So Good to be back!!!
Thank you for providing me the opportunity of a sabbatical!! Three months to explore new places, spend quality time with my children, pray and listen to God, rest.
Thank you even more for each and everyone of you doing you part to keep the church moving forward. The extra care you showed to each other, celebrating together with a great bingo night, welcoming the wonderful preachers to our pulpit and hearing their word. You sorted out the water issue so now we have a new water line feeding our campus and preparing the preschool space for the new preschool to start soon. (If all goes well with the State we should have Little Learners, an all-day preschool on our campus.) You are all amazing!!! Thank you. I look forward to catching up with you as we move into the fall season.
I have seen several people this week and the question I have been asked most, “What are your favorite moments?” I say three and they all seem to revolve around water. Digging my own hot tub on Hot Water beach in New Zealand and scuba diving off the Great Barrier Reef in Australia the mineral baths in Rotorua. (Pictures from my sabbatical) Sabbath Water
Winter- majestic scenery- Coromandel Peninsula on the North Island. Rain first day at resort, roads closed, magical. Beauty everywhere you looked. Day trip to Hot Water Beach 2 hours before low tide. 50 people. Tell.
Digging in the sand will never be the same, want the hot tub every time.
Cairns is North of Sydney on the west coast of Australia our jumping off place to the Great Barrier Reef.
Weightlessness, breathing in water, Wally, Lion Fish, Giant clam, Nemo clown fish.
Lifelong dream to see this wonder of the world.
Rotorua mineral baths, Priestly pool Acidic mineral baths at a relaxing 105 F – 7 people.
Warm water, cold water there is something so grounding about being in water. It takes you back to the primal, earliest beginnings in the womb, it creates a wonderful world completely different from above water- currents, buoyancy, light refraction, freedom. These water events were soul feeding. Filling me with God’s spirit.
A friend asked me, did I notice that sabbath is in the word sabbatical. I said yes. I love when light bulbs go on. Those two ideas are very closely related, coming from the same word. Sabbatical is an extended sabbath, a time set aside to be with God, and to celebrate God’s creation. Expand
Society once honored sabbath keeping. I am sure many of you remember blue laws prohibiting shopping on Sundays along with the sale of alcohol. I bet blue laws helped encourage the honoring of this sacred rest. I long for a time when sabbath is valued and supported by our culture, but I believe that day has passed. We as Christians are motivated by our faith to create and maintain our own sabbath. And that can be tricky. So many things compete for our attention on Sundays now. Yet the rewards can be great!
Our gospel lesson deals with sabbath and curing a man with dropsy. Who here knows what dropsy is? I had to look it up. Dropsy is an old term for the swelling of soft tissues due to the accumulation of excess water. In years gone by, a person might have been said to have dropsy. Today we call it edema. It can have several causes, I experienced edema in my feet after my long plane flights. So now I wear compression socks when I fly. But more than likely the man had edema, or dropsy, due to congestive heart failure. Dropsy is water in the body where it should not be. As we have already seen, our body in water can be absolutely magical, my sabbath water. Jesus is comparing the power of our sabbath, surrendering to God, placing God’s law and teaching first, with man-made rules to control behavior. Healing, saving, rescuing is always a good thing even when we have to bend a rule to do it. Jesus came to us to offer us this amazing healing, his living presence in the fullness of our life. But Jesus was changing the rules- he worked, healed, on the sabbath. Of course, sabbath keeping is one of the 10 commandments.
We read the fourth commandment dealing with keeping sabbath. We usually see that in relation to the creation story and God resting on the seventh day. It is the perfect example of keeping sabbath. No matter how busy we think we are, (I can hear the litany in your head) I am sure that it does not rival what God accomplished with Creation. Creation is the theological bases and the practical application for this deep breathing, spiritual practice. But there is an interesting conclusion, recounting the exodus story and God granting freedom as grounds for keeping sabbath. There is a freedom in sabbath keeping. God liberates the soul when we honor God in this way. Setting aside time to be with God, to rest, to let the world continue without your participation.
On this Labor Day weekend, it is right to think about how we balance work within our life, even if we are retired. How do we spend our time and what quality time do we spend with God? Balancing our work with our spiritual life. How do we make more time for God? Coming to worship is an excellent start to keeping sabbath!! Now I ask you to think about one other way you would like to keep sabbath, rest in and with God today. Maybe it is sitting with God, walking near the water, speaking with a friend, prayer or even a nap. I hope you will chose one way you would like to extend your sabbath this day.
I had a heightened sense of sabbath in retreat with Benedictine sisters up in Oregon. For three days I turned off my phone, my iPad, even the radio and immersed myself in silence. I ate meals in isolation, relegated to a table on my own. I read spiritual books and poetry, journaled and prayed and sat in stillness with God. God became closer, my ego became smaller, listening became richer. Morning and evening prayers were the high points of the day, worshipping God with these devoted women. Every morning the Monk from Benedictine retreat house would come and provide them the sacrament of Holy communion. I was humbled when one of the sisters let me know after the first service I needed to slow down to their pace. Years of leading worship does not just stop overnight. Her words became a metaphor for my time in silence. Slow down and be with God.
My hope is for us to slow down in our time of communion with God so that we can hear what God is telling us. Bring a sabbath way into our breaking bread. Much like my breathing at the Priestly pool elevated me to weightlessness, breathing with God in communion can create a buoyancy in life that is without compare. Let your soul be filled with God’s blessing and your heart swell beyond capacity with sabbath water. May spiritual dropsy fill you to capacity. May edema of the Spirit, the fullness of God, expand every fiber of your being. Welcoming God’s healing presence as fully and as completely as we breath air. Spiritual buoyancy lifting our lives unto God with every breath, bite and sip of this sacred meal. Come Lord Jesus Come!
