to be more aware of the presence of God in our lives and in the world.

Another thing that’s encouraged on the Sabbath is fellowship. It’s an opportunity to get together with other people to eat together and to talk with one another. When we set aside our to-do lists and stop trying to be productive every second of the day, we realize that we have time for people. Ceasing our normal routines helps us focus on people instead of tasks. We have time to actually listen to one another instead of just waiting for our turn to talk. The Sabbath is a day to remember that we were created to live in community and it’s an opportunity to truly experience that community in a way we don’t the other six days of the week.

All in all, the things that are prohibited on the Sabbath, and the things that are encouraged on the Sabbath both seek to accomplish the same thing. The Sabbath is designed to help us open our hearts to God.

So what does all of this mean for how we as Christians should keep the Sabbath? Does it mean that we have to adhere to all the restriction and regulations of a Jewish Sabbath? I don’t think so because Jesus didn’t do that. In the book of Mark, Jesus is confronted by the Pharisees because the disciples were picking grain as they walked through a field. When asked about it, Jesus says the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. Jesus also breaks the strict observance of Sabbath by healing a man on the Sabbath. It seems that Sabbath time for Jesus wasn’t about a strict observance of a certain set of rules.

Sabbath is intended to reorient us back to God. It’s intended to honor God and to refocus us on God. In her book Mudhouse Sabbath, Lauren Winner says, “In observing the Sabbath one is both giving a gift to God and imitating him.” And Scripture tells us to keep Sabbath Holy. Holy means set apart. It means different. So while, Jesus frees us from having strict rules to follow on the Sabbath, it should be a day that we spend differently than other days. It should be a day that orients us back to God.

What are the things you need to set aside to focus on God? At a bare minimum we should set aside our work. This means we shouldn’t go into the office. We shouldn’t check our email. We should turn off our pager and our blackberry. Yes, they do actually have an off button, and one day a week we should use it. If your work is around the home then you shouldn’t cook or clean. Don’t do laundry or go grocery shopping. If your work is school then don’t do homework. Now obviously, if this is going to work then we have to do some advance planning. If you’re not going to do homework on your Sabbath day then it needs to be done before then.

Maybe on the Sabbath day you need to lay aside shopping. The Sabbath can be a time for you to remember that your worth isn’t based on how much you produce OR how much you quire. Maybe you need to lay aside your ordinary routines on that day, so it is a day that is different and set apart for God. Don’t set an alarm and sleep late on the Sabbath. Now if you’re in the choir, Beckie probably wouldn’t be happy if you slept late. So maybe Sunday isn’t your Sabbath, maybe you need to set aside another day as your Sabbath.

Sabbath is a chance to lay aside all the things we so often focus on so we can remember to breathe, so we can spend time focusing on our spiritual respiration. Just like there are some things we need to stop doing, there are something we need to start doing on the Sabbath.

I think one of the things we need to do on the Sabbath is worship. This might be individually or as a community. If your Sabbath is on Sunday, you can come to church to worship. If your Sabbath is another day of the week then maybe that means listening to music or making a joyful noise to the Lord. Maybe that means reading scripture or sitting silently in prayer. Whatever way you worship, it should be included on your Sabbath day. Because worship helps to reorient us back to God.

Another thing that’s good for us to do on the Sabbath is play, recreation. Because recreation is re-creation. The things we do on the Sabbath shouldn’t feel like work. They should be fun and playful. It should be something that opens ourselves up to God to be re-created. Maybe for you that’s playing in the garden. Maybe that’s practicing an instrument or reading a book. Maybe it’s going on a hike or playing a game of football in the backyard with your family. Whatever it is, it should be something that opens you up and allows you to be created anew by God.

Another thing that’s good for us to do on the Sabbath is fellowship. One of the ways we experience God is through one another. Setting aside our regular tasks to make room for people can be an excellent way to open ourselves up to God. Maybe that’s eating a meal together or playing a game together. Maybe it’s something as ordinary as grocery shopping but it’s something you and your spouse turn into a sort of date together. We can fellowship in all sorts of different ways.

In the end, everyone’s Sabbath is going to look differently because we all connect with God in different ways. This sermon isn’t intended to put one more item on your to-do list. It’s not meant to add one more thing to your obligations and things you have to do.

Instead it’s intended to help you realize that we all need to breathe. Our spiritual lives can be so much more vital and healthy if we pause from our regular routines to intentionally breathe in the spirit of God. Not only will it help infuse our Sabbath time with God’s presence, it will help us be more open to the presence of God throughout the rest of the week. Life gets so busy but don’t forget to breathe!

Amen.

How can I Simplify?

This sermon is based on the scripture passage Mark 1:35-39. Click here to read the Scripture passage first.

How can I Simplify?

