Indianapolis First Friends Quaker Meeting
Pastor Bob Henry
June 6, 2021
Good morning Friends…It is so good to be back in-person and in the Meetinghouse! We almost need to take a moment and let it all sink in. As our opening prayer stated – this has been a season of crisis, but with the help of the Divine we have made it safely to this point. It is good to be back together!
To begin this morning, I want to take a moment to thank Beth for bringing the excellent message last Sunday to afford me the opportunity to take my family to our first Indy 500 race. The tickets were a special present for our son, Sam, for the high school graduation he missed last year. If you had a chance to watch the event, you would know that it was a beautiful day and an amazing race. Beth, thank you for being the blessing you spoke of last week in your sermon.
Also, May has quickly turned to June and we are celebrating with our LGBTQ+ family as it is Pride Month. We are so happy you are part of our family at First Friends.
And now that school is out, and the weather is getting warmer, we are getting back outside to take a big deep breath and give up a sigh of relief that the pandemic is finally looking as if it is coming to a close.
For many, including First Friends, this also means we are entering another time of great transition.
Again I want to take a moment to thank each member and clerk of our Reopening Task Force for their hard work during this past year and for their conservative, patient, and wise approach to keeping us all safe and getting to this point of being back together once again. Thank you!
As we continue to make transitions, I ask you for your continued grace and ongoing patience with one another, especially as we make our transition back to what I will call our “new normal.”
If you read my last “As Way Opens” article, to help with this transition we are going to be looking at two important spiritual subjects as we enter the summer months– Sabbath and Celebration.
This First Day, I want to focus on Sabbath as an important aspect of reorienting ourselves.
If you study the word Sabbath, you will find it comes from the Hebrew word “to cease” or “to stop working.”
In the Jewish or Hebrew traditions, it was a full day each week dedicated to rest and prayer.
And observing the Sabbath was the fourth, and some theologians consider the most detailed, of the Ten Commandments.
Ironically, in modern American Christianity, Sabbath is probably the most neglected commandment. Even many Quakers, today, view it as simply legalistic and obsolete.
But Sabbath is more than a suggestion. In the Old Testament it was a practice commanded repeatedly by God and affirmed centuries later by Jesus in the New Testament.
This raises an important query for us this morning:
What could Sabbath mean for us today as we transition back?
To begin exploring the answers to that query, let us consider Sabbath as an opportunity for reorienting - a reorienting with self, the Divine, and others.
To do this we need to return to Deuteronomy 5:12-14 (our text for this morning) where it is rather clear what God thinks about observing the Sabbath – reading from the Message version you should get the full unfiltered effect of these words.
No working on the Sabbath; keep it holy just as God, your God, commanded you. Work six days, doing everything you have to do, but the seventh day is a Sabbath, a Rest Day—no work: not you, your son, your daughter, your servant, your maid, your ox, your donkey (or any of your animals), and not even the foreigner visiting your town. That way your servants and maids will get the same rest as you. Don’t ever forget that you were slaves in Egypt and God, your God, got you out of there in a powerful show of strength. That’s why God, your God, commands you to observe the day of Sabbath rest.
Let me make this even more relevant for today. Here is the Bob Henry translation.
Do not work on your day off. It should be a day set apart as God modeled from the beginning of time. On the other days, put in your work, do the things that need to be done, but make sure to make rest a priority. That means NO work, turn off the social media, turn off the T.V. put away your smart phone, put your car in the garage and put your feet up!
Tell your children, parents, friends, even those who serve you at your favorite restaurant or store to make rest a priority. Find time for a nap, today! If someone unexpectedly comes to visit, just enjoy their presence – maybe have a glass of wine with them.
This way, everyone will have the rest they need to keep the world going. Don’t forget all that you have done throughout the week and that you deserve this time, your family deserves you taking this time, your neighbors deserve you taking this time, and your co-workers deserve you taking this time.
Rest makes you a better person. God wants you at your best and knows this will be one of the ways to bring out your best as well as the best in others.
You deserve a break, so take a rest!
