Reading: Exodus 20:8, Proper 12B – July 30, 2000
By The Rev. Canon Ward McCabe
St. Jude the Apostle Episcopal Church, Cupertino CA
The 10 Commandments were a powerful landmark in the journey of the Hebrew people toward God, but they were not the whole story. Their understanding continued to grow and expand all through history. This commandment specifies that the Sabbath applies to the entire household and even to the animals. It also applies in principle to the land and its use. From this insight we now practice crop rotation, for example. There are many things we learn from what they learned:
1.
The meaning of the Sabbath centers on God’s wish that all Creation
remain in peace and in harmony.
Sabbath observance nurtures and protects this idea. Setting apart a time
for intentional reflection on our covenant with God helps to maintain this level
of spiritual comprehension. The pause…the rest…the silence…the hallowing…keep
it holy!…remember all the world, even those aspects not usually honored
and those people often left behind.
2. Acknowledging the sacredness of the rhythm of all Creation turns our thoughts from self-worship and shortsighted materialism toward a deeper view of life.
3.
It is a mystical paradox that although we find a sense of holiness
especially in gathered community in a place set apart such as this place, yet
it is also true that sacredness is not confined by time and space.
In sensing the holiness of all things and of all time we erase the artificial
boundaries, which so burden the culture around us. Then Sabbath becomes a pervading
melody and music of a constant splendor of life. Holiness cannot be compelled
either by Blue Laws or even by good resolutions, yet times when there was much
more natural response to sacredness are models to remember and to restore. Not
very long ago, stores opened on Sunday after church time, and closed on Good
Friday. Not now. In the 1960s the Council of Churches asked the County Board
of Education if they would encourage schools to leave just one weeknight as
a clear channel for youth programs in the churches. “NO!” and this was before
Sunday morning soccer. What can we do? Sometimes we also can say “NO!”
4. Over and above the visible times and places, we, as God’s people, are capable of creating moments of glory and holiness in the very midst of the chaotic culture in which we live, even in business and in travel. THERE IS A SABBATH ATTITUDE TOWARD LIFE that not only gives us peace personally but also is contagious in the eyes of others.
We are coming into a time when “community” means less and less, a time when we as Christians are called to carve out in an alien world a New Creation of the integrity of being Christian.
A Good example of what we can do is this: we can do Sabbath deeds. Santa Maria Mission in downtown San Jose has strong ties with this parish. It was founded by Mitzi Ackerman of this parish, first woman priest in this Diocese, and many of us have had ties with its work.
Each year when school starts, the Mission gathers together school supplies for school children of that neighborhood, backpacks, pencils, notebooks, paper, etc. This must be sorted. A backpack for example for a child in kindergarten is different from what is in one for a sixth grader. It takes days to sort this out and days and days to hand out the school supplies. Evelyn Sherry of this parish is one of the key planners. She needs volunteers for a day or even a half-day beginning August 19. (Evelyn, will you please stand…)? We can go and do the Sabbath. (Seventeen members volunteered to help Evelyn Sherry.)
We have here in this church a visual parable of the meaning of sacredness. This memorial window at the north of the church was designed by our late priest Jane Kottmeier just before her death. Jane specified that most of the window design be transparent so that we would always see the world into which we go. As she often said, “We gather at the altar to be empowered, we go forth to heal and to care.” It is for this reason that one of our benedictions calls on us to “Live in the Holy Spirit.”
A man came to a rabbi and said, “I am not sure I understand this Sabbath business when it comes to the weekdays… The rabbi went to the window…What do you see out there?” “A very complicated and interesting world.” He walked over to a full-length mirror. “Look in this mirror: what do you see?” “Myself.” Interesting isn’t it that when we cover a glass with silver, all we see is ourselves!” “Go forth and make the weekdays holy, too.”