Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Luke 8:4-15 - "Sabbath Rhythm" (2-24-08)

To everything, turn, turn, turn; there is a season, turn, turn, turn; a time for every purpose under heaven. The season of winter sure has been long, but winter turns to spring, spring turns to summer and summer turns to winter…. Spring is in the air. The idea of planting the garden continues to occupy my thoughts. I saw that the stores are selling seeds already. I don’t get into that kind of gardening, as seeds go right into the ground for me. However, I have been working on the garden. We put extra food stuff in an empty one gallon ice cream container in the garage and then I go throw it on our garden. I’m getting the garden ready for the seed. A seed is planted, it grows and bears fruit.

Jesus told the disciples that telling people about God’s grace and mercy is like planting seeds. The disciples shouldn’t get discouraged when the seeds don’t grow. They are called to throw the seeds out and watch them grow, for there is a season for everything, including growth. Some of the seeds in the parable of the sower fell on ground that allowed them to grow. But they grew only a little before they got chocked and died. Why? People lost the flow to life and became consumed by the cares of the world. They would grow in their faith but then they forget the rhythm of life.

There is a rhythm to this creation: "And there was evening and there was morning, one day." It is a rhythm of grace and sufficiency that counters the idolatry of productivity and striving. Today, we are a society of addicted to caffeine and adrenaline. We are looking for a “rush”, a buzz. We just keep going without a sense of ups and downs we just are out of sorts; out of rhythm and we can’t grow.

There is a rhythm to our days. The busyness that overcomes the natural flow and movement in our days is sometimes overwhelming. God made life to have a rhythm and there is a rhythm in all living things – the heart beats, then rests; wakefulness and sleep; work and rest; sound and silence; daylight and night’s darkness; inhale and exhale; morning and evening; winter leads to spring; Monday to Sunday; tides go in and tides go out; growth and dormancy; life, death and regeneration.

Ecclesiastes text echoes creation in claiming that “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven.” These are the immutable … and distinct rhythms of life experienced by human beings. It is a life in balance.

We have been born with what scientist call a Circadian rhythm. The word means circa-day; about a day; body clocks; day and night; sleep and awake; all animals have them! Humans, in the twenty-first century and ever since the industrial revolution, have tried to deny their need for any rest, down time, dormancy, even sleep. The lights are on 24 hours a day. Stores and factories are open around the clock, every day of the week, sometimes even 365 days a year. Without these rhythms, we risk becoming machines; we risk losing being human and ability to savor life; and we risk losing life itself! Get away from the cues and nature begins to take its cues.

In 1995, three researchers spent a summer above the Arctic Circle, where there is continuous light 24 hours a day. All watches, clocks and other timekeeping devices were removed and only the station’s computers tracked the times that the team went to sleep and awakened. Individual researchers did their work and, following their “body time,” chose when to sleep and when to wake up. At the end of the experiment, the computer revealed that each member of the team showed an increase in sleep time, with the group averaging 10.3 hours a day; a figure that matches people who live in cultures where the afternoon siesta is still practiced; a long sleep at night and a briefer one in the early afternoon. This is the kind of pattern people tend to fall into on their vacations, a more natural rhythm it seems, difficult to follow and earn a living.[1]

I’ve heard of some offices where napping is encouraged but those are an exception. Most companies frown on down time on company time; still, if you are caught nodding off at work and your superior wakes you up, here’s what to do: simply keep your head down and your eyes closed and say, “…and I especially want to thank you for my excellent boss. Amen.”

Sometime the rhythm of life is lost and the need for Sabbath is more noticeable. Yet, we know that sometimes the rhythm of life comes to a conclusion; that one day we will completely rest from our labors. Even worse, we are aware of how the rhythm of life is destroyed. We saw the destruction in a dramatic way with what has happened at Northern Illinois University. The quiet of last night was only be filled with the volume of today as students return to campus! Pastor Diane Dardón is the NIU Lutheran Campus Pastor and you could tell how out of rhythm folks are because of this terrible pain. I sat in the chapel last night at their campus ministry center and played chords on the piano to various songs. I started singing “Children of the Heavenly Father”, so join me if you know it. (Sing verse one and then verse two). “God his own doth tend and nourish, in his holy courts they flourish. From all evil things he spares them…” I stopped singing at that point. Suffering caused by evil has hit this place. Then I sang on, “…in his mighty arms he bares them.” God does bear them and us in this Sabbath day. God bears them all. For last night I was struck by the fact that there are six crosses at the Lutheran Campus ministry and not just five. God bears them all. Here is what Pastor Diane wrote on the Northern Illinois Synod website:

