back to "sabbath" again

This thing about the practice of sabbath as a center piece of the journey of the Christian community continues to come back center for me. Not as an ought or a should, but seeing how the erosion of the spiritual center of much of Christian church life is due to many local churches and denominations accepting the terms of the culture and particularly the business model of the culture as the way to be productive and to accomplish. Ironically, I just read a note on Facebook by another local church pastor that now the business community has caught up with the church community in facing empty coffers.

I have read both Eugene Peterson and Abraham Heschel about sabbath and have posted in the past months on their comments. I started reading yesterday morning (Sunday) before the worship service in my study the book "Sabbath Time: Understanding and Practice for Contemporary Christiasns" by Tilden Edwards. I am copying below some comments in describing the book. This and the book by Brian McLaren "Finding Our Way Again: The Return of the Ancient Practices" about recovering our ancient worship and spiritual practices as a daily piece of our life, I think are the stream that much of the church needs to pay attention to. We still need to focus on social justice and organizational life as well as our method of education and stewardship and so on, but I think we have lost our center. Thus we have lost our identity not just as individuals, but as a church. We as the church no longer have anything to communicate or offer different from any other secular organization in our society because we try to live part of our life using the terms of the culture, and then put a spiritual veneer over it.

Well, here is the one summary of Edwards books from a book review at Spirituality Practice.

Edwards begins with a description of the sabbath as an alternative to the drivenness of contemporary 24/7 culture. In both the Jewish and Christian traditions, this holy day anchors the rhythm of time. The author discusses the sabbath as a day of rest, a commemoration of liberation, a sign of covenant, and a sign of hope. Best of all, it offers a surcease from the pressures of achievement in the work arena and the mind-numbing escapism of so much contemporary entertainment. Edwards goes on to examine some the factors that have eroded this oasis in time, specifically individualism and a devaluation of the contemplative.

Sabbath time offers a release from our normal routines and work while also delivering us into a free space where reverence, play, laughter, a celebration of the arts, relaxation, and quiet contemplation take center stage. We especially like the following passage where Edwards salutes the value of intention and the Sunday morning service: "Corporate worship, in order to be its intended self, needs to be surrounded by a protective time zone, a time of preparation and reflection, of quiet openness with nothing to do except appreciate the presence of God in the smallest random thing in and around us. If this is done, then corporate worship is more likely to become a radiant crystal whose facets catch up all of life in God's light, placed in the midst of a velvet Sabbath bed that sets it off. Without such surrounding sabbath time, worship more likely will resemble an opaque rock that reveals nothing of life's giftedness and integrity in God, only our own rushed anxiety."

In four practical chapters, Edwards outlines how Christians can deepen their experience of the sabbath, stretching from dinner on Saturday evening through sundown on Sunday evening. He covers rituals, silences, readings, and blessings. This classic resource ably demonstrates how, as Edwards puts it, "an understanding and living of sabbath time can help support a sane and holy rhythm of life for us."

(United Church of Christ, sabbath)

quiet

Sabbath, quiet, prayer, meditation, and reflection are integral parts of the Christian spiritual journey. Yet, they seem like luxuries to many of us. We think that once we get our "work" done then maybe we can do those kinds of things.

Jesus carved out daily time for these practices. It was the only way he could truly know his Father. In his last time of sabbath prayer and meditation we are allowed to listen in...the Garden of Gethsemane. It is deep struggle and yet deep obedience also. And it leads to deep connection in the most god awful moments on the cross.

In Genesis 1 God created the world in "7 days." In the first six days of creation God says each day's creation/work is "good." But on the 7th, the sabbath, he calls it "holy" rather than good.

We live in a world that is obsessed with the good. We think the ultimate purpose of our life is to be good or to become good. Church has been twisted to supposedly help us to be good people, good citizens, good Christians, good parents, good children and so on.

