Summer 2004

Issue 177

Dear Friends,

It is summer, and for most of us an annual Sabbath time.  Schedules change, the days lengthen, and many will take ‘vacation time’ from work and routines.  Sabbath time is for our spiritual refreshment.  We take Sabbath daily as we sleep, rest and play.  We take Sabbath weekly, and hopefully include Church in our Sabbath recreation.  And it is good to have some annual Sabbath time – summer can serve well here.

Sabbath is to renew our perspectives, check our attitude, and remember God’s grace and our many blessings.  Sabbath is not separate from work, but complements the rest of our days, that we may enjoy this life and look forward with hope.

There are two books by Donna Schaper (a U.C.C. pastor, wife, mother of 3, author and church executive), Sabbath Sense, and Sabbath Keeping, which explore Sabbath not as a specific day or time away from work, tasks, chores, etc. but an attitude towards daily living.  (This is particularly helpful for those with busy Sundays and summers.)  She writes:

Sabbath is a way of living, not a thing to have or a list to complete.  By observing it we become people who both work and rest, and who know why, when, and how we do either.  We also recognize the occasions on which we do both at the same time.  We know how to pray, how to be still, how to do nothing.  Sabbath people know that “our” time is really God’s time, and we are invited to live in it.  We are living our eternity now – this Tuesday and Wednesday, this Saturday and Sunday.

When we keep Sabbath, we pay attention to God’s invitation.  We separate time into parts precisely to hold time together. ... Sacred time is not when we get our work done but all time, which we keep and honor by Sabbath living.  We dishonor time by not taking our time.  Not to keep Sabbath is like receiving a beautiful gift and forgetting to say thank you.  It is like staring at a banquet and complaining that there is nothing good to eat.  (Sabbath Keeping, p. 8)

I commend these words to you wherever you find yourselves this summer, and I pray that your rest and recreation will be like leaven to inspire and renew all our days and months and years.  May we grow in recognizing the holiness of all times and places, for God is with us always and everywhere.

Meanwhile, dear friends, if you are in town on Sundays, I look for you to share in summer worship.  Our Sunday services continue through the summer as the heart of our mission and our life together in community.

Our Sunday School continues as well, with a wonderful program on the people Jesus met.  We shall combine some classes, and have dramatic visits, in costume, from people like John the Baptist, Martha of Bethany, a Centurion, some shepherds, and a boy with a lunch sack of bread and dried fish.  Our Middle School and Senior High youth programs are continuing with meetings most Sunday mornings and some other special activities.

May God’s peace, which passes all our understanding, be with us all.

Yours in Christ,

Martin

Then looking up to heaven, Jesus sighed and said to him, “Ephphatha,” that is, “Be opened.”  And immediately the man’s ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly.  They were astounded beyond measure, saying, “He has done everything well; he even makes the deaf to hear and the mute to speak.”  (Mark 7: 31 - 37)