Making Sabbath a VERB.

August 7, 08 by admin.

I spent some time recently in Michigan in a small town called Ludington which is right on the west coast of Michigan. I have spent many moments of my summertime there over the years, and I’ve always enjoyed that place. There are lots of things to do there like salmon fishing on Lake Michigan, mini-golfing, regular sized golfing (at which all of you know I am a pro…), going to the beach, shopping, eating great food (actually I AM a pro at that) and so on… But this past year I found something to do there that I hadn’t done in quite a while. NOTHING. It was amazing, and wonderful to find a bit of time to do absolutely nothing. I wasn’t reading or sleeping. I wasn’t listening to anything on my ipod. I was just sitting there, breathing. And in that moment of nothing, I was greeted by a long lost friend that I hadn’t seen in quite some time. His name is silence.

Do you remember your long lost friend silence? How long has it been since you two got together? While the school year for many people is filled with the mayhem and chaos of busy schedules, often times, we also book our summers up with camps, trips, yard work and work work and well, I bet you could fill in the blank too! So, what ends up happening, is a busy time that… never… stops. We are a year-round busy season kind of people aren’t we? Always planning and doing, especially with our kids.

But there is good news for us all. Our God created a time for us to meet with that long lost friend of ours called silence and participate in the activity called nothing. You all know, of course, the Sabbath! God not only created it for us, but God took a Sabbath, as on the seventh day, even God rested! Then on top of that, God calls us through the commandments to keep the Sabbath holy. This is such an important command/responsibility for the people of God, that God calls us to keep the Sabbath as one of the first three! So knowing that we understand its importance for all of us, including the God of all creation, shouldn’t we be spending a bit more time doing it?

Through scripture we understand quite a bit about Sabbath – often understood as a day, sundown on Saturday until sundown on Sunday. And during Lent we catch a specific glimpse of that as we are encouraged to take a Sabbath from our Lenten discipline during that time. But with 24/7 Wal-Mart’s and McDonalds that never close, how do we understand Sabbath today? In a world where the expectation for our children and our families, is “You snooze, you lose”, how do we live out our calling to take a Sabbath?

When I was growing up we had some friends down the street that were not allowed to leave the house on the Sabbath, and yet I have known a relative recently to say she practices her Sabbath by shopping. There was even another person I met who talked about Sabbath as a daily activity, taking time each day to do nothing and to enjoy silence. So what really is a Sabbath your life? And for that matter, when did Sabbath become a noun only? Is it just a day or a specific time in the week? How might we live Sabbath as a verb, perhaps even throughout our entire day?

So, what it Sabbath for you or for your family? Can you share your tips with us? How do you practice Sabbath? We will have this posted on the pastor’s blog section of the faithloves.org, so please come and tell us how you do it! As we gather together through the ‘magic’ of the Internet, may we all be encouraged to help each other learn more about how to Sabbath. Let’s all take the time to meet up with silence and do nothing soon. It’s time to make Sabbath a verb again.

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