On the 7th Day God Rested

Back in an earlier era, the 1970’s and 1980’s, when the Leadership Skills Institute in this Diocese, as in many others, was a thriving ministry it offered life changing –faith enriching experiences for many of those (including myself) who participated. It was a six day experience. The essential process (intentionally slow) was one of allowing the soul to catch up with the experiences. The formula for this was 50% experience, followed by 50% reflection on that experience = new learnings. Yes, this takes time. I believe this principle continues to be a truth that, in our nano second world of living now, we have allowed to drop away.

Sunday’s lesson included “And on the 7th Day God rested.” The God I know didn’t sit on his tush on that 7th day taking it easy, but rather was engaged in reflecting and gathering in new learnings about this universe that had been called into existence and envisioned as “God’s kingdom come and God’s will be done on earth as in heaven.

No doubt it is because I have, by necessity, been called to a month of Rest during June this year, that Rest and what it means and how it means to honor Rest, without feelings of guilt, is so present to me. (I had a difficult struggle with my feelings of guilt, of letting go and forgiving myself for being in Rest Time.) It has been and will become, for me, a time for my soul to catch up with my body and too busy life. 50% experience + 50% reflection = new learnings. I am re-learning and remembering that Sabbath is not a luxury, it is an essential quality for living a healthy life.

Our ancient ones have given us the gift of the Creation Story, telling us of our God resting on the 7th day. This brings me to a hard look at our normative Sunday morning services of worship. As we are well aware, many among us are finding that 7th day of rest in other experiences –mountain hikes, bike rides, kayaking, reading the paper, sleeping in and in doing a laundry list of chores needing attention. You can easily add to the list of ways folks find re-creations and rest or attend to their lists of chores needing to be done.

So, I ask of us. Do we go out, invite and welcome people to a place to rest, renew and re-create? Do we show them by our actions that we are people of hospitality and caring for one another? Do we welcome with gratitude those who long for a resting place - those who are weary and stressed? Do we not all too often make our first question of the new comer through our door, “What do you do?” Do we acknowledge the suffering through-out our world today? Do we express our joy and gratitude for creation? Do we give thanks for all people whose hearts and hands are those of Christ today?

What might this holy time of faithful people gathered be for those among us who are yearning, as we have always yearned, for authentic, caring community? To know and be known and to be missed when we are not present.

What I’m writing next are merely a few of my visions of how Sunday morning church-time might be: To warmly welcome each person; to want to know each other by name; want to know one another’s stories and deepen our commonalities and understand our differences. To be truly present to celebrate with one another our joys, sorrows and needs; to experience communion at its best – gathered around God’s Holy Table - to eat the bread and drink the wine that nourishes us for the journey ahead; to hear music to which the children (of all ages) want to dance freely to the songs we sing; for an invitation (without embarrassment) to ask questions and be inquisitive to learn more about the Great Story of Our People who journeyed before us and with whom our stories merge today. God’s story with us continues to be a work in progress and always will be.

The language, the technology, and the images that make meaning of our lives in this 21st are radically different from our ancients who told and later wrote the stories of their lives with God and also when they had forgotten Him. The world we live in has continuously changed, yet our feelings and yearnings as humans remain the same: to know and experience unconditional love and to be loved, to acknowledge and share our sufferings with others who we trust to care, to eat together by participating in a holy meal - the Bread of Life and the Cup of Salvation - in the hope and intention that among people in all times and places holy meals will become a way of living in God’s kingdom come. Finally that we can become a people who revere a time for silence and rest and learning together how to better become one Body of Christ right in the place we live. Hear, reflect and learn what the Spirit is saying to us , God’s people of the Now living and learn in this accelerated time. Hear, reflect and learn what the Spirit is saying to us as she guides us forward on our pilgrimage into the future, which begins with our very next breath. Thanks be to God! God grant you a rest-filled Sabbath time.


MaryAnn