Our ultimate purpose in life is to be holy rather than good. And like Jesus in his daily regimen of discipleship spirituality as we hear it in Gethsemane, we can only become holy when we allow our lives to decline or as the Apostle Paul says, as we die to ourselves so that we might be alive in Christ.

With the world's demands on us, this is not easy. We will be called lazy or off task or not getting the job done. That is why reading the Bible is so important! That is the purpose of the Bible. To help we creatures to allow God to restore us not just to a good status, but to our life of holiness. Pray, mediate, reflect, observe the sabbath.

and finally from Heschel

Here are my last postings from the book "The Sabbath" by Rabbi Abraham Heschel.

"Monuments of stone are destined to disappear; days of spirit never pass away."

"Inner liberty depends upon being exempt from domination of things as well as from domination of people. There are many who have acquired a high degree of political and social liberty, but only very few are not enslaved to things. This is our constant problem - how to live with people and remain free, how to live with things and remain independent."

"All days of the week must be spiritually consistent with the Day of Days. All of our life should be a pilgrimage to the seventh day..."

David Loar
Pastor of Fairlawn West United Church of Christ
Akron, Ohio

time is holy

I am finally finishing the book "The Sabbath" by the late Rabbi Abraham Heschel. I now know why this book is so important. Its here at the end. Heschel makes clear what has been clearly spoken in the Bible...time is far more holy than space. But we have made space far more holy and made time a tool for ourselves.

I just posted this on my twitter: finishing Heschel's "The Sabbath". Time is far more holy than space. Yet so much of Advent in our culture is about rushing

We have reduced holy "time" down to an hour on Sunday. However, we have transformed space (buildings) into the "church." We most often use the term "church" to refer to the building we use and to what we do on Sunday morning "I went to church." (rather than, "We were in the worship of God.")

We have turned material into our idol. And like our ancestors of old, we worship them with our time and money. Because space is clearly where we spend more time and money than in the act of worship or sabbath and in the care of our brothers and sisters...as a church. We ask people to "commit" to the church, but that boils down to time and money to an organization based in the building.

God finally gave in to king David and agreed to have the temple build. But God still said that the sabbath was holy, not the temple. Over and over again. Six days of creation were "good", but the seventh was/is "holy."

We will continually and always lose our way when space remains our focus. We are unwilling to give our time to God. Even here in the Christian season of Advent, which is all about time!

sabbath, regular days and holy

Great quotes from the late Rabbe Abraham Heschel in his book "The Sabbath."

In the Bible "The good is the base, the holy is the summit. Things created in six days (God) considered good, the seventh day (God) made holy."

"We usually think that the earth is our mother, that time is money and profit our mate. The seventh day is a reminder that God is our father, that time is life and the spirit our mate."

the time of life

After this latest hiatus I am into the comments again.

Kate is now at Heidelberg College in Tiffin, OH and greatly enjoying being in college. Molly is a sophomore at Firestone High School and starting for the varsity girls soccer team.

I am spending time these days reading "The Sabbath" by Abraham Heschel, "Working the Angles" by Eugene Peterson, and "Simply Christian: Why Christianity Makes Sense" by N. T. Wright.

Here is some good reading from Heschel's book:

The meaning of the Sabbath is to celebrate time rather than space. Six days a week we live under the tyranny of things of space; on the Sabbath we try to become attuned to holiness in time. It is a day on which we are called to share in what is eternal in time, to turn from the results of creation to the mystery of creation; from the world of creation to the creation of the world.

The Sabbaths are our great cathedrals; and our Holy of Holies is a shrine that neither the Romans or the Nazis were able to burn; a shrine that even apostasy cannot easily obliterate: the Day of Atonement.

The Bible is more concerned with time than with space. It sees the world in the dimension of time. It pays more attention to generations, to events, than to countries, to things; it is more concerned with history than with geography. To understand the teaching of the Bible, one must accept the premise that time has a meaning for life which is at least equal to that of space; that time has a significance and sovereignty of its own.

