Week Twenty-four of Ordinary time

by Noah McLaren

Every day we rise and get to work, making worth out of our lives, bringing food home for our families, setting our mark on the world around us. Every day we spend and expel and labor and give. Without the knowledge of God, that is all our lives would be. We would need to rest, but not know why.

In the words of Abraham Joshua Heschel, we are simply not ourselves without the Sabbath:

“Six days a week we wrestle with the world, wringing profit from the earth; on the Sabbath we especially care for the seed of eternity planted in the soul. The world has our hands, but our soul belongs to Someone Else.”

The Sabbath is a gift and a promise. Within this seventh day is a shred of paradise, a preview of the life God has imagined for us all when, one day, earth and heaven are one. That is the world we’re truly working for. 

This week, dwell in the promise that Sabbath is forever. 

Prayer:

 God, you planted a seed within my soul

 that yearns for the light of your face,

 and the water of your Spirit,

 and the soil of your Kingdom. 

I often treat it with neglect:

 working when I ought to be resting,

 moving when I ought to be waiting,

 speaking when I ought to be listening.

Teach me to be more still.

On this Sabbath day, let hope unfold within me

 like the blossom of a young tree

 which has but one goal: 

  to flourish forever in your gracious light.