The first scene in the first story in our holy book confronts our temptation to keep speeding up life. God creates life at a given pace. God speaks and the whole world comes into being (Genesis 1:1-2). It does not happen in a single instant – poof! Rather, creation takes six whole days to form. Each day is a deliberate effort with specific results, a particular taming of some kind of chaos. Each day ends with a poetic description of sunset and sunrise, “there was evening, and there was morning.” This creation story is patterned on God’s gift of time. The last day is no exception: it is a day of rest, and the specific result is the creation of the Sabbath. Perhaps the chaos tamed on the seventh day of creation, and every Sabbath since then, is our need for speed.
Take three deep, cleansing breaths. (Mother Theresa of Calcutta was once asked, “What do you say to God when you pray?” She replied, “I just listen.” “And what does God say?” She answered, “God just listens.”)
This message is excerpted from the Bible study “Sabbath keeping” by Liv Larson Andrews in the September 2015 Gather magazine. Today we commemorate Nikolai Frederik Severin Grundtvig, bishop, renewer of the church, 1872. Today is Labor Day in the United States.
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