Sermon for March 29, 2020 - On Line Service

Sermon for March 29, 2020  - On Line Service

Well here we are together in a new way today, but being together is so good, I see your faces in my mind and in my heart and every one of you this morning is sitting in their own front seat (pew) and some of you enjoying your coffee too.

Through Lent we have been focusing on Customized Spiritual Disciplines and the general content is drawn from B-B Taylor’s book An Alter in the World – A Geography of Faith & from The Reformed Worship Resource date Dec 2018. Lent #1 We began with the spiritual discipline of getting lost, stepping off our tread mill routines and taking a different way home, Lent #2 we talked about the Spiritual Discipline of Being Grounded – this emphasized being connected to our surroundings, standing on a firm footing. When our worries and fears overwhelm us and distractions come, focus on God’s presence in the here and now. On a day when Jesus was being pulled in many direction with many serious matters, He focused on each one, grounded in God’s presence, not letting Himself to be overwhelmed but present at each need. Jesus was present at the need before Him, so often our thoughts wonder to the past, or the future, but neglect the reality of right now, being in and of the present. One illustration shared was walking a Labyrinth that has no real route or destination and the experience becomes the journey itself.  Right now that illustration may feel more the reality with no end in sight, but what is this isolation experience teaching you in this present time; about yourself, about those around you? Do you find you are not rushing the same as you were? Do you find yourself valuing your relationships more now? Isn’t it also humbling, that with all the advancements and striving that has been done, this virus has control of the world right now, and we have to stay out of it’s way. 

Two Sunday’s ago we discussed the discipline of physical labour and how our culture tends to look down on labourers. But in Taylor’s book, where she spoke about the time the electricity went off and the labour involved to feed the animals and heat and cook. She reminds us that we are earthlings. That we are a combination of dust and divine breath and there is a great delight in the work we do when we do it prayerfully as a service to others and to God.  

All these sermons and today’s and those that follow will be on the Newburgh Church Blog in word format if you wish to read them in their entirety by noon today.

Well this week we look at the Spiritual Discipline of Saying “No”. It is an interesting topic at this time in our lives as we are being told NO about so much.

The spiritual discipline of saying no, says Taylor, often means NO saying to more. For some it is the very structure of the Lenten Season – saying no in order to open space for God. In fact every NO is a YES to something else and every YES is a NO to something else. For ex. a NO to more activity can be a YES to prayer.

Saying no is harder than saying yes. Saying no is indeed the most difficult of the spiritual disciplines, says Taylor. This brings us to the 4^th Commandment. Once revered in Reformed Circles, this Commandment is now so easily dismissed, Keep the Sabbath day Holy. The English word Sabbath comes from the Hebrew word shavat, meaning to cease and desist. ”  Some years ago keeping the Sabbath day holy day was supported by national laws that saw many business and organizations closed, but cultural pressures today say run and not be weary, there is no time to rest. So now 24/7 is the norm, which now leaves people running 7 days a week leaving people exhausted and deprived.

Respecting the Sabbath means saying no to business and purposely creating regular times of rest, leisure, reflection that honour God’s abundance and grace. These Sabbath times offer spiritual and physical and emotional strengthening and help equip us for the rest of the week and for the unexpected that comes along.

 The Lord of the Sabbath said, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give your rest.” Matthew 11:28-30 or as The Message reads “Come to me... and learn the unforced rhythms of grace” instead of  the  just go, go go, till you drop rhythm, of life today”

Taylor writes that YES is one of those words capable of changing a life through the utterance of a single syllable. “Yes, I want the job. Yes, I will marry you, Yes, it is my desire to be baptized, Yes, I will join, Yes, I will attend. These are pleasure statements, as you are saying yes knowing that someone wants you – wants to be with you, wants you to do something well. Saying yes is how we enter into a relationship, how you more forward and who you share life with.

Having joined face book this week, you are bombarded with “new friends” who not even by their own will, but electronic will encouraging you to say yes! There are many opportunities to say yes electronically as we work on our computers inviting us to say yes and click on bizarre stories, or say yes to placing an order.

At this time in all our lives saying no to social invitation in person is the absolute right thing to do.  But, 3weeks ago if we were to say “No, I want to stay home tonight, or No, I have enough work right now, or No, I have all the possessions I need, it would not be near as easy to say.”  But now we are seeing things quite differently.

Taylor writes that in China, the polite answer to “How Are You “ is  to respond by saying “I am very busy, thank you.”

Isn’t that true for many of us, that we jsut assume that if: we are busy, we must be fine.  If we have more to do than we can do, and the list never gets completed, but only added to, then you must be fine, that successful people are busy people. That effective people are busy people. Religious people are busy people. For millions of people, busyness is the way of life, that is life; that is the standard. As we are running we look at people that are just walking and think, must be nice. Why is that? What are we running too? How will the running end?

