FRIDAY MORNING SABBATH
I got up this morning filled with disappointment. It is my day off -- the pastor's sabbath -- and I had a list of household chores and piles of boxes to be unpacked and clutter to be organized. And, I had a sermon to write.
Crap. That's right. The pastor said crap, and just as a side note, I know how to say it in New Testament Greek. See, that's one of the benefits of a seminary education.
Crap, because for the last month, it's all been about doing. Packing for the move, changing over the utilities, there and here, putting things in order for the new pastor coming in, and preparing my people for the transition from one pastor to another. Then it was unpacking around parsonage renovations here (which I appreciate, I really do!), getting my office organized, and trying to figure out what's going on.
This morning, I just couldn't "do" any more. So I opened the deck door to enjoy the sound of rain and bird songs and curled up in my favorite oversized chair with a cup of coffee. I read, I dozed, I thought, and I prayed, off and on. After a couple of hours, I realized how relaxed I was, with a cup of luke-warm coffee and a cat in my lap who was all kitten eyes and purr, being. Just being, Not doing, but being in the presence of God, wrapped in God's presence and adoring the one who loves me so much, unconditionally, no matter what. (I'm talking about God, not the cat.)
Like many of us, I'm addicted to doing. It's a culture expectation: do, achieve, excell, accumulate and get the rewards card of life punched. She or he who dies with the most ____ (fill in the blank for yourself) wins! And what have I won with all my doing -- nothing really all that good in the long run. In two hundred years, what good will all the stuff, all the achievements, all my earthly wealth do for me.
But worship -- being in the presence of God for the love of God who first loved us and continually and lavishly loves on us -- that's living. Worship -- true, energizing, refreshing, renewing, transforming worship -- is not about what we do or get (as if trying to get our spiritual rewards card punched) is about God and what God is doing among us. Worship is engagement in our relationship with God. Sometimes, in all the doing, I get disconnected, and I need to stop and be, be with God.
Ordinary living, daily tasks and everyday work take on the sacred when we leave our time of being still connected to God. It requires a change in our perspective, of ceasing to compartmentalize our lives where worship takes place only in a certain place at a certain time. It is carrying our awareness of God's presence with us into our doing, offering it to God and experiencing it as an time of worship and service.
Now, I'm ready to face that to-do list, refreshed and revitalized because I took the time to be, to worship, and become aware of the ever abiding presence of God that will be with me through this day of chores and errands and to the end of my days and after.
Crap. That's right. The pastor said crap, and just as a side note, I know how to say it in New Testament Greek. See, that's one of the benefits of a seminary education.
Crap, because for the last month, it's all been about doing. Packing for the move, changing over the utilities, there and here, putting things in order for the new pastor coming in, and preparing my people for the transition from one pastor to another. Then it was unpacking around parsonage renovations here (which I appreciate, I really do!), getting my office organized, and trying to figure out what's going on.
This morning, I just couldn't "do" any more. So I opened the deck door to enjoy the sound of rain and bird songs and curled up in my favorite oversized chair with a cup of coffee. I read, I dozed, I thought, and I prayed, off and on. After a couple of hours, I realized how relaxed I was, with a cup of luke-warm coffee and a cat in my lap who was all kitten eyes and purr, being. Just being, Not doing, but being in the presence of God, wrapped in God's presence and adoring the one who loves me so much, unconditionally, no matter what. (I'm talking about God, not the cat.)
Like many of us, I'm addicted to doing. It's a culture expectation: do, achieve, excell, accumulate and get the rewards card of life punched. She or he who dies with the most ____ (fill in the blank for yourself) wins! And what have I won with all my doing -- nothing really all that good in the long run. In two hundred years, what good will all the stuff, all the achievements, all my earthly wealth do for me.
But worship -- being in the presence of God for the love of God who first loved us and continually and lavishly loves on us -- that's living. Worship -- true, energizing, refreshing, renewing, transforming worship -- is not about what we do or get (as if trying to get our spiritual rewards card punched) is about God and what God is doing among us. Worship is engagement in our relationship with God. Sometimes, in all the doing, I get disconnected, and I need to stop and be, be with God.
Ordinary living, daily tasks and everyday work take on the sacred when we leave our time of being still connected to God. It requires a change in our perspective, of ceasing to compartmentalize our lives where worship takes place only in a certain place at a certain time. It is carrying our awareness of God's presence with us into our doing, offering it to God and experiencing it as an time of worship and service.
Now, I'm ready to face that to-do list, refreshed and revitalized because I took the time to be, to worship, and become aware of the ever abiding presence of God that will be with me through this day of chores and errands and to the end of my days and after.
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