I usually begin my day with Lectio-365 and I’ve found the Lent Sunday’s special. I thought it a wonderful symmetry to share the Sabbath prayer on a Thursday :
The commandment to rest on the Sabbath was given to the children of Israel – a people God delivered from slavery, a life of unrelenting toil.
“Remember to observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. You have six days each week for your ordinary work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath day of rest dedicated to the Lord your God. On that day no one in your household may do any work. This includes you, your sons and daughters, your male and female servants, your livestock, and any foreigners living among you. Remember the Sabbath day be
Exodus 20:8-10
The gift of the Sabbath reminds me that I am free. Or am I?
If you aren’t resting, you are a slave to something
Adele Calhoun quoted by Ruth Haley Barton in Embracing Rhythms of Work and Rest
Rest is an act of defiance … the audacity to face the demands of this world and proclaim “We will not be owned”
Cole Arthur Riley This Here Flesh: Spirituality, Liberation and the Stories that Make Us p 157
I take a moment to reflect in God’s presence, am I able to rest on this Sabbath day? If not, why not?
Galatians declares:
It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.
Galatians 5:1
Jesus, I thank You that through your life, death and resurrection you have set me free from the law of sin and death
Father, I thank you for liberating me from slavery to the demands of a busy and perpetually dissatisfied world.
Holy Spirit, I celebrate the freedom You have given me and today I declare, “I will not be owned”.
Cole Arthur Riley goes on to say:
Rest is not the reward of our liberation, nor something we lay hold of once we are free. It is the path that delivers us there.
Cole Arthur Riley This Here Flesh: Spirituality, Liberation and the Stories that Make Us p 151
And we close with a Sabbath Blessing
May this day bring Sabbath rest to my heart and my home
May God’s image in me be restored, and my imagination in God be re-storied.
May the gravity of material things be lightened, and the relativity of time slow down.
May I know the grace to embrace my own finite smallness in the arms of God’s infinite greatness.
May God’s Word feed me and his Spirit lead me in to the week and into the life to come.
Amen
Pete Greig. A Sabbath Blessing
The Thursday After 