“We have six crosses outside LCM as a witness to the world that God loves us all…that God forgives us all…that there is hope for all…that the cross of Christ stands in blustery winter winds for everyone. “Why six?” Because God’s grace and mercy is for all! Six crosses. Six crosses draped in the color of Lent-royal purple. Six crosses draped in the color of glory--red. Red. A school color. Red. A holy color, reminiscent of Christ's blood shed on the cross. Red. Christ's blood now mingled with the blood of six. Six crosses. A guiding place on campus--"the six cross corner." Crosses that guide to places, prayers, hearts, hope. Six crosses. No distinctions, simply acknowledgment. Six, not five. Six children. Six families. Six children of God, all loved by God. Six crosses. Six hurting families. No distinctions, simply painful fact. Six families crying out for mercy. Six crosses-- offering hope to world family facing east toward rising sun standing firm in winters' storms directing hearts to God whose back is never turned—whose love is always flowing— whose mercy is upon us all.”

I would add: AND ON THE SEVENTH CROSS – GOD RESTED!

Mark 1:32-37 - "Sabbath Rest" (2-17-08)

“The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me to lie down; He restores my soul.” The Lord makes me; yes makes to lie down and find restoration. Sabbath rest is a way that God helps us to find rest; otherwise we just get run down too easily. God is calling us to observe the Sabbath so we know it is okay to “lie down; He restores my soul.”

The day was full of activity. The disciples are hanging out at Peter’s mother-in-law’s house again in the city of Capernaum. This was their campaign headquarters. She was a very kind mother in law; for Peter is the only disciple we know who was married. Marriage is the last best chance to grow up so perhaps Peter was a responsible guy. Perhaps his mother in law was very nice about having Peter and this group of friends hang out all the time. Either way, she must have been tired of serving them constantly. The time to rest on the Sabbath day perhaps wasn’t enough for her to gain her strength. She has had this son in law and this rabbi coming in and out of her house. She had to cook and prepare food time and again for them. People kept dropping by to meet this rabbi. Finally, her body just had to shut down; there wasn’t enough vitamin C or Zinc or Echinacea for her to take to give her immune system the boost it needed to just keep going and going. Enough already her body was telling her! You need rest. So she got sick. When Jesus healed her, perhaps he was just hungry and who better to heal than the best cook in Capernaum. Of course that is my interpretation of the situation. But he heals her. He gives her a hand. She is restored not in the lying down but in the hand Jesus gives her, his touch. She immediately starts to serve them.

Then that evening people brought anyone who was ill to Peter’s house and healed them all. It was a long day. They are pounding at the door. The need is great and the time is limited. There was no time for me! If Jesus was “forever giving out, He must be at least sometimes taking in; that if he was going to spend himself for others, He must ever and again summon spiritual reinforcements to his aid.”[1]

So Jesus got up early the next morning and he decided to go and get some rest from everyone. He went up the mountain to pray. This “provides in Jesus’ behavior an example”[2] to us in our need to rest in the midst of so many notes. Peter is wondering where Jesus ran off to when there is so much work to be done! They felt the pressure of those who were looking for Jesus. When they find him and insist that he has to return to Capernaum, Jesus said that they need to go to the next town and then the next town after that in order tell people that God is near! Perhaps he also didn’t want to return to Capernaum to give Peter’s mother in law a break from the crowds. “Jesus heals all sorts of maladies for all sorts of people in all sorts of places. He exemplifies in his own life the rhythm of work, rest and prayer. In times of stress he turns to God for strength and guidance. Perhaps here he faces the temptation to return with Simon and the others to curry the crowd’s favor by working miracles. The crowd represents humanity with all its needs.”[3] Temptation to work more! We are good for nothing today but resting! Where do you go to find rest? Chairs!

MUSIC REST - Music Rest sign! I love music! You know what the best sound in music I think is underrated, the sound of the rest. It isn’t the musical notes that are most important; it’s not just the voice or instruments that matter most; it is the rest! The whole note rest is actually a hole; a full rest. The problem is that we want to just keeping filling up that rest with more notes. The only thing that goes in the whole note rest is the Sabbath. Sabbath is a time for rest; rest with family, friends and others from the daily routine and burdens that will be there tomorrow.

Wide World of Sports: Image that said the thrill of victory and the AGONY OF DEFEAT. That moment in the advertisement that shows a skier flying down the ski jump and falling and crashing, head over heals off of the jump and into the structure of the ski jump itself, for no apparent reason. It appears horrific. Later it was discovered, that the skier actually "chose to fall" instead of jump off of the ski jump. As he was going down the ski jump, he realized that he was going too fast because of the surface conditions. If we would have jumped, he would have landed on the level area at the bottom of the jump and beyond the safer and sloping areas. What appeared fatal in his falling actually turned out to be some bruises and a headache instead of crashing hard at the bottom.

