Online Worship 11-08-25

[Music] [Music] Welcome to worship today. I hope you can take a moment to pause right here right now.

Maybe your cup of coffee in hand.

uh turn off the notifications on your iPhone.

Uh maybe maybe go to a place in your home where you're not going to be distracted and take these minutes together as a breather, a sabbathing from all the production of the week.

Let us worship.

[Music] Time is filled with swift transition.

Not on earth unmoved can stand.

Build your hopes on things eternal.

Hold to God's unchanging hand.

Why don't you just hold to his hand?

God's unchanging hand.

Hold to his hand.

God's unchanging hand.

Build your hopes on things eternal.

Oh to God's unchanging hand.

Trust in him who will not leave you.

Whatsoever years may bring.

[Music] If my earthly friends forsake still more closely to him clean, why don't you just hold to his hand?

God's unchanging hand.

Hold to his hand.

God's unchanging hand.

Feel your hopes on things eternal.

Hold to God's unchanging hand.

Coit not this world's vain riches that are rapidly decay.

Seek to gain the heavenly treasures.

They will never pass away.

[Music] When your journey is completed, if to God you have been true.

All fair and right. Go home in glory.

You're in raptured soul of you.

Why don't you just hold to his hand?

God's unchanging hand.

Hold to his hand.

God's unchanging hand.

Build your hopes on things eternal.

Hold to God's unchanging hand.

Why don't you just hold to his hand?

God's unchanging hand. Oho to his hand.

God's unchanging hand. Oh, build build your hopes on things.

[Music] Oh, to God's unchanging hand.

Our scripture comes from Genesis chapter 2.

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.

>> It's a common refrain these days.

Well, a common refrain that I hear it's I'm tired, worn out.

I'm not feeling at my best.

We are living in in interesting days.

And and there are some reasons why I think there is this general exhaustion that so many of us feel. Oh, I I feel it too sometimes.

And there's a reason why then when we gather together as a community then we we express that sense. I'm glad we do.

In fact, that's one of the reasons why community is so desperately needed in these days.

But that sense of exhaustion, that sense of tiredness, that sense of of constant anxiety, it's it's coming at us probably for a variety of reasons. And one of them, I think, is because we're constantly on um with our phones and media and everything.

We we're constantly on constantly on edge, constantly being told the newest news. And and so, of course, our bodies are are tired.

And so, it got me thinking about what do we do in light of this tiredness that we are all feeling in these days?

Because often the question to the pastor is, well, what can I do, pastor? Or or or you have a a word of wisdom for that?

And there is a word of wisdom for that.

And not because pastor JC has any special knowledge or anything but but because the ancient story of faith understands that part of being human.

The part of being human that gets tired.

The part of being human that finds times of exhaustion, emotional despair, uh disorientation, this constant sleepiness that plagues us in difficult moments of life.

In fact, our story begins with a God that enters chaos and begins ordering the world.

Now, now you talk about a heavy lift here.

Uh these ancient storytellers imagine a god who who who out of God's own being is is laboring in this mess in this chaos and begins to bring order to the chaos for for for six days.

God is at this hard work, you know, hard work. um when you have a project at home or at work, you you know what it's like to give that labor that that part of yourself to it. And so in this ancient story, Godself is about that work, that labor and and and and and that labor is creative and it's beautiful.

It produces beautiful things just like you and I in our own labor can indeed produce beautiful things.

But then the story gives us something different which is that on the seventh day this God who's been at this creation and this ordering in the midst of the chaos now rests.

Divine love itself the reality of realities itself takes a breather.

It seems silly really when you read it.

Part of me wants to say, "What kind of God is this that gets tired?

You would think that this God would could go on and on forever." Like the Energizer Bunny, this this God could go on forever.

And yet that's not the picture of these early storytellers.

They imagined that this divine love needed to take a a break, rest, leisure, and then out of that sense of who this God is, oh, oh, and by the way, part of the order of creation is this restfulness. So, so out of who this God is, then they order their life based upon the way that this God works in the world. And so now, now part of their story is that part of their rhythm of life together is is a a daily, weekly quarterly yearly seasonal rhythm of labor. Beautiful labor.

Labor that produces. Labor that engages.

Labor that that benefits the common good. Yes.

And by the way, just laboring is another sermon alto together. But balancing that labor is Sabbath, rest, leisure connection community, and not just Sabbath as a day of worship, which certainly it includes that.

uh a a day of gathering together with other beings to to remember who we are and to to reorient our lives towards that reality.

Sure. But it's much more than that.

It it's a it's a moment where we cease to produce because see we're not at our core about what we produce.

And in our culture, there's a tendency to believe that that that that our our our sense of self is so connected to what we can produce, what we can so-called do.

