Sermon Title: Finding Sabbath in a Busy World
Sermon Text:
Luke 13:10-17
Sermon Date:
10-13He was teaching in one of the meeting places
on the Sabbath. There was a woman present, so twisted and bent over with
arthritis that she couldn't even look up. She had been afflicted with this for
eighteen years. When Jesus saw her, he called her over. "Woman, you're
free!" He laid hands on her and suddenly she was standing straight and
tall, giving glory to God.
14The meeting-place president,
furious because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, said to the congregation,
"Six days have been defined as work days. Come on one of the six if you
want to be healed, but not on the seventh, the Sabbath."
15-16But Jesus shot back,
"You frauds! Each Sabbath every one of you regularly unties your cow or
donkey from its stall, leads it out for water, and thinks nothing of it. So why
isn't it all right for me to untie this daughter of Abraham and lead her from
the stall where Satan has had her tied these eighteen years?"
17When he put it that way, his
critics were left looking quite silly and redfaced. The congregation was
delighted and cheered him on.
Message
Life has changed a lot since I was a
kid. My dad and I were talking about
this the other day and he started telling me stories he had forgotten – you
know what I mean. You open one little
door and other memories come flooding back.
My
parents got married at a pastor’s home, then went to a truck stop where my
parents, my uncle the best man, and my aunt, the matron of honor, ate their
wedding dinner for a total cost of $4.
Dad
worked two jobs and made $35 a week. Mom
worked as a grocery store cashier and made $15 a week. They took over his dad’s place while Grandpa
Jones went to live at the family homestead.
Instead of rent they paid the electric bill of $4 a month. That was over 57 years ago.
Gas
cost $1 for five gallons. Later when I
began driving it was under 25 cents a gallon and I could drive around all
evening on fifty cents.
We
got our first television is 1952 or 53 and they watched wrestling in the
evenings. By the time I was in high
school we had only three television stations (four if we could get Channel 4),
rabbit ear antennas and I was the remote control.
Sunday
was a day of going to church, eating a big dinner, usually with other family
members, a drive in the country in the afternoon in the summer or doing your
homework during the school year. Then as
we got older it was back to church for choir and youth group, then we watched
“The Wonderful World of Disney” and the relatively commercial free
“Bonzana.”
It
was a less complicated time but we didn’t talk about what Sabbath meant and how
we could really experience it. In my
mind it just meant that stores were closed and you went to church.
The notion of Sabbath is not a new
one by any means. It makes its first
appearance in the Bible in the second chapter of Genesis when God takes a break
from creating the heavens and the earth.
There it is…the first vacation day and God took it.
As time went on it became the
cornerstone of the Israelite religious practice, mentioned quite regularly in
the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, known as the Pentatuech or “the books
of Moses.” Observance of the Sabbath is
even legislated in Exodus, Leviticus and Deuteronomy.
So when Jesus came along and brought
us the story we just read you can understand why the law of the Sabbath was so
important to the Jews of the time. They
were used to strictly adhering to the LAW and not the spirit. These religious leaders were more concerned
with obeying the law than the health of this woman. And they were after Jesus as well, so
anything he said or did was called into question. But
quite frankly, that was then and this is now.
What is the Sabbath for us ….. today in 2007?
Obviously I’ve been thinking a lot
about Sabbath lately because the word sabbatical comes from Sabbath. You know I’m excited about the whole thing
but as I began to put the proposal together I had to allow for “downtime.” Lilly Endowment wants the pastor to allow a
couple of weeks to “rest” at the beginning of the sabbatical and then another
couple of weeks to rest at the end…to get ready for re-entry back to church
life.
I have to admit that the idea of
staying home and doing nothing for two weeks wasn’t all that appealing to me in
the beginning. I resisted the idea, in
fact. What would I do for two weeks in
my two bedroom apartment? I only have a
few plants on the patio and caring for them won’t take any time. I can only watch so much HGTV or ESPN,
particularly since football and basketball seasons will be over. Sure I can read but not ALL DAY FOR FOURTEEN
DAYS. But I have to admit that now that doesn’t
seem like such a bad idea. I’m looking
forward to spending time in “Sabbath.”
