Rev. Susan Gilbert Zencka
Frame Memorial Presbyterian Church

Texts: Psalm 104:19-24; Isaiah 60:1-5a

One of the original reasons for the Season of Creation was that we humans no longer live in as close contact with the natural world as we used to. One of the ways this is most obvious is when we consider the moon and the sun. As I type this, it is dark outside, the crickets are chirping, and the evening breezes are cooling me through the open window by my desk. I am somewhat in touch with the natural world as I listen, and enjoy the cool air. But it is bright and light where I am working, and dark outside. My ability to keep on working is not at all diminished by the setting of the sun a while ago. While we are certainly aware of the sun and the moon, our lives are not governed by them as the lives of ancient peoples were. We keep going, we keep busy, often many hours after the sun has set. And likewise, we may be awake and at work before the sun arises. Our modern world has pushed away these natural boundaries, and with that push, has moved us away from a life in tune with natural rhythms.

Wayne Muller, founder of Bread for the World, wrote a wonderful book called Sabbath: Finding Rest, Renewal, and Delight in Our Busy Lives. In it, he writes, “Perhaps the most recognizable quality of creation is this rhythmicity. The pulsing light and dark, expansion and contraction, the seasons and tides, the cycles of growth and dormancy, of life, death, and regeneration are unmistakable characteristics of all living things, from the smallest microbe to the largest galaxy. The fruit contains the seed and the seed contains the fruit.”

Many of us fight this rhythm from the time we are little and refuse to nap because we might miss something. Then we grow up and stay up late and get up early so that we can crowd our days with more and more activity and amusement. It’s a kind of greed, this refusal to accept natural limits. And it’s a proud part of our natural culture, in which people are busy from preschool well into retirement. “I’m so busy,” is the mantra of our era…and I was intrigued to read that the Chinese pictogram for “busy” combines the characters for “heart” and “killing”. Our busyness is not healthy for us, and doesn’t necessarily yield a more abundant life. I’ve been actively working to pare down some of my schedule. I’ve noticed that I am not at my most gracious or attentive when I am crazy busy, and a friend of mine once mentioned after resigning from his church that he had realized after his resignation how overtired he had become.

I was also struck by this passage from Muller’s book on Sabbath: “Our lack of rest and reflection is not just a personal affliction. It colors the way we build and sustain community, it dictates the way we respond to suffering, and it shapes the ways in which we seek peace and healing in the world…. With a few notable exceptions, the way problems are solved is frantically, desperately, reactively, and badly. Despite their well-meaning and generous souls, community and corporate leaders are infected with a fearful desperation that is corrosive to genuine helpfulness, justice, or healing…” He continues, “I have sat on dozens of boards and commissions with many fine, compassionate, and generous people who are so tired, overwhelmed and overworked that they have neither the time nor the capacity to listen to the deeper voices that speak to the essence of the problems before them. Presented with … intricate and delicate issues… our impulse, born of weariness, is to rush headlong toward doing anything that will make the problem go away…. But without the essential nutrients of rest, wisdom, and delight embedded in the problem-solving process itself, the solution we patch together is likely to be an obstacle to genuine relief. Born of desperation, it often contains enough fundamental inaccuracy to guarantee an equally perplexing problem will emerge as soon as it is put into place. In the soil of the quick fix is the seed of the new problem because our quiet wisdom is unavailable….”

Unfortunately, this lack of time impacts the way decisions are made in many places. In church congregations and in Presbytery, I am often impressed by the desire to make decisions quickly, and limit the kind of discussion and reflection that can lead to wise discernment.

And I’m guessing that I am not the only person concerned with how quickly many huge decisions are being made about national economic policy right now. It may well be that financial issues have reached a crisis point where decisive action is needed, but I’m concerned that the decisions which will impact generations are perhaps being made too quickly.

How can we cultivate in ourselves an ability to pause, to reflect, and indeed, to rest when we are committed to crowding every minute of every day with as much as possible? We talk about the ability of younger generations to multitask, but I worry about the inability of many people to single task. Yes, it can be valuable to be able to do two things at once – I get that. However, it is also important to learn to think deeply, to focus intently, and to work on one thing thoroughly. Some thinking can’t be done well on the fly – many decisions are better made after deep reflection. I worry about a culture that no longer seems to value this sort of thinking.

