About Time

This question was posed by Wayne Muller at the Living Into Sabbath/Guthrie Scholar week I was immersed in this past week.  What if Jesus wasn’t kidding when he said not to worry?

It does seem to me that most of us (myself included) spend alot of time worrying about tomorrow, fretting about what will happen. To our job, our families, our community, our church.

Because we worry about tomorrow, we begin to fixate on the things that are wrong, or things that might go wrong.  We focus on identifying the things that need to be fixed or corrected in order to protect us from unwanted experiences.  Our fear of what might be drives us to all manner of frantic activity and lost sleep trying to ensure that tomorrow will be as it ought to be.

AS IF WE WERE GOD.

We begin to believe that the future depends on us and our ability to keep things moving in the right direction.  And so we are frantic, stressed, anxious,  over-worked and under rested.  If we don’t keep things on course, all will be lost.

REALLY?

Not only does this mindset bring about erosion in our health, suffering in our relationships and division in our communities isn’t it really… well… 

IDOATROUS?

Have we forgotten what we proclaim?  We proclaim that the universe and all that is in it lies in God’s hands.  We say that God is sovereign but act as if we are without hope or help save for our own efforts.  Of course, none of actually  believe that God has left the Universe, and we know that God does desire our  participation in the work of the Kingdom.  Yet, our behavior belies our confidence in God and our willingness to attend to the Spirit for leading.  And so I would propose that we often fall prey to the idolatry of self.  We are self-reliant, self-sufficient, self-important and self-centered.

This week reminded me that a solution for this situation is Sabbath.  A time to step back, even for a day, from running the universe so that we can see that the world turns just fine without our help.  A time to relax, refresh and delight in the life and love that surrounds us.  Time to reconnect with God, creation and  community.  Time to remember what we’ve forgottten.  Time to have ‘enough’ and to be content.  Content!

We spend our lives identifying problems and madly working to create the future that “ought to be.” But as Wayne Muller kept reminding us, “Sabbath is seeing what is and giving thanks.”

It seems to me that all of us need to reclaim the gift of the Sabbath in our lives and families.  Even more, we need to reclaim the gift of the Sabbath for our communities of faith, whether they are congregations, presbyteries, synods, dioceses, classes, or denominations.  We need to stop andset aside our fretting and fixing and protecting so that we can see what is and give thanks.

I wonder what that would look like.

I wonder if we have the courage to try.

THE BRIGHT FIELD

I have seen the sun break through
to illuminate a small field
for a while, and gone my way
and forgotten it. But that was the pearl
of great price, the one field that had
treasure in it. I realize now
that I must give all that I have
to possess it. Life is not hurrying

on to a receding future, nor hankering after
an imagined past. It is the turning
aside like Moses to the miracle
of the lit bush, to a brightness
that seemed as transitory as your youth
once, but is the eternity that awaits you.

R. S. Thomas (1913 – 2000)