Then I’m taking off to visit my
parents and then
One of the things I want God to
teach me during this time away is how to practice the idea of Sabbath each and
every day, in my busy world. I want to
learn how to create a rhythm for my life and how to share that with you.
You see, while I don’t think I fully
understand what the Sabbath is supposed to mean for us today, I think that God
wants more from us than going to church or reading our Bibles. I think God wants actual time set aside, not
time squeezed in. I think God doesn’t
want us checking our computers or calendars while we are having Sabbath. God doesn’t want us multi-tasking or watching
television or folding laundry or grocery shopping. I believe that God wants us to be present
with him.
If you were an Orthodox Jew, your
Sabbath would go from sundown Friday to sundown on Saturday. You wouldn’t drive on the Sabbath or turn on
a light bulb because it would require effort.
The idea of a Jewish Sabbath is that
one should rest and even play. I read
that playing games, taking a walk, making love to your spouse is encouraged; it
is work that is discouraged.
Okay, you have that information….so
what does Sabbath mean to you?
The
biggest excuse I hear for people not attending church is not that church isn’t
important to them, but that it is their only day off. They work five days a week and more and more
of them are on weekends. If they aren’t
working on Saturday the day gets used for errands, laundry, kids’ sporting
events, and house-cleaning. If it is a
work day, Sunday becomes the day for laundry, errands, etc. So if Sunday is actually available, they end
up using it as a day of rest in its own way.
Probably some work is done but maybe it is used for family time,
watching that television and taking naps if you are lucky.
We
are a busy people with a lot on our plates and it would be difficult to ask
people to set aside a whole day each and every week. But since God seems to want some time from us
so that we can be healthy and whole, let me share a few ideas about carving
moments out of our lives for Sabbath.
Ideas for
integrating Sabbath into your world:
1.
During
the quiet time in worship, don’t think.
Really. Don’t think. Don’t pray.
Just be. You may intensely
dislike the quiet time, but God loves it.
God loves having those few moments with you. Uninterrupted where God isn’t trying to get a
word in edgewise. Work on losing your
fear or anxiety about the silence. That
would be a great gift to God if you were able to look forward to that quiet
time with him rather than dreading its appearance.
2.
Realizing
that your Sabbath may have to be someday other than Sunday, set aside time each
week at home to enjoy time with a friend, your family or even yourself. Remembering the playing aspect of Sabbath
frees us to enjoy this day we are giving back to God, which in turn God gives
back to us.
3.
In
seminary a professor encouraged us to be always reading a novel so that we
would be aware of what others outside the church are doing. I would encourage you to always be reading a
book that pushes you in a spiritual direction.
On the news we recently heard that one in four people did not read one
book last year. For those of us that have
five or six going at once, that is amazing, but apparently true. If you need help finding one that is
interesting and challenging, I’ve got a list.
Maybe I’ll make up a list and post them in the hallway and on the
website -- Pastor Peg’s favorite books that you might enjoy too. Read for even a few minutes a day and God
will be pleased.
4.
How
about…even once in a while, planning a Sabbath when you do nothing but rest at
home. Maybe at least part of the day is
without the television on. If it is on
Sunday, come to church, have lunch, and rest for the rest of the day. Really rest.
These
are just a few ideas of mine. I’m sure
you have your own needs and
desires of how you
would spend time alone with God. But if
you are questioning the importance of Sabbath in your life, let me leave you
with this thought. We talk about the
importance of the Ten Commandments, so important that some believe that they
should be posted in courthouses. The
fourth commandment says this:
(Deuternomy
12 Observe the sabbath day and keep
it holy, as the Lord your God commanded you.
13 For six days you shall labour
and do all your work.
14 But the seventh day is a sabbath
to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work—you, or your son or your
daughter, or your male or female slave, or your ox or your donkey, or any of
your livestock, or the resident alien in your towns, so that your male and
female slave may rest as well as you.
15 Remember that you were a slave
in the
These
words may not exactly fit our lives today but the sentiment is still
there. God wants to spend time with
you. And when you think about how much
God has done for us, it really doesn’t seem like a lot to ask, does it?