We need the Sabbath rest before we crash. More importantly, today what I want you to hear something! God forgives you! Rest in that knowledge and truth! You really don’t have to do anything to pay God back. You can rest! Sabbath brings the sweetest melody of all.[4] Rest!

Prayer: Gracious God, I thank you for your mercy that sets me free to rest in your arms of love. Guide me to be diligent in Sabbath rest and restoration, in Jesus name I pray, Amen!



[1] William Barclay, The Gospel of Mark, 1956, 33.

[2] Larry Hertado, Mark, New International Bible Commentary, 29.

[3] Lamar Williamson, Jr. Mark, Interpretation Bible Commentary, 53-58.

[4] John A. Stroman, Thunder From the Mountain (Nashville: The Upper Room, 1990), 53-55.

Matthew 4:1-11 - "Sabbath Day Stop" (2-10-08)

Jesus has received his commissioning after his baptism at age thirty and is about to go off on his three year mission. So what is the first thing he does to get things started? He goes and takes a forty day hiatus into the wilderness for a little rest. Before he goes he must stop first! Perhaps this is the great reversal to Adam who before he should have stopped he did GO and eat the fruit with his wife. Instead of just being human, Adam and Eve wanted to play God. Now, instead of being God, Jesus is being fully human. Jesus will experience great temptations.

Perhaps the greatest temptation is to just keeping going through the stops signs of life. Yesterday I drove the kid’s home in my car as my wife drove home in the van. I turned down Ackman and tried to go the way of Randall with lights instead of the stop signs Tammy would hit. She beat us home. My son said to her, “we hit every red light going home.” Now my kids know how to spell stop. When we get to stop signs, they will now spell it out; STOP! You’ll see it at the end of the road for a reason! STOP SIGN!

Sabbath is about stopping. STOP in the name of love, before you break your heart. When there is no Sabbath; there is no Worship; there is no Word; there is no good news of God’s grace; then there is no rest! The temptation is to just keep going and doing. Sabbath is the word SABOT, which means to stop! My sister is a seventh day Adventist. She is home Friday night at different times of the year depending on the time of the sunset. She’s home, resting or spending time with family. She worships on Saturday morning and then has lunch with Church friends, always doing something that is re-creational and refreshing. She doesn’t pay the bills or do laundry. She will do those things on Sunday or she will stay up late Thursday evening to get some of those things done so she can rest.

I received a phone call Thursday night. It stopped me dead in my tracks! Jim was 60 and died of a heart attack! I’ve known him for 20 years! WE gather to stop, look and listen. So in the name of God just STOP it! Don’t just do something, sit there! Stop, in the name of love!

God made all of creation in six day and rested on the Sabbath. God created Adam and Eve on the sixth day. The first day they entered creation was on the Sabbath day and they rested in it. We received the commandment in Exodus 20:8-11 that would should remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy; which means set apart. God honored the Sabbath day in the creation story with doing all the creation in six days and resting on the seventh. Disobeying the Sabbath is as reprehensible as murder; robbery; adultery and deceit.

Today we remember the Sabbath Day and STOP. We are on journey this lent that will deepen our faith in God and recall the Sabbath day as a means to find refreshment and recreation and restoration in the relationship with God and with one another. We are here to recover God’s plan for us to find renewal in life. Sabbath rule is not just a dreary law that rules over us with such strict sense of determination that causes us to f be trapped in a tradition that limits us. We are not going to earn our salvation that is a gift in Christ be becoming legalistic about this 24 hour period in our faith journey. But to become liberal about this law and throw it out lead us to a superficial shallow faith that doesn’t impact our fast paced lifestyle that doesn’t know how to slow down and be still.

In the large catechism Martin Luther reminds us that the “holy day” of the Sabbath is literally a day of rest, Holy-Day; made holy by God so we don’t make it holy; a day to cease from labor; rest; and that is be holy to us in our lives; set apart. The Sabbath day for Jews was Saturday, like the Seventh Day Adventist. For Christians it is Sunday because Christ rose on Sunday and the early disciples wanted to note a change; that it’s not about which day! Sabbath is also about; from sunset to sunset over a 24 hour period was the legal code; it is time to rest (even non believers do this). It’s also about a time for worship; to hear and study the word; receive and celebrate the sacraments; pray; and praise God for life. Sabbath is about fellowship; to gather with children and teach them of God’s word and life; gather with friends and family to enjoy time together. Sabbath is about allowing the muddy waters to be still; for the water becomes clear when it becomes still. Finally, Sabbath is about dormancy; trees and plants go dormant in order to preserve; like this winter storm that reminded us that everything in this region still is under the restful cycle of winter to spring to summer to fall.

Let us pray: Gracious God, help me to rest today in the comfort of your mercy. Our hearts are restless until we find our rest in you. Guide us in our resting, in Jesus name, Amen.