Much of our hurry and over-busyness comes from our ignoring the natural rhythms of night and day, rest and work that were built into the world from the beginning. Circadian rhythm is that inner timekeeping that is tied to the hours of the day. Every creature has its own inner rhythm – some awake at night and sleep during the day, humans naturally rest at night and are active in the day. Even plants have a circadian rhythm – the 18th-century Swedish botanist, Carolus Linnaeus, grew a garden in which he could tell the time according to which blossoms were opened or closed, because they bloomed at different hours of the day..

We can overcome this circadian rhythm, but not without costs. I remember when I worked in the steel mill and our shift changed each week. Someone commented once, “Oh, you must get used to that,” and my response was “No, we just get used to being tired all the time.”

Too many of us have grown used to being tired all the time. We don’t even know how tired we are until something makes us slow down – perhaps a health crisis, or an emotional breakdown. How many of the problems that come our way could be avoided if we honored our need for rest?

Many people are under the impression that work, in the Bible, was a punishment for Adam and Eve disobeying God, but in fact, work was part of the original design – the early story tellers in our faith tradition did not think of work as a curse – they understood it to be part of the balanced, abundant life God intends for us. In the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, they have work to do, they have a vocation. Work is not a bad thing – as many of us who love our work know. But overwork can rob us of the joy in our work. And overwork can lead to ineffectiveness. As my friend realized after leaving his job, he had failed to notice stress and fatigue. I know that some of the conversations I most regret have taken place when I was overtired, overstressed, and unaware of my own fragility.

We can learn a lot from the Hebrew approach to time. I remember a presentation in a Presbytery meeting about 7 years ago by Dorothy Bass, author of the book Receiving the Day. The book had just been published, and she spoke with us about time, and the Biblical view of time. She reminded us that in the Biblical tradition, a day begins at sunset the night before. And she explained that when we get up, and begin our work, we should remember that we are not starting up the day, but that we are joining our efforts to God’s, that God has already been at work in the world all night long. Both the practice of daily rest and especially the practice of Sabbath are reminders to us that the world can get along without our work for a time.

From the Biblical perspective, each day begins with the evening rest. So rest isn’t something we earn – it’s the foundation for our work.

Similarly, in the Biblical tradition, the Sabbath was initially a gift, not a commandment – it was part of the rhythm of Creation. Genesis tells us that after six days of creating: “… the heavens and the earth were finished, and all their multitude. And on the seventh day God finished the work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all the work that he had done in creation.” God hallowed the seventh day – he made it holy. He included this holy time for rest in the rhythm of the week.

One of the practices that I most value is my Monday Sabbath. I try to avoid making this day a busy day, so I use Monday to read books, to relax, and maybe knit by the fire in the winter. I don’t take a legalistic approach to my Sabbath – for example, it is the day of the week I am most likely to cook something more complicated. I have the time then to bake bread, or make a simmering soup. I try to do any errands at other times – and I heartily recommend to those of you who have two days off each week that you make one of those days a Sabbath day. Don’t go shopping after church – enjoy your family, take a walk, have a relaxed meal with friends.

The rhythm of the earth, the rhythm we were born to, is a rhythm of rest and work, of night and day, a rhythm of balance. On this day before the Autumnal Equinox, when night and day will be roughly equal, it is a good time to remember that the balance is essential to life. Jesus, in his life and ministry, honored this rhythm as well. And for Jesus, prayer was part of the rhythm – he would be with people, then he would retreat for prayer, he would teach the crowd, then he would rest.

The traditional Sabbath includes family, friends, faith and feasting as well – it is a time to enjoy each other, worship God, and delight in the good gifts of the earth. So many people are too busy to enjoy meals with friends, to relax into worship, to take a walk, to allow a nap, to listen to silence – but these are the moments that can bring abundance to our lives. Six days a week we worry about what time it is, where we are supposed to be, and what we need to be doing. The Sabbath is a taste of eternity – a day without time and tasks.

God gave the people of Israel the gift of rest to begin each day, the Sabbath to enjoy each week, and festivals to celebrate throughout the year. These festivals connected them with the larger community, and with the story of their history, as well as marking the seasons of each year – a Sabbath rhythm is one that honors the night and the day, the seasonality of each year, and the joy of community. These are gifts from a faithful God to the people God loves – and we are missing some of God’s great gifts when we ignore the rhythm of creation and the invitation to community. May we be faithful to the gifts of night and day, of rest and work, and may we learn to include Sabbath time each week, and so enjoy the joy in life God intends for us. Amen.