From the Pastor’s Study
It’s hard to believe that it’s been over a month since I returned from sabbatical. I cannot begin to thank all of you enough for the opportunity to recharge and to recenter myself. During our time drinking in the wonders of creation, celebrating the gift of my family, and reconnecting with lots of friends and family from whom we’ve been disconnected too long, I kept thinking about the admonition in the book of Exodus (31:15) that speaks of death being the penalty for not keeping the sabbath. The command is to let the practice of sabbath reinforce a perpetual covenant between God and God's people. Clearly, we don’t read this text as a literal command to stone people for working in the yard on Sunday, or for not tending to their faith practices. Instead, I see ever more boldly the ways that our not setting time aside for our relationship with God can wear us down until the spark of divine life within us threatens to flicker out. In secular settings we hear discussions about work/life balance, the idea is much the same. We need to tend to that which gives us life and sustains us, or something within us dies and we burn out.
I’ve told many people that I felt guilty for having the opportunity to go and kindle that light for an extended sabbath. It has been clear to me that everyone could benefit from such a block of time for recentering their lives and souls. Since returning, I’ve also heard from a number of people how grateful they are that I went, that they could see how worn out I had become. That’s never a welcome word. But I’ve heard those comments as kind reminders that the task of sabbath is supposed to be a regular rhythm.
I’m grateful to have returned at the beginning of summer when everything around us beckons for us to slow down and let the season help us to refocus. Longer days and a world full of things that grow and bloom, children whose laughter we can hear through open windows, people coming and going with stories of vacations, all speak to a way of being in the world that can shift our perspective and reconnect us to who we are and whose we are. Those seasonal shifts are wonderful, but there is also a need for the regular rhythm of tending to our souls. I’ve often told couples preparing to be married that there is no magic to being present in church every Sunday except that it offers that weekly rhythm that happens with scheduled regularity that places that pause for God into our lives. When that time for our relationship with God isn’t on the schedule, it too easily gets short changed.
It's good to be back, it’s good to see more people returning to worship and to be increasingly made aware of those who are regularly with us online. It’s a gift to feel the love and support that this congregation offers to me, and my family – I always hope it is reflected to all who are a part of this church family.
As we continue a journey of emerging from the last couple of years, we’re going to need to keep taking care of ourselves and one another. I know that our church life will very likely look different than it did before March of 2020, and that’s okay. We need to move forward and not back as we discern how we can be God's light in the world in this time and place.
There is a Psalm which keeps running through my head, Psalm 133. It is a song of ascents. I can imagine it offered while going up to a place where we might have new perspective and we might hear these words: 1 How good and pleasant it is when God’s people live together in unity! 2 It is like precious oil poured on the head, running down on the beard, running down on Aaron’s beard, down on the collar of his robe. 3 It is as if the dew of Hermon were falling on Mount Zion. For there the Lord bestows his blessing, even life forevermore. Hold that image of the unity that we so desperately need in a weary and divided world. Feel that oil of anointing and consecrating running over our heads in such abundance that it drips from our face and runs down our clothes blessing us and claiming us as God's beloved. Consider how the water and snowfall that falls on mount Hermon flows to the Jordan and out to water the earth and give life. Imagine that life-giving image as flowing from the sacred mountain of God with that abundant proclamation of life forevermore.
My prayer is that we might nurture that new perspective, work toward that unity and find all of our lives ever more richly blessed.