Sunday, February 3, 2008

Matthew 17:1-11 - "A Re-Newal Moment" (2-3-08)

What goes up must come down (Toss baseball in the air). What goes down must go up? (Toss baseball in the air) It’s been one hundred years since the Cubs won the World Series this year. They’ve been down for a long time; it’s time for them to go up. I’m holding onto this moment in history for up!

Well we signed up my son Nathan for the Crystal Lake American League yesterday. Well Tammy did while I was at Synod Outreach Committee Meeting. But I asked her to sign me up to help with coaching. I can renew my old baseball days. Remember those moments? What goes up must come down (toss baseball in the air).

Reminds me of the story where a boy was throwing a ball up in the air. Someone asked him what he was doing. He said he was playing catch with God. I throw the ball up in the air and he throws it back.”[1] We know that what comes up must come down. We also know that comes down can go up. When someone goes up a mountain they have to come down again. So here we stand at the foot of the mountain with the disciples, being invited to go up.

Jesus could tell that these three disciples needed to get away. The past six days have been the longest six days of our lives. We need a rest! Peter just confessed that Jesus is the messiah; he’s the one who will save us from this Roman occupation. But then he told us he was going to have to die on a cross when we get to Jerusalem, the big city down in the southern part of Israel. We’re just small town fishermen who only go to the city once a year for the Passover. We’ve been carrying this news now for six long days. What a week!

"Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and his brother John and led them up a high mountain, by themselves." (Matthew 17:1) Jesus took these three men up to the mountain for prayer and rest. It’s been a long six days; it’s been a long week! What? You want to go up to this mountain. Why? For rest and prayer… okay! We could use it.

So they climbing this mountain when Jesus experienced a “metamorphosis” is the Greek word; we call it a transfiguration. Peter, James and John, his three main followers, they see Jesus transformed in an instant. They are so amazed that they just want to stay there; “It’s good to be here, can we live on this mountain; can we just stay here for awhile and watch you blaze?” Notice that they don’t fall down and worship Jesus here, for they still don’t see him fully transformed as God until after the cross. But as Peter is talking, they here a voice and are engulfed in the clouds; “This is my beloved son, listen to him”. In the midst of all the talking, Peter is told to shut up already, stop your constant talking! They fall down in worship the presence of God on this mysterious mountain. They stop talking and just lay there. Then the voice, the vision is gone! God’s presence, where did it go? They perhaps find it again in the simple touch of Jesus and his words of comfort.

There is something very mystical about being on a mountain in the Bible. We call them mountain top experiences. Perhaps you’ve climbed a mountain the way Paul Sponholz did this past month, a member of the church who was in Africa and climbed Mount Kilimanjaro. He has now descended that mountain to reach another summit when he and Michelle get married here on April 26th. Now you don’t need a mountain for a mountain top experience to happen. You remember that moment in your life. It still gives you strength and hope. Yet we soon forget them! If we could just hold onto those moments during the valleys; if we could just remember how incredible it was to bask in the glory and majesty of God on this mountain.

We spend more time in the valley than on the mountain. But after six days of going and going fast in our lives, we are invited to find renewal at the mountain of God's grace. Sabbath reminds us that we need to admit we are tired and weak; we are invited into God's presence. We find renewal as we praise God for the chance to be renewed for this brief moment in order to go down the mountain and face the service in the valleys of our lives.

For the next seven weeks we are going to be talking about SABBATH – SABOT; stop! In order to face the six days, we need to really rest and renew. This Sabbath day of renewal isn’t only about resting from the past week but it is to find the strength for the next six days. We spend more time in the valley of every day life than we do on the mountain of rest. You see, seven days without resting in God leaves one weak!

You and I have been taken into this place of rest today; we are given this SABBATH MOMENT after a long six days to find renewal in God’s presence; in the mysterious presence of Christ in the sacrament, word and community of Christians; we are given this momentary renewal in the mysterious clouds where we are found in God, and then we descend…

Henry Drummond, the Scottish theologian said, It is not God’s desire that we live on the mountaintops. We only ascend to the heights to catch a broader vision of the earthly surroundings below. But we don’t live there. The streams begin in the uplands, but these streams descend quickly to gladden the valleys below.” The streams of living waters start in the mountaintops, but they come down to gladden the valleys below.[2] What goes up must come down, and the disciples are heading down the mountain until they reach the next mountain, Mount Calvary.

Prayer: Gracious God, you renew us through your Holy Spirit as we see you inviting us to your mountain of grace this day. Guide us as we worship and praise you for this moment to find renewal in Christ, in his name we pray, Amen!


[1] John Thomas Randolph, The Best Gift, CSS, 1983, p. 96