Sermon 06.16.13 :: Called to Work

Living the Sabbath

Summer is a time for vacations and get-aways.  Human beings inherently need times of rest.  We spent time last summer studying the nature of biblical Sabbath, and how we might go about living it.  We remind ourselves once again of our need for God-given rest.  

“Biblical tradition makes rest a requirement, makes it an observance of the greatest dignity and mystery, and assigns it a day.  The day is named Sabbath.  On that day, people are to come to rest, just stop, and not merely because they are tired; they are to do so in commemoration of the seventh day, the day on which, after the six days of creation, God rested.”          Wendell Berry

A Prayer in Spring

Oh, give us pleasure in the flowers to-day;
And give us not to think so far away
As the uncertain harvest; keep us here
All simply in the springing of the year.

Oh, give us pleasure in the orchard white,
Like nothing else by day, like ghosts by night;
And make us happy in the happy bees,
The swarm dilating round the perfect trees.

And make us happy in the darting bird
That suddenly above the bees is heard,
The meteor that thrusts in with needle bill,
And off a blossom in mid air stands still.

For this is love and nothing else is love,
The which it is reserved for God above
To sanctify to what far ends He will,
But which it only needs that we fulfill.

Robert Frost

Sermon posted at reliantchurch.org