This week we are continuing our sermon series called Restart your life. Last week Dennis talked about how we can discover the purpose of our lives. Today I’m going to talk a little about how we can simplify our lives. Next week we’ll talk about Sabbath time and the week after that we’ll talk about how to get personal finances under control.

Many of you know that I moved around a lot growing up. Which means that I have a lot of practice packing and unpacking boxes. Every time we moved to a new house, one of the exciting things, and sometimes challenging things, was figuring out where we were going to put everything. We’d almost always start in the kitchen, deciding which tools and utensils were going to go in which drawer. We’d figure out where the silverware was going to go based on which drawer was situated closest to our kitchen table. Hotpads always went in the drawer closest to the stove and the non-stick sprays, cooking oils, and sauces always went in those small half cabinets over top the stove.

The nice thing about this process is that with each house it was like we got to start fresh. We would tell ourselves that we were going to do thing in a way that made sense this time, that every item was going to have a spot where it belonged. That things were going to be neat and organized this time. The challenge is, that there’s always that stuff, that doesn’t seem to belong anywhere. And try as we might to avoid it, every kitchen I lived in growing up had what we referred to as “the junk drawer.”

How many of you are familiar with “the junk drawer?” Now I don’t know about your house, but in our house, the junk drawer always started out as a drawer of useful things. It was where we kept pens and a pad of paper for making the grocery list, a pair of scissors for opening things while cooking, stamps and other functional things of that nature. But before we knew it, other things started to find their way into the drawer. You know those little packets of powdered food you get with flowers. Those would end up in there. And so would the extra zip-ties left over from the box of garbage bags. And rubber bands that seem to multiply on their own when the drawer is closed. And pretty soon, this drawer became the catch all for anything and everything we didn’t know what else to do with. The drawer would be overflowing with things like keys that we had no idea what they went to, or broken pieces of magnets that we always said we’d fix but never got around to, or the little toys that come in the cereal boxes, or the left over packets of soy sauce.

The junk drawer started out useful but then it gets so cluttered and unwieldy with all the extra stuff that we shoved into it that it became hard to find the useful stuff when we needed it. And sometimes, particularly in really busy and stressful times, I begin to feel a little bit like my life is just one big junk drawer. It’s got some useful, and important, and functional things in it. But it’s also got a lot of other stuff crammed into that doesn’t really need to be there. And sometimes that other stuff takes up so much space that it’s hard to make room for the things that I think are important.

How many of you have ever said, “there just aren’t enough hours in the day?” or how many of you have ever found yourself thinking, if only I had more time, if only life weren’t so busy? I know I have. Most of us live lives that are packed to the brim or overflowing. There’s work and kids, school, and homework, sports practice and music lessons, there’s grocery shopping to be done and clothes to be washed, there’s friends who want to see us and family that feels neglected. Most of us are so busy that we’re just barely managing to keep our heads above water and then something like flu season comes along, or the car breaks down and we have to add yet another thing to an already over packed schedule.

I often find myself thinking, “I would love to do this or that if only there was more time.” Or I hear of some worthy cause and wish I had time to volunteer but I don’t. So instead I just end up feeling guilty that I’m too busy to help. And I can’t help but wonder, is this how life is supposed to be? Is life supposed to be lived at such a frenzied pace? Because when I look at Jesus’ life, I don’t see him living that way. In fact, we read a lot of passages, like the one today, where Jesus gets away from everyone and everything and spends time alone. He doesn’t seem to be nearly as frenzied as I feel.

Here’s Jesus, the savior of the world, and not once do I hear him say “there just aren’t enough hours in the day.” He sometimes remarks that his time with the disciples is coming to a close, or he’ll predict his death but I can’t remember a single time we have recorded where Jesus said, “If only I had more time, if only life weren’t so busy.”

So why is it that the savior of the world, someone with a much more important and demanding job description than I have, never complains about being too busy and yet I complain about it all the time? Jesus has the slight advantage of being divine, but he was also fully human. And for all the miracle stories we read about, I don’t remember any stories about Jesus slowing time down so he can get more stuff done. In this instance, I don’t think we can use Jesus’ divinity as an excuse for why we aren’t more like him. So what is it that Jesus does differently than we do?

In the scripture passage immediately before the one that was read for us today, we read that Jesus had spent the night healing many people and driving out many demons. In fact, the passage tells us that the whole town gathered at Jesus’ door. Then the next day Jesus gets up early and goes to a solitary place to pray. The word that’s translated here as solitary place it actually eremos and many scholars agree that a better translated of the word is desert or deserted place. Here it’s translated as solitary place because there aren’t any deserts near Capernaum. But translating it as solitary place, misses the author’s parallel to the story of Jesus’ temptation in the desert.

