Sunday 26th February 2017. Life Hacks – practical wisdom for everyday challenges
Sabbath Rest and Personal Boundaries (Reading fromLuke 6. 1-13) – Andy Butcher
Sabbath rest and personal boundaries. At last I can do a whole talk on cricket.... 1981. I’m with a mutual sport-loving friend about 3 foot 6 inches tall, a Saturday at the County Ground, Taunton, Ian Botham, a physical and sporting colossus, has just been sacked as England captain and has just come in to bat as Somerset as usual have started losing wickets in a hurry. About second ball Botham plays a ridiculous shot and is bowled. The great man begins to trudge off. Absolute hush around the ground. Until my friend shatters the silence, not only audibly but completely belying his stature. ‘Rubbish, Botham!’ ‘Quite right!’ echoes the crowd around us. Botham is now changing direction. Approaches the boundary and the stand where we’re sitting. I love watching Botham hit fours and sixes for Somerset and England. Boundaries are wonderful. But right now I don’t want him to cross it. I want a wall. Maybe there’ll be a U.S. president one day who’ll build one. He’s crossed the boundary. Close now. The crowd around us turn tail and point at my friend, accusing. ‘It were he!’ they yell, ‘It were he!’ ‘I feel very sorry for you, sir,’ says Botham as I emerge still cowering from the floor behind my seat. Back to boundaries in a bit.
Sundays were murder in my youth. Over 400 years the Protestant Church seemed to have taken the Jewish Sabbath, transferred it from Saturday to Sunday and put into it a thousand more ‘don’ts’ than even the Pharisees of Jesus’ time could think of.
You could go for a family walk but not take a football, a tennis ball or even a marble with you. You could go to church morning and evening and Sunday School in the afternoon, sing drony hymns like ‘The Church’s One Foundation’ but not have a laugh during the entire hours of daylight. We didn’t have TV ‘til I was 13 but you couldn’t watch it on a Sunday. The radio was ok, somehow it was not sinful like actually watching things. The Archers were deemed spiritually uplifting – how times have changed!
Yet for my mother it was the busiest day of the week. Four children to control, bored out of their tiny minds, all that church, roast beef, two veg and apple pie to sort let alone grandma and uncles to visit. Don’t talk to her about a day of rest.
So welcome, Jesus, 2000 years before, smashing his way through the cornfields and the Oh so preciously added pernickety rules that never were part of God’s blueprint for humans. Blasting the death out of the Pharisees in all their empty pomposity.
Take rules out, though, in a world of fallen human beings, and football itself ceases to exist. So does cricket. And tennis. And that about sums up my life. (You can substitute crochet, embroidery and upholstery if you like: the same applies)
So how about a special day each week. Time out. Not me-time, a thoroughly modern deity, but actually God-time. Not a 24 hour church service (imagine the rotas necessary) but cessation, stopping the rat-race, reflecting, re-evaluating, spending time with God and also with friends and family, playing marbles with one another, looking outwards to do good as Jesus did on his Sabbath, healing people....
On the seventh day God stopped and enjoyed his creation. He didn’t need a rest, he wasn’t tired. (Jesus was though, often. Son of God become Son of Man) Stop. That’s what the Hebrew for Sabbath means. Stop. In all our busy-ness, especially with 25 hours a day social media (I had to look up what that meant. I also found out there are only 24 hours in a day) Do things differently. By the way, one person sitting not far away claims his, her or its university grades improved when they started taking a day off working each week. (A warning here, they don’t necessarily keep on improving if you apply that to all seven days!)
To some, says Paul in Romans 14, one day is special. If you as a Christian think like that then fine, use that day accordingly. But don’t judge those that think differently. And if all days are the same to you, make sure you take regular God-time out and don’t look down on those who hold one day as special. Same with food regulations, says Paul. Don’t judge another’s thinking. (I thought of this facing a mountain of cookies and muffins at the healing cafe when a member of the team donated me a serious looking list of sanctions from Weight Watchers next door).