Now, I want to take this to another level. Julia Wallace from Baylor University showed how this reorientation to Sabbath should happen in three distinct directions.
She says that a millennia later, the need for Sabbath still has the power to reorient us upwardly, inwardly and outwardly. She says this,
“Upwardly, Sabbath redefines how we are to understand God. The call to Sabbath is a call to stop, which involves deep trust. Stopping requires us to let go of our control and our belief that the world will fall apart without us, which is definitely a humbling posture. This posture challenges us to recognize that God is…active and in control. Stopping also helps us to recognize the relationality of God – that God, our Creator, designed the rhythms of the universe to include a time of regular and intentional communion between Creator and creation.
Inwardly, Sabbath radically redefines how we are to understand ourselves. In a world that tells us that our worth is defined by our works, Sabbath serves as a countercultural command. Sabbath strips away the notion that a person’s worth is defined by their activity and instead affirms that our worth is not in doing; it is in being.”
Now, this is a huge and very important point – if Julia Wallace is correct, then Sabbath helps us to reorient ourselves to the Divine (what she labels upwardly) and to our self (what she labels inwardly) which both have been heightened for us during the pandemic.
Yet she goes one step further - and I think it may be the most important reorienting for us in our current condition – this is the reorientation needed with one another (which she labels outwardly). She says,
The outward dimension is often an overlooked part of Sabbath. Recognizing that a person’s worth is in their being and not in their doing should not only transform how we view ourselves but also how we view others. It should reorient our “outward” connection with others.
It’s tempting to value our neighbors based on their ability to contribute to us, or to society or to the economy (and I would add, even to our Meeting).
Sabbath reminds us that all people have worth beyond their economic or social value.
It seems pretty clear that you and I are called to promote and protect Sabbath for all those around us so that everyone can have the chance to experience God’s gift of rest.
This is exactly why we at First Friends felt it so important to consider our upcoming summer months a Sabbath Rest for our Meeting.
It has become clear during the pandemic that we need to protect and promote Sabbath for the vulnerable who have less control over their time due to social and economic situations.
Also, the sabbath needs to be promoted and protected for those who gave so much over the last year to keep us safe. People like health care workers, educators, front line workers, and so many more who have had no time to truly “cease” from or “stop working.”
In the scriptures it was clear that God called the Israelites to uphold a command that required them to consider the situations of ALL people, not just their own. This is hard for some because their work and the entitlement it brings causes them to not see how much their neighbors are in need of true rest.
As well, during times of difficult transitions, returning to a said, “normalcy,” and all with a lack of rest, what sadly can result is a rather selfish disposition.
Thus, we must be careful to be considerate of the needs of our neighbors – especially as it relates to rest. We may even want to seek ways to help those around us find rest, to take a break, to enjoy life again.
Maybe you notice those young parents needing a night out and are willing to babysit, or you sense a meal and bottle of wine is needed for that single health care worker who has worked three shifts in a row, or you notice the retired widow who lives two doors down who needs someone to enjoy a conversation over lunch. These are just a few ways to help those around you experience moments of Sabbath rest.
So, as we enter this season of Sabbath Rest at First Friends, let’s consider Julia Wallace’s three orientations – Upward, Inward, and Outward – and take a moment to look around us and sense the needs of our families, our neighbors, our fellow friends, and even our coworkers and let’s be proactive in helping them create a needed time for true rest.
Now, as we center down for a time of waiting worship, I want to remind you that we will not be passing the microphone for those who are led by the Spirit to speak out of the silence. Instead, we ask that if you are led to speak, please come forward and use this stationary microphone.
Now, to prepare us for waiting worship, I have prepared the following queries for us to ponder (they are also printed in your bulletin):
· Amid the chaos of transitioning back from the pandemic, am I rediscovering ways to reorient my relationship with the Divine?
· Are any of my doubts fed by the notion that my worth comes solely from my productivity rather than my identity as a child of God?
· In relation to others, do I recognize and validate the worth and need for rest in others? How might I help someone this week find some needed rest.