It’s an important parallel here because Jesus is about to be tempted again, by other people’s expectations of him. When the disciples finally find Jesus they say to him, “Everyone is searching for you.” This isn’t a simple observation. The Greek used here has the connotation of reprimanding or rebuking Jesus. It’s more along the lines of a parent saying to a wayward child, “Where have you been? Everyone is looking for you!” And presumably they were looking for him so he could do more healings and drive out more demons. The disciples and the town are clamoring for Jesus to do more of the good things he’s been doing.

Sometimes in life it’s so easy to give into other people’s expectations of us. We want to please people and we know how messy it can be when we don’t meet certain people’s expectations. It’s especially hard to disregard those expectations when it’s a good thing to be doing. That’s how we find ourselves on committees that we aren’t excited or passionate about. Inevitably, someone comes to us and asks if we’d be willing to serve in such and such a role. It’s hard for us to say no, even though we’re not excited about it, because we know it’s a good thing. It’s a worthwhile ministry and something someone should be doing. But God hasn’t called us to that ministry so we just end up feeling overwhelmed and exhausted from a schedule packed with good things. It can be really tempting to let other people’s expectations dictate how we spend our time and energy. We have to be willing to say, “no” to some things, even some good and worthwhile things so we can say, “yes” to other better things, things that God has called us to, things that we are passionate about and excited by.

In some ways I think Jesus was probably tempted to give into those expectations as well. The town would be perfectly happy for Jesus to stay with them and be the local healer. He probably could have lived a long and prestigious life doing that. Being a local healer is a good purpose, and one to which someone is called, but Jesus was called to much more than that. Jesus response to the disciples is to say, “Let us go somewhere else – to the nearby villages – so I can preach there also. That is why I have come.”

Jesus knows what his purpose is in this life. He uses that purpose to help him decide what things to say yes to and what things to say no to. While healing is a good thing, he knows he has been called to more than that. So even though the disciples and townspeople expect Jesus to come back and do more healings, he doesn’t. Instead he chooses to do what will fulfill his purpose for coming, even when that fails to fulfill other people’s expectations.

Like Jesus, one of the things we can use to help decide what to do and what not to do is to figure out what God has called us to. Last week Dennis talked a little about how to figure out your purpose in life. God calls each of us to something. Sometimes we are called to multiple things or to different things at different times in our lives. But God created each one of us with a purpose in mind.

If you feel like God has called you to be a parent, then look at that purpose and decide what’s important to you based on how well it will help you be a better parent. If you feel like God has called you to promote health and wellness, then maybe you’ll spend your time going on hikes or putting together disaster response health kits. We should decide how to spend our time based on what God has called us to, not just what other people’s expectations are.

Another thing we can do to simplify our lives and take back more control over our schedules, is to schedule the most important things first. For example, one thing that’s important to me is continuing to nurture and care for my marriage. So every Friday night, Scott and I have a standing date night. What we do on that date night varies a lot but I know I’m going to spend Friday nights with Scott. Other things, things that are not as important to me, get scheduled around that. Maybe time with your family is important to you, so while the kids are still young you can schedule a regular family night. That might be once a week, or every other week or once a month. Whatever works for you. Maybe sports, or music, or some hobby is really important to you. Schedule time for those things and treat it like it’s an important meeting with your boss that you can’t cancel.

You really can simplify your life and not run at such a frenzied pace. Simplifying, by its very nature, means letting go of some things. Realize that you can’t do everything, nor should you. Jesus was divine and he didn’t do everything. There were some things that he said no to. There will be some things that you can’t do. Maybe that means your house won’t be as neat or maybe you won’t get around to hanging outside Christmas lights this year. Maybe that means saying no to a ministry you’re asked to volunteer for so you can say yes to something you’re passionate about.

This is where the body of Christ comes in. We are all called to something. God created each of us with a purpose and gave each of us gifts for the building up of the community. A few people can’t do all the work of the community. Everyone in the community needs to be doing something, whether it’s big or small. If you are one of those people that says yes to everything, know that you don’t have to do it all. It’s likely that God has called some other person to do some of those things.

Simplifying isn’t easy. It takes a lot of work and intentionality. And unfortunately, it’s something we have to do repeatedly in life. All of the items in our junk drawer were functional at one point. Like the activities in our life, some of them have served their purpose and we need to let go of them. Others are still functional but need to be handed over to someone else who can use them. Still others are things we need to keep in our lives and need to make more space for. If we want to simplify things, we are going to have to do that more than once, just like we had to clean out our junk drawer more than once. When things start to feel too full, that’s when we need to re-evaluate things.

We aren’t called to do everything. Even Jesus didn’t do everything. What are you going to say no to so you can say yes to something you’re passionate about?

Amen.