Theologian Karl Barth wrote “A being is free only when it can determine and limit its activity.” How many free beings do you know? You may know people who can juggle doing 3-4 things at once, but cannot do nothing. How about people who are able to decide what to do without being able to do less of it? So for example, as I interpret Taylor saying, you make a list of your activities for the day, other things come along that take your time, your attention, you do them, but you still have to complete what you set our initially to do. So you do more rather then ever do less, even though it might be strenuous, not letting go or cutting back on anything. Does doing more help you feel holy? Would limiting your activity help you feel holy?

Taylor writes that limiting her activity does not make her feel holy, doing more, for her feels holy, which is why she stays intrigued by the 4^th Commandment.

Taylor describes the first Sabbath after her retirement of 20 years as a clergy. She couldn’t return to her church, she didn’t want to go to another one, she couldn’t go grocery shopping in he small town, somebody might see her, so after about a hour or struggling with her professional identity, her human worth and her status before God she sat on her porch, said her prayers with the birds, read, napped, & be the time the sun went down on that Sabbath day, she realized that she and truly had observed her first Sabbath in over 20 years. In the years following that day, Taylor has said NO, one day a week, to internet, commerce, work, car, the voice in her head telling her MORE! She writes one day a week, MORE GOD is the only thing on my list.

In the book of Exodus, we find that the Jews observed the Sabbath which was (& continues to be) Friday evening to Saturday evening before Moses brought the Commandment tablets down from Mount Sinai. The first holy thing is all creation, Abraham Heschel says, was not a people or a place, but a day. God made everything in creation and called it good, but when God rested on the 7^th day, God called it HOLY. That makes the 7^th day a “palace in time” Heschel says, which human beings are invited every single week of our lives.

Why are we so reluctant to go?

Well for some and I can testify to some of this myself, and the way we people were raised. The Commandment should read,  Remember the Sabbath Day & keep it boring.  For some there was more you couldn’t do like ride your bike, or playball, or wear jeans or see a movie, but only go to church once in the morning and again at night & sit around visiting with old people in the afternoon.

 Sabbath was engrained as the day that you could not, because the Bible said so!

Over the last 3-4 decades merchants no longer stay closed so the church remain open.  Now people of faith are free to keep the Sabbath if they want to, but not because there is nothing else to do. Using  Karl Barth’s language people welcomed the freedom to determine their activities and they et out making full use of their freedom to work, shop, play, eat out,  haul freight as they desired. When businesses are open people have to work, and if parents are working the kids may as well play their sports, which only makes it harder still to find time to share a meal together, even once a week.

By the 1990s the average worker was putting in an extra 164 hours of paid labour a year, or equal to an extra month’s work. Two income families also were really taking off around this time, thus showing a steep decline in the unpaid activities on which many societies depend; caring for seniors, & young children, volunteer & community work, church work.  Hallmark came out with a new line of cards for absent parents “sorry I can’t be here to tuck you in” one said “Sorry, I can’t say good morning”.

Today, there is no talking about the loss of the Sabbath, without talking about the rise of consumerism. You cannot talk about Sabbath rest today, without talking about Sabbath resistance.

During the Friday night Jewish Shabbat service  two candles are lit,  when 3 stars can be counted in the night sky.

The first candle represents creation when God created the 7^th day, he did not call it good, or very good, instead God blessed the 7^th day and called it holy, making the Sabbath the first sacred thing in all creation. Resting every 7^th day, God’s people remember their divine creation. The candle announces: made in God’s image, you too shall rest.

The 2^nd Candle, stands for the second formulation of the Sabbath Commandment where we shift from creation to the exodus from Egypt, which ends with “remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt and the Lord your God freed you from there with a mighty hand, an outstretched arm; therefore the Lord your God has commanded you to observe the Sabbath Day. The 2^nd candle announces: made in God’s image, you too are free. 

The Sabbath in Leviticus 25 speaks also of the tired fields, tired vines& vineyard, tired land, tired workers who rest like the Sabbath in the 7^th year.

In the eyes of the world today, there is no payoff for sitting on the porch. If you want to succeed in this life, whatever field you are in, you must spray, plough, fertilize, plant, never turn your back, & each year’s harvest bigger than the last, that is what it is all about right?

 In the eyes of the true God, Father of Jesus Christ our Lord, the porch is imperative on a regular basis, letting things go, is called practicing the Sabbath. Matthew 6:26 reads “ ⁶ Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? ²⁷ Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?

Sabbath is the true God’s gift to those who wish to rest and to be free – and to guard those same gifts for every living thing around us.

Test the premise that you are worth more than what you can produce – that even if you spent one day being good for nothing, you are still precious in God’s sight. Your worth has already been established, even when you are not working. The commandment is to persuade you to the same truth.

 When you live in God, your day begins when you open your eyes and let God hold you and when you consent to rest to show that you get the point since that is not something we would do if you or I were in charge. Look forward to meeting you on the porch enjoying the Sabbath with you.

Main source of content from Barbara Brown-Taylor An Alter in the World, A Geography of Faith

Reformed Worship Dec 18 Issue, Article entitled Everyday Jesus Spirituality – Customized Spiritual Disciplines submitted from Peter Schuurman who is director of Global Scholars Canada.

Bible refs NRSV & NIV