Come and Rest: Remembering the Sabbath
Dear Friends,
I've read so many articles and posts lately about the ways people are feeling completely "done" these days. Typically, these articles have related to the past 18 months, and the way the pandemic has us worn down and burned out. That's fair, of course; this hasn't been easy for anyone. But I'm fairly certain that our penchant for constant activity that leads us to exhaustion didn't begin with the pandemic. I would argue that one of the hardest spiritual struggles of our time is the battle against perpetual busyness.
And, truth be told, it's not even just a spiritual struggle for our time. It's one that has been experienced by people through the ages. Many religions have sought to address that hum of activity and the resulting experience of exhaustion and anxiety in any number of ways. Meditation, prayer, retreat, corporate worship, and many other practices guide us away from the path of busyness.
But, perhaps the primary way the Christian faith has fought that battle has been by practicing something we've inherited from our Jewish forebears—the practice of Sabbath, of rest. Unfortunately, as one scholar put it, breaking the command to keep the Sabbath tends to be the only sin we're proud of committing! We live in a culture that has made an idol of being busy and a status symbol of being burned out.
Over the next few weeks at 9:30 a.m. in the Bracewell Room, we'll be exploring the origins of Sabbath, the way Christians have interpreted the commandment to keep the Sabbath, and the way that we can practice Sabbath in our own lives—in 2021, in the middle of a pandemic. The class topics are as follows:
September 19 - The roots of the Sabbath - Where does the commandment come from, and how did the people of Israel interpret it and live it out?
September 26 - The New Testament and the Sabbath - How did Jesus understand and keep the Sabbath? How did those who followed him do so?
October 3 - Sabbath in the Christian Tradition - How have Christians of various traditions through the history of the Church interpreted the command to keep the Sabbath?
October 10 - (one-week break) This week will be a simple lectionary study.
October 17 - Remembering the Sabbath Today - What could it look like for us—both as individuals and as a Church community—to commit to a practice of Sabbath?
I'm looking forward to thinking about all of this with you, and I hope you'll be a part of these classes!
God Bless,
Fr. Quinn+