He who wants to enter the holiness of the day must first lay down the profanity of clattering commerce, of being yoked to toil. He must go away from the screech of dissonant days, from the nervousness and fury of acquisitiveness and the betrayal in embezzling his own life. He must say farewell to manual work and learn to understand that the world already has been created and will survive without the help of man. Six days a week we wrestle with the world, wringing profit from the earth; on the Sabbath we especially care for the seed of eternity planted in the soul. The world has our hands, but our soul belongs to Someone else. Six days a week we seek to dominate the world; on the seventh day we try to dominate the self.

recovery and transformation personally and as a church

I just posted the following comment on the UCC Local Church Transformation listserve or email discussion group. I thought afterwards it was something I should post here. It is in response to two other pastors expressing their lostness in how to lead their congregations to listen and discern God's will for them and their own frustration and desire to cut and run because of all the resistance and sabotage they experience as pastors at the churches they are serving:

The first thing that helped me was 17 years ago beginning working a 12 step recovery program and learning in practical ways what it meant to have a spiritual relationship with God. After years of "talking about God and Jesus" and focusing on the "social justice agenda", 12 step led me to see the necessity of and what it meant to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. I had avoided the latter for years because the fundamentalists only talked about that seemingly all the time in my opinion to avoid the question of social justice. But I began to realize I was cutting off my nose to spite my face. And that it was my way of keeping large pieces of my life from God's control or believing that I was. I kept calling it "responsibility" as if by having a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and trusting God with my whole life I was somehow becoming a numbed out idiot who would never again act responsibly in the world if I "turned my whole life over to God." What I found was that I began to act more responsibly! And that my life was changing in ways I never imagined. And that listening, and prayer and Bible reflection and meditation became daily practices in my life. I couldn't live without them now. It is the only way I can preach God's Word because I know God and God's beloved Jesus Christ...rather than knowing about them.

Thus, when 10 years ago we began to look at "transformation" here at Fairlawn West...or when I began to and when I began to hear from Bruce Cole and Bill Easum and Tom Bandy and others the hard work that would lie ahead...I trusted that word because I trusted God. I shifted from being a local church service manager to being a spiritual leader. I just kept modeling personally and as the pastoral leader that role. Its what my ordination vows and my installation covenant called for anyway! Not everyone liked that. They wanted me to be more their personal social worker, to be the church manager, to be their personal "prayer", to take all the responsibility for the spiritual life of the church. I would not except that but continued to model my own personal and church pastor spiritual life. I had to trust it myself or I could never help them to see the power of trusting in their lives. So...transformation has to begin with us...personally!!!!!....first!!!!! Focus on your spiritual life. Take the time. Give your life over to the commandments! For me the 4th...honor the sabbath and keep it holy...is preeminent. Not talking about Sunday per se, but an every 7 day sabbath which is the beginning of my doing what God does. My life through sabbath observance begins to be in line with God's "weekly" practice from Genesis 1. And then...all things will follow. I need fewer if any "retreats" to monasteries or church camps, because sabbath is part of my life. If you ask our congregation now...they will tell you that the practice of prayer, Bible reflection and listening to God are much, much more clear for us. Whereas even up to 10 years ago for me it was still something "out there" I was struggling to do let alone understand it now was becoming something naturally part of our whole life...it was a recovery or a transformation...by the grace of God. Our corporate life is focused first spiritually...and the justice work multiplied at least 4x when our spiritual life became a core value and a bedrock belief of our congregational life. But it took Bruce many years ago in an email on the Easum Bandy leadership listserv when we were just starting and I was ready to throw in the towel, saying the word "persevere" that I decided to keep at.

My family took a deep wound during that time. I hit a severe depression for 6 mos in 2002. I was looking for a way to get out of here, but I couldn't find anywhere else that was as "far down the road" as we were!!!!! I would have to start over with this process at any church I read and knew about on "UCC Employment Opportunities." PLUS, my family said they weren't moving from Akron. It was home to them. The latter is what forced me to stay even when I was responding in the early part of this decade to Fairlawn West the way you and xxxx are to your congregations. I began to trust God...and the rest is history...or God's salvation history (oh, that good ole heilsgechichte)!

