Sabbath

Tim Argall - Executive Principal

“There are six days when you may work, but the seventh day is a day of sabbath rest, a day of sacred assembly. You are not to do any work; wherever you live, it is a sabbath to the LORD.’

Leviticus 23:3  

In a discussion four days ago, it was suggested to me (and the others in the conversation) that the recent need for isolation that has driven us back to our homes, with almost no extra commitments  in the evenings and on the weekend beyond work and school, was God’s way of giving us an extended experience of a true Sabbath.

Forty years ago, a measure of your commitment to the Lord wasn’t whether you played sport on Sunday, it was whether you were prepared to forgo attending a sporting event on a Sunday. Is this approach what the Sabbath is about?

What about if you work on Sunday – does it mean you take another day off?  Or are two half-days OK? 

The events of the last few months have given us all great cause to think.  New normal equals different life experience.  Our Sabbath experience of church changed dramatically – and lingers still.  How do you worship from your own home, using a virtual platform?  Will this be for a short time, or maybe longer than we thought – will we ever get back to what we had before?

Experts suggest that the answer to this question is NO!  When major upheavals occur in world history, the way in which populations operate in the wake of the upheaval is characterised by difference.  This difference is seen in positive and caring behaviours.  It is seen in a heightened sense of the power of healthy societal practices.  Sanitation, provision and improvement of health care systems, removal of systemic injustice – these are some outcomes of similar periods of upheaval in history.  We want these changes.

What is the current circumstance – the global pandemic and its fallout – asking us to consider?  As a group of believers, as a manifestation of the body of Christ in this region in Australia?  What attitudes and practices is God asking us to change?

Mandu R wrote this recently in a tribute to artists:

Even a child takes its mother for granted.  It does not run back to its mother until it is hurt. Nobody first thinks of water when they arrive at an exquisite dinner party, until they are choking. I don’t mind being the non-essential, knowing you will come looking when things are broken and nothing else works.  Art is non-essential, until it is not.

As we start to look out again, beyond immediate survival, to the things that really matter to God, what are we going to resolve is essential?  What are the practices we undertook which now seem less important? Will I talk more, have deep discussions, understand things I don’t; walk in another’s shoes, understand their life and where God fits into the picture?  What role does God have for me? Will it be different, will it be risky, will it call me to be bold, as an advocate? 

We have a God-given gift at the moment, to pause and think.  To discern, afresh, the call on our lives.  Individually, in our family units, as a community. 

Joel McKerrow, my guest on June’s edition of The Joseph Network episode, says his favourite saying is “a fish in a bowl doesn’t know that it is wet”.

If I am that fish in the bowl, I feel like the last few months are a time when I have been thrown out of the bowl.  As God has gently scooped me up and is placing me back in the water, now that I “know that I am wet” what will be different about the way I see the world I am in; and what will this cause me to do? 

I walk with you in fellowship, as we all seek the wisdom needed to face into the challenges that this disruption has caused.  Please feel free to walk with me – I’d love that.

Shalom.