Issue 36 Sabbath RestBlog | Sabbath rest: where lives fold into God
Sabbath rest: where lives fold into God
Author: Andy PeckPost Date: 26.09.23
Kicking through a pile of leaves in the park or back garden is just about the best definition of Sabbath that I know. Why? Because it has absolutely no economic or obvious value. Going for a walk, standing in front of an enthralling painting, listening to music: we can all come up with a suitable equivalent that works for us.
The point is to feel the visceral pleasure of kicking through the leaves. To stand in wonder. To set down the burden of running the world. While sweeping up the leaves would be work, enjoying the moment is a form of sabbath rest.
In the title of his short book, Walter Brueggemann sees Sabbath as Resistance and it carries the provocative subtitle, Saying No to the Culture of Now. What he is challenging through sabbath rest are two widespread cultural myths that plague modern ministry: it’s all about me and it’s all about now.
Much of the way we frame reality is based on these two fallacies. And they bleed through into the way we shape our work and do our ministry.
Sometimes I challenge leaders, both inside and outside the church, to consider these matters very carefully. ‘I want to catch you with your feet up on the desk and staring out of the window’ is the humorous way I put it to upwardly mobile and ambitious executives. They look at me quizzically. But then they get the point. We need to fold more reflective time into our lives and to take – and make – opportunities for sabbath rest. Or as one writer on spirituality put it, we’re invited to become reflective executives.
A Kingdom Perspective
We can only do this if we take the long view. If we can join the active resistance movement against the tyranny of now. And this will only happen if we understand, at the most profound level of our being, that we are part of a kingdom not of our own making.
Sometimes the greatest act of faith that we can muster is not to save the universe in our particular parish or community, but to go to bed. Hard as it is to believe, the kingdom of God will be there in the morning. It is not at risk if we don’t finish all our emails tonight.
