“Then Jesus said to them, ‘The Sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the Sabbath; so the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.’” (Mark 2:27-28 NRSV)
How often people today cry out in exasperation or despair, “I just don’t have enough time!” There is so much to do: earn a living, fulfill a vocation, nurture relationships, care for dependents, exercise, clean the house. Moreover, we hope to maintain sanity while doing all this, and keep growing as faithful and loving people at the same time. We are finite, and the demands too great, the time too short….
Puritan Sabbath keepers agreed that “good Sabbaths make good Christians.” They meant that regular, disciplined attention to the spiritual life was the foundation of faithfulness. Another dimension of the saying opens up if we imagine a worshipping community helping one another step off the treadmill of work-and-spend and into the circle of glad gratitude for the gifts of God. Taken this way, good Sabbaths make good Christians by regularly reminding us of God’s creative, liberating, and redeeming presence, not only in words but also through a practice we do together in response to that presence.
– From “Keeping Sabbath” by Dorothy C. Bass in “Practicing Our Faith”
#5523
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