Second Sunday after Pentecost
Keeping the Sabbath
How do you keep the Sabbath? Sabbath is a gift to humankind to allow us to rest and remember we are God’s children. Some people keep Sabbath time sacred by limiting or changing behaviors during a specific time of the week. Others keep Sabbath time by attending worship or gathering with their faith community to remind one another we are called by God to love God and our neighbors. Still others take a hike or read a book or take a nap. Sabbath can look different, but the idea is to rest. Sabbath comes from the Hebrew word Shabbat, meaning “rest.”
How do you rest? Do you ever take time to intentionally rest? In our often overstimulated and overscheduled lives, it is hard to rest unless we are intentional about it.
The Rev. MaryAnn McKibben Dana spent a year experimenting with her family to discover the reward of Sabbath. She said, “We would rest, and we would not expend energy except to do the things that we enjoy. The world would go on without us. We would be dispensable. We would let God’s grace seep into us in a way that it can’t when our lives are crammed full of activity.”*
My own practice of Sabbath often involves creativity and art. Putting brush or marker to paper—not to recreate the Mona Lisa but just to play with colors and patterns—is a rest for my body and brain. This time allows me to reset, refresh, and remember that I am a precious child of God.
May you find time today to discover what Sabbath looks like for you. Rest well, and remember Sabbath is a gift!
Suzanne Miller, Moravian pastor, director
Pastors for North Carolina Children
Raleigh, North Carolina
*MaryAnn McKibben Dana, Sabbath in the Suburbs: A Family’s Experiment with Holy Time (St. Louis, MO: Chalice Press, 2012), 4.