There's a sense in our fast-paced economy that that unless you produce, then you're not good enough or or you're not even fully human.

and and and that that kind of way of thinking actually is quite detrimental to being human and and it's quite dehumanizing and and and we shouldn't fall for that even though we normally do in our in our kind of culture that we live in.

And so so this Sabbath, this this day of rest, this sense of rest begins to shape our imaginations into a different way of being in the world. What does it look like to order our lives differently than this go go all the time? What does it look like to order our lives in a way where we're not constantly connected to the outside world, constantly being told the latest heartbreak happening or or the latest war, the latest despair, or heck, the latest celebration that that constant connection, that constant being on creates all this anxiety and exhaustion that we feel.

We need sabbathing, moments of leisure, moments of connection, moments of community.

I don't know what that looks like for you.

Maybe it looks like a long walk on a beautiful day.

Or maybe it looks like sitting in a corner with a good book. Or maybe maybe maybe it's not even that complicated.

Uh maybe it's a simple thing.

Maybe maybe you binge watch a favorite show.

Or maybe you have a conversation with a friend you haven't had in a long time.

I don't know what that moment looks like for you, but but what I do know is that that moment is pivotal to our lives in God.

That that that we have to find a more balanced way of life. And and like the ancient storytellers in our text, we have to figure out rhythms of of our lives that have that in them. Daily rhythms that have that.

So, so sleeping is important.

Napping might be important. Um so daily rhythms, weekly rhythms. So, you know, we gather for worship on Sundays, but for many of our folks in today's economy, Sundays is not a day of rest, it's a day of work, right?

So, so finding weekly rhythms uh for that and then other rhythms throughout the year uh that that we can incorporate into our dayto-day lives to remind ourselves that we're not about production.

This also means that we must come alongside those that struggle to be able to Sabbath.

In other words, the way our economy works, so often people cannot take a Sabbath because they have to work.

Why do they have to work?

Because they have to earn a living.

Because they don't make enough, right? So, they end up working all the time. Uh many of our neighbors that surround us are working two and three jobs to be able to uh earn a living.

Uh we know that in our state it takes about 60 plus hours uh at minimum wage to be able to for one human being to afford rent, for example.

I mean that's a lot of labor that goes into basic survival in this world and and so so then then if if we have this holy imagination then we imagine that that sabbathing should not be a luxury for only for those that can afford it but sabbathing should be part of the way in which we create a world that flourishes for all people.

Uh Walter Bugamman, the Old Testament uh teacher and theologian calls it Sabbath resistance.

What does it look like for us to seize producing as a sign and symbol of resisting the powers that want to keep us constantly producing, constantly on edge, constantly exhausted.

So, it's not just about us finding the rhythms within our own lives, but it's also about us fighting with our fellow neighbors for a more just economic landscape for all human beings.

In the end, in this ancient story, it is that moment of rest that becomes fertile ground for the next cycle of creativity.

It is that uh that pattern of laying letting the the ground lay follow for a season that creates the nutrients needed in that ground so that the next harvest will be even more plentiful. It is that deep breath that you take that oxygenates your being so that you can go back to the work of laboring with neighbor towards a better world towards creation and community towards production that that brings about life uh to towards that kind of way of being in the world that that helps create art and music and beauty and joy and and and and it is it is in that sabbathing then that there is uh that there's the possibility and imagination for whatever it is that God has for us next.

I know that we're exhausted and that at times the more exhausted we are, the less imagination we can have for rest.

But my prayer for you in the days and weeks ahead is that we can help one another find a better rhythm in our daily lives, weekly lives, monthly lives, quarterly lives, yearly lives, but that also we can think together, have an imagination in our in our in our homes, uh in our workplaces, in our worshiping community for for the kind of Sabbath practices that open up possibility for our lives together.

the kind of practice that sustains that individual spiritual way but also that feeds a new imagination towards a world that desperately needs the creative power of Sabbath, the nutrientrich possibilities of Sabbath, the the forward phasing horizon thinking way of Sabbath towards a better, more fruitful and more connected world.

Good news for us, good news for the world.

Let us Sabbath together.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

Heat.

Heat.

[Music] I sing mighty power [Music] and build.

[Music] I see the praise of God.

[Music] I see the good faithful [Music] and good [Music] above the star.

It's not a glorious [Music] I pray that every [Music] so now we've worshiped together.

So often I think of worship as sort of a refueling station.

You come, you join in community and worship.

You're refueled to face the week ahead.

You're given uplift and inspiration. That's what I usually think about. But today was about Sabbath.

And so what I hope now in this week ahead in your life, you take time for rest.

We all need rest. Peace be with you.