7/14/2022
7/14/2022
Dear Friends in Christ,
This will be my last reflection for a few weeks. This is because after church on Sunday I am on vacation for a month. And while I am more than ready for some rest and relaxation, going on vacation is always a mixed bag of emotions for me. Like so many other people in our society, it was instilled in me at an early age that I need to be useful. That I am not valuable if I am not contributing or producing in some way. Which means that while I am looking forward to taking time off, there is also a nagging guilt at abandoning you all for a whole month. Which I know is not reasonable or accurate. You are more than capable of managing without me, and I take this vacation with the full support and encouragement of the Bishop’s Committee, but still…
And yet… Sabbath is a not only a valuable and necessary spiritual practice, but it is also mandated by God.
“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. 11 For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.” Exodus 20:8-11
Rest and relaxation are not only important for the wellbeing of our bodies, minds and souls, they restore our creativity and help us focus on what is really important in our lives. Sabbath is important not just because we need rest, but because it is in that rest from the things of the world that we remember whose we belong to and what we were made for.
“Moreover I also gave them My Sabbaths, to be a sign between them and Me, that they might know that I am the Lord who sanctifies them.” Ezekiel 20:10
One of the criticisms levied against Jesus by the religious authorities of his time, was that he “worked” on the Sabbath. But Jesus was not abandoning Sabbath, he was redefining Sabbath. Jesus points out the God’s intention was not to make sabbath a burden but to provide what humankind needs - healing, sustenance, restoration.
“The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.” Mark 2:27
In his book of the same name, Rabbi Joseph Heschel describes Sabbath as a quality we create. In the introduction to his book, his daughter Susannah Heschel writes,
“Sanctifying" the Sabbath is part of our imitation of God, hut it also becomes a way to find God's presence. It is not in space but in time, writes Heschel, that we find God's likeness.”
Quoting her father she goes on,
“Six days a week we live with a fury of acquisitiveness, Shabbat renews the soul and we rediscover who we are. ''The Sabbath is the presence of God in the world, open to the soul of man." God is not in things of space, but in moments of time.”
According to Heschel, observing the Sabbath is not only about refraining from work, but about creating menuha, a restfulness that is also a celebration. The Sabbath is a day for body as well as soul.
“With the Sabbath comes a miracle: the soul is resurrected, an additional soul arrives, and the effulgence of Sabbath holiness fills every comer ... Shabbat comes with its own holiness; we enter not simply a day, but an atmosphere… It was on the seventh day that God gave the world a soul, and "[the world's] survival depends upon the holiness of the seventh day."
For the next month, I plan to do my best to rest in eternity and sabe the world by reflecting on the things of time, and I hope to return to you not only rested and refreshed but inspired and motivated and ready to engage anew in the work God has set before us.
Yours in Christ,
Rev. Jane+