The Rector's September Visions

The commandment most often broken in our day and culture, it seems to me, is the one that calls us to keep the sabbath. Imagine the gall of God to ask us to take a whole day where we don’t prove ourselves worthy by our actions, but simply live in Grace! In the first creation story in Genesis, God works each day and declares every day and all he makes “very good.” But on the seventh day, God rests. And that day he calls not just good, but “holy.”
The next three months will be “very good” and also “holy” for us all. I will be away on sabbatical and Kingston will continue being Kingston on sabbatical – a word that comes from sabbath. How our Sabbatical will end up being holy is really up to us and what we do – and don’t do. How will we depend on God’s Grace and also hear God’s call to bring that Grace to a broken world?
I suggest two basic things we can do as a beginning of this three-month sabbath together. Let’s be sure to take plenty of time to listen for God in our prayer. Perhaps take up a new method of praying or pray through the psalms or?
Second, let’s take some time to each write our own spiritual biographies. When was the first time you went to church, knew God present, doubted, explored ideas of theology, read the scripture? How have you grown in spirit through the years? Did you have a favorite book of the Bible earlier in your life? What might that book be now? What is the shape of your growth into Christ? Has it been a mountain to climb or plenty of ups and downs and periods of being lost and not quite sure which is up and which is down? When did you fall in love with God? Or how do you understand your relationship with our heavenly Father? Write the story of your life – as far as you’ve come – as it describes your friendship with God.
If you will do these two things – and perhaps share them with a fellow parishioner or many church friends – our sabbatical will be off to a grand start!
I have to confess that so much of this sabbath looks unclear to me. We shall see where it takes us. And I also confess that I am already thinking about being back with you all for the beginning of the church year in Advent. But I hope and pray that what I am imagining now about our time in December can’t begin to measure up with where we will be once we have lived into this three-month sabbatical!!! May God bless us all in our sabbatical!
God’s Peace,
Gary+