Love,
David

Merton and Nouwen

Thomas Merton and Henri Nouwen are known by many of us as monks who have written much about the spiritually inward and the acting outward life as an apostle of Jesus Christ. They found this balance out of their monastic callings. I keep trying imagine the local church as a monastery that sends out monks into the world. They are not hyper people running about trying to fix the world, but listening, discerning, and praying folks who have a greater impact on the world than any of their individual actions could imply. Another person who has been of the modern era and helped me with both of these actions is Elizabeth O'Connor who was part of Church of the Savior in Washington DC.

How do we do this? How do we slow down each day in a time of sabbath and how do we honor each 7th day as a sabbath to the Lord?

time away

I've been "away" obviously for a few weeks. Been doing some vacation. Some reading. Some reflecting.

We are starting to consider a primary mission of our church to be an urban sabbath/retreat center. We are in the midst of a very hectic portion of the city of Akron. We are on the major east/west thoroughfare beyond the expressway. The lives of many of the "partners in ministry" of Fairlawn West Church are hectic. I am reading the book "Urban Iona". We had been talking about this for a few years, but reading this book is helping me to feel clear about this mission. I think of so many people who are urban poor who have no places for, and probably no sense of "going on retreat", let alone the vacations so many of us desparately yearn for. (yet, when we come back from them we crash back into the hetic world we so desparately wanted a respite from...see below*)

It is vital that we not see ourselves simply as a place "to get away from." Because we are also a place "to go out from." We as a community of faith and our bldg in particular are not a destination, but a staging area for the next movements of the spirit in going out to the world around us.

The line that is important for all of our church leaders to answer (at least), "What is it about your experience of Jesus Christ that the world around you needs to know?" is part of this. So is the mission statement I have shared for the past three weeks "Reaching up and Reaching Out." Reaching up to God and Reaching out to Others.

We at Fairlawn West are at another time/point of having to look inward to see if we are losing our call outward. It feels that way to me. We have found our comfort zone/our nest, and we are now starting to focus more on arranging the nest rather than in getting out of the nest to soar among those others who are looking for a home/nest. The role of Jesus' disciples to get out of the nest to help others find their home...in God's kingdom.

*When I served the small village, northwoods of Wisconsin, resort area community of St. Germain as a pastor in the early '90's, every May the church folks would get anxious. Now, we were dependent on the summer tourists for the center piece of our economic life, but we also dreaded them when they would come up north with all their craziness in driving and demands that we provide "service" for them...and right now!!! I would preach an annual sermon the last three of my four years there about how those folks were coming up to our place to try to catch some of the way of life and peace and serenity that we knew year round in the northwoods. They couldn't help themselves. They brought with them the craziness even as they came up to get away from it or to get rid of it. We didn't need to mistrust the serenity of our way of life that God had provided in the natural world around us, not just for us, but for all to share in. We needed to "let go and let God" and not catch the "anxious virus" that those folks from "down below" (we also called them "flatlanders") brought with them.

I am at my in-laws' home on the Cumberland Plateau (2000 ft up with mountains around) in east Tennessee on a lake with beautiful trees, and a wonderful gazebo in which to relax and read and chat and watch sunsets and just be. I have done this for 18 years. And my in-laws share their great gift of hospitality with us. The last few days I have been reminded of those years in the northwoods as I have read about the urban Iona, thought about Fairlawn West as a sabbath retreat in the city, and about the crazy hectiness that I am part of "down below." Yes, I see in myself the crazy anxiousness that those tourists would bring up north with them each year to Wisconsin. Can we at Fairlawn West be a setting and a staging point in the city as St. Germain was as a village and my in-laws place is? I think we will need to change our culture and our sense of mission, use of bldg and self-governance to do this. Are we willing to face that? Is God calling us to this now?