2nd Sunday after Pentecost

​It’s been a busy and exhausting week!
I know a few of you started off your week with a middle of the night phone call
about a water alert here at the church!

Working together, our wonderful team was able to make sure that everything was
fine, and make any fixes that needed to be made.

In my house,
We had all of those “Last week of school” Activities and commitments.
It seemed that between my husband and I, one of us had an evening meeting
every night:
While our kids were bouncing off the walls in excitement for summer.
And I just returned last night, from Eau Claire, after attending an ordination of our
Church’s newest deacon.

Not to mention that the ordination service started nearly an hour late, because
the Bishop arrived late after hitting a deer on his way: totaling his car!
He was blessedly unhurt, for which we can all be very grateful.

After a long and event-filled week, it’s a delight to take some time to reflect on:
And enjoy the Sabbath.

TWO of our lessons today focus on the Sabbath.
The first, from Deuteronomy is a reminder of God’s commandment to “Observe
the Sabbath day and keep it holy.”

The second, is a story from the Gospel of Mark, where the Pharisees are disturbed
to find Jesus’ disciples “plucking heads of grain” on the sabbath:
Leading up to Jesus curing a man with a “withered hand”
And setting the Pharisees straight about what the Sabbath is actually about.

But what IS the Sabbath actually about?

Modern American Culture will have us believe that the concept of “sabbath” or of
“weekends” in general:
is to do your home chores, mow your lawn, buy your groceries, and lay on your
couch while scrolling online or watching tv:
All so that you can get up on Monday morning and get back to the grind.

The Rev. Canon Whitney Rice, a priest in Missouri suggests that the power of the
sabbath is that it is sort of “beautiful and holy purposelessness”.

Think about that very first Sabbath day.
God rested after creating the world and all that is in it.
God did not rest on the seventh day for the purpose of getting right back to work
on the eighth day.

God rests on the sabbath day and commands us to the same because the sabbath
has its own value:
Completely apart from work.

It’s always been funny to me: that people primarily describe the Sabbath day as a
day of rest from work.
It doesn’t play out that way for me.
I go to work on Sundays! And Sunday’s generally leave me more exhausted than
any other day of the week!

Sabbath is so much more than that.
And much harder to practice than a mere “day off from work.”

And this passage from Dueteronomy today shows us that.
THIS appearance of the Sabbath is not tied to rest after the creation of the world.
It’s more than that:
And its directed to the specific people of Israel,
And their liberation from slavery in Egypt.

This time:
Keeping the sabbath,
Having a day without work,
A day of rest,
Is enjoyed by EVERYONE:
Including the weak and the powerless:

Including the overworked slaves,
Sabbath is for EVERYONE.

In a world like Egypt,
Or later Greece or Rome:
Or even in our world today:
It’s assumed that leisure and rest is for the elite:
Those with enough status to be ABLE to take a day off of work:

But here we are:
In a commandment from God:
That EVERYONE---should receive the grace of rest.

It’s rest and grace available to everyone.
For no other reason, than to just rest in the grace that God gives to everyone.

And in our other lesson today,
Jesus tells us that the sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for
the sabbath.

Sabbath is not about following a set of rules:
Checking a box so that you can get into heaven.

Sabbath was made FOR YOU:
And for everyone else:

To receive the grace of rest:
And receive further connection to the God who made us and loves us enough to
give us such beautiful and glorious rest.

When Jesus healed the man with the withered hand,
That man may have had the first REAL sabbath rest he has ever had.
Jesus made the space for him to finally be able to rest in that grace.

We are similarly called to take our sabbaths:
And make space for everyone else to take that time too.

But There’s one more parallel to these two stories today about the sabbath:
And I think it’s an important one.

Generally, when Jesus heals, he reaches out to touch someone and heal them.
But in our story today Jesus says to the man “stretch out your hand”

The man stretched it out, and his hand was restored.
Jesus invites,
Even COMMANDS the man to reach toward him,
And in that reaching the man is healed.

And there’s a parallel in the Deuteronomy story.
God tells the people to remember their time enslaved in Egypt,

That the “Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an
outstretched arm.”

In one reading, Jesus tells a man to stretch out his hand,
And in another, God reminds the Israelites that God saved them with an
outstretched hand.

On the sabbath:
God outstretches God’s arm to YOU.

On the sabbath:
God outstretches his arm to EVERYONE.

God outstretches his arm in order to connect with us:
And at the same time:
Jesus invites US to stretch out our own arms toward God:
Resulting in the two arms meeting.

Sabbath is much deeper than avoiding work.
Sabbath is a time where God reaches out,
And we reach out,
And we are united.

And it’s all that matters.

I invite you to take some time this week:
To Stretch out your hand in rest:
And allow others to stretch their hands out as well:
So that you might feel the fullness of God’s healing grace and rest:

The grace and rest that was made FOR YOU.

Amen.

Announcements and celebrations:
​Happy Birthday Hazel and McKenzie!