Midsummer Sabbath This Sunday (so no in-person gathering)
Sabbath is one of the foundational practices of God’s people throughout time. Built on the premise that God rested on the seventh day, blessed it, and “called it holy” (Gen 3:3), God called the people of Israel to set aside a day for rest. No more would God’s people be bound by oppressive systems that worked them to death, like their slavery in Egypt. No more would they be pitted in competition against each other because a rhythm of sabbath days years (like the year of Jubilee) would be like a cosmic reset button, forgiving debt, returning ancestral land, and giving much-needed rest to creation. Jesus practiced Sabbath and brought into it added meaning with the Resurrection, which promises Sabbath rest through eternity.
By practicing Sabbath as a community, we join in this long legacy. Sabbath is one day where we get to live as if the world is already set right, as it will be in the end. What would you do for a day if there were no expectations, if you could just rest in your belovedness?
To be clear, Sabbath is something that can be—and is— practiced when we do have Sunday morning worship. But this week (July 14, 2024), we are taking intentional time to allow our staff, volunteers, and congregation to rest.
Here are some suggestions for you as you practice Sabbath:
Set aside a day (traditionally Friday sundown to Saturday sundown or all day Sunday), a morning, evening, or afternoon to focus on reconnecting with God.
Pray. Journal. Read a Psalm. Go for a walk. Garden. Cry about that thing you’ve been pushing off thinking about for a while now. Call an old friend. Reconnect with your partner. Give back. Avoid commerce. Turn off the screens. Eat a delicious meal. Go for a hike. Spend time in creation. Do things that restore your soul. Do things that nurture your community.
It may be helpful to light a candle to mark the beginning of this time and then relight and blow out another candle at its conclusion.
Here is a Sabbath quote and prayer to guide you during this time:
“We who have lost our sense and our senses — our touch, our smell, our vision of who we are: we who frantically force and press all things, without rest for body or spirit, hurting our earth and injuring ourselves: we call a halt. We want to rest. We need to rest and allow the earth to rest. We need to reflect and to rediscover the mystery that lives in us, that is the ground of every unique expression of life, the source of the fascination that calls all things to communion. We declare a Sabbath, a space of Quiet: for simply being and letting be; for recovering the great, forgotten truths; for learning how to live again.”
— Hildegard von Bingen, late eleventh-century nun, composer, and mystic.
“Blessed are you, Living God, who sanctifies the Sabbath.”
Rest and be well, friends. 💜
