One More Thing with Pastor Tim Burchill 10.2.2023

Blessed Are The Busy:

For They Shall Receive Holy Exhaustion

        Speaking of Jessica’s excellent message yesterday about the need for Sabbath in our lives, i.e. Commandment #4, I have a favorite quote I’d like to share as a way to say, “Amen” to her words.  Pastor Barbara Brown Taylor, describing her decision to take a year of jubilee where she would drastically limit the number of out of town engagements she took (and commit herself to only 40 hours a week of pastoral ministry), she wrote:

        “I do not mean to make an idol of health, but it does seem to me that at least some of us have made an idol of exhaustion. The only time we know we have done enough is when we are running on empty and when the ones we love most are the ones we see the least. When we lie down to sleep at night, we offer our full appointment calendars to God in lieu of prayer, believing that God—who is as busy as we are—will surely understand.”

         Ouch.  That certainly rings true with me, or at least with those of us clergy who secretly pride ourselves in expending everything for our Lord while following our calling.  There is a perverse sense of satisfaction that comes with reaching our physical, mental, and emotional limits, knowing that we must be significant if our time and energy is in so much demand.

In addition to all the good ideas Pastor Jessica shared, here are some more ideas that help you on the road to recreation and rest in God.

Some Sabbath Suggestions:

• If you don’t already observe a Sabbath, start small and work your way up.  Don’t have to do it all at once.  Increase an hour or more of Sabbath each week.

• Your work schedule may mean taking off some day other than Sunday.

• Be clear ahead of time what is recreative for you and what is work and then stick to it.  Realize that what is fun for you may be work for others in your and vice versa.  If gardening is a joy, don’t worry about whether someone else sees it as work.  (See Mark 2:27)

• Sabbath is about being free to love God, embrace life, and enjoy the people God’s placed in your life.  Sooner or later God has got to figure prominently in your Sabbath or you are not doing it right.  

• We’ve tended to think of what we should NOT do on the Sabbath.  Try thinking about your Sabbath in positive terms.  For instance, do worship God; do enjoy your loved ones; find a way to get your batteries recharged.

• Begin new Sabbath traditions as a family (e.g. eating out, family game night, renting or going to see a family movie, visiting with larger family or developing new friends)        

• Know that keeping a Sabbath will require both discipline and preparation to accomplish at first.  Planning ahead is indispensable (See Exodus 16:4-5).  Meals, clean up, essential laundry, gassing up the car, grocery or ATM runs, and so on need to be kept to a minimum or eliminated altogether on your sabbath.

• Without arrogance or pride be prepared to tell others why you have to ‘say no’ to work on your Sabbath.  Make it a humble act of witness.  Simply communicate what you are doing as an act of devotion you’re not willing to compromise, (then don’t.)
  (See the film, Chariots of Fire, as a wonderful example of this)