Space too, and not just time. For some, the liberation Jesus brings can be experienced wherever, we can pray, worship and enjoy his presence not just whenever but it matters not where either. To others there are special places: buildings, gardens, footpaths, mountains where God seems closer, more accessible, more talkable to, more listenable to. As with times, so with special places, don’t judge or look down on others.
We were in North Wales last week, February tourists. We set aside a couple of hours to individually have time with God in a National Trust garden courtesy of Caroline’s life membership (admits 2, £50 40 years ago). I was down by this stream, walking slowly in the drizzle. Immediately I found myself praising and worshipping God in a way not knowingly known since he invaded my life 44 years ago and I knew what life was for, knew what my life was for, it was for Him, to worship Him, to revel in His presence, to know Him intimately, to devote my life to Him the trusted one, the beautiful one, the one who is to be adored. That was a mind-blowing 40 minutes, not least because we had decided not to drive a further four hours to Pembrokeshire and Ffald yBrenin, the Christian retreat centre where God speaks to people! There are special places, but he can also be known in a National Trust garden in the drizzle.
For Tom Wright, today’s C.S.Lewis – and I say that because I have a book signed by him and wishing me a happy birthday as well as a joint selfie Joel took with him at St. Andrews – Jesus is the Incarnation, space/place wise the temple no longer needed, Jesus the place where heaven and earth meet. And as with space so with time, the 3 year blockbuster career of Jesus of Nazareth the fulfilment (Mark 1.15) of all the seventh day Sabbaths, the seven yearly agricultural jubilees and seven times seven jubilees where people were set free, all fulfilled in the dynamic healing and liberating life of the Son of God become Son of Man, so what need of Sabbaths any more?
Yet 2000 years later we still live in the now and not yet of the Kingdom of God which has come, is coming, and is still to come. Mystery and tension here. Jesus was alive in Palestine but still it mattered to Him what happened in the temple in Jerusalem. Sabbath principles were alike important to Him, if not the gross additions and burdens religion had added to them. We still need guidelines, even as newborn children of God and Jesus people. To help us. The principles of Sabbath are for our benefit, made for us. Jesus said this.
If only, I hear some of you say. Time? Space? I don’t have any. I have responsibilities.
Can I recommend a book called ‘Boundaries’ by Cloud and Townsend. It clarifies our responsibilities. A few extracts. ‘Just as home owners set physical property lines around their land, we need to set mental, physical, emotional and spiritual boundaries for our lives to help us distinguish what is our responsibility and what isn’t .’ Some questions arising:
‘Can I set limits and still be a loving person? What are legitimate boundaries? What if my boundaries upset/hurt someone? How do I answer someone who wants my time/love/energy/money? Why do I feel guilty or afraid when considering setting boundaries? Aren’t boundaries selfish?’
‘We are responsible TO others and FOR ourselves’
There is a difference between burden and load in the Greek. The load is our responsibility. The burden is not. Get that you martyr spirits! (Not a direct quote)
‘Boundaries are not walls’. (Someone tell the president)
The book deals with how to stop carrying burdens which are not ours to carry and how to avoid putting burdens on others when they’re actually part of our load as responsible people. How to set boundaries regarding family, friends, spouse, colleagues. Setting boundaries that result in us having time and space to do what God wants and is actually calling us to without feeling guilty that this is somehow un-Christian. Read it slowly, there’s a lot there!
Monday this week. I had just served my first double-fault of the evening and sworn as only a Christian can. ‘Rubbish!’ Behind the hedge in the dark by the cricket pavilion the youth of Cheddar were audibly enjoying each other’s company. Raucous. One set off on his motor-bike across the gravel car-park with breathtaking speed and noise, much to the tut-tutting of my blasphemimg fellow upright members of the tennis club. ‘Why should they be enjoying themselves?’ I asked myself. I had rules when I was their age and it was my dad who had the motor bike.
As Christians, Biblical guidelines are for us, not against us. God is not a killjoy. Jesus the Son of God become Son of Man is off up the mountain to pray. All night. He’s about to choose his 12 disciples. Big stuff. And we don’t need to make time and space for Him?
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