Funeral Homily for Betty Huddleston

Funeral Homily for Betty Huddleston
Malloy and Sons
June 29, 2018

After meeting Betty Huddleston earlier this month and then, after learning of her death, speaking with friends and family, I have come to the conclusion that Betty was a saint.  I’ve always thought of a saint as someone through whom the light of God was able to shine through.

Betty was a devoted member of Grace Episcopal Church.  Parishioners who have been around for a while, the ones with what we call “high mileage,” tell me exactly where she sat mid-way down on the pulpit side.(Episcopalians tend to sit in the same spot in their church...I have no idea why this is so.  We’re funny this way.)  From Betty’s spot in the pew, she had a good view of the stained glass windows all around the church and especially of the resurrection window above the altar.  Historically, stained glass was used to help teach the stories of the Bible and to commemorate the saints at a time when worshipers were largely unable to read.  These windows are still a great teaching tool, but I think we appreciate them even more as inspiring, colorful works of art.  Yet, the windows would be of no value at all if the light did not shine through them.  This reminds me that the saints in their own way, were people who let the light of God shine through to others.

I spoke recently to Shirley Bridges who still volunteers at the Silk Purse where Betty had also volunteered.  She described Betty as a person who ways always doing something.  She was always supportive of everyone because of her general positive attitude.  She was the kind of person who saw a glass as half full rather than half empty.  Carolyn Clyburn described Betty more as a friend than an employee.  Betty was a hard worker for the House Company, but Carolyn most appreciated her as a confidant, as someone with whom she could seek and give advice and share stories of the youngsters in their respective families.  It shined through clearly that Betty valued family.

I understand that she and David, her husband and fishing buddy, had a house in Galveston on 34th Street….a place that Carolyn thought had belonged to Betty’s family in the previous generation.  Anyway, this house was the site of numerous family gatherings...various birthdays, 4th of July, and Christmas holidays were all celebrated with family getting together.  Betty’s daughter, Jacque, recounted Christmas as among her favorite times at this house.  Betty presided over a kitchen that turned out more food than you can imagine.  Turkey, dressing, and other traditional dishes and every kind of dessert.  Betty made sure to take lots of photos on those occasions.  Jacque told me family members sometimes worried that anyone who saw those images would think all they did was eat!  Betty showed her love by serving others.  She would be the last to eat.  She relished the role of handing out the presents at the Christmas.  When all is said and done, we know that Betty valued family and delighted in the way various traditions regularly brought everyone together under one roof.

The final word at the funeral of a Christian must always be the resurrection.  Jesus promised eternal life to those who put their trust in him...and his promise was underscored as he overcame death and the grave.  He proved to his disciples that he was not a ghost, or a dream, or a figment of the imagination.  Jesus friends saw the resurrected Jesus with their own eyes and refused to deny it even when their lives were threatened because of it.  Betty lived her life in a way that proclaimed this faith, and she passed this faith on to her children.  Even as her life was threatened by cancer, she kept a twinkle in her eye and a steadfast faith.  She showed that joy was not something just for the hereafter, but a way to live your life in the here and now.  Her children, Jacque and David, fully expect to see Betty on the other side when that time comes.  The way Betty lived her life is an invitation to all of us to choose this faith.  

If being a saint means letting God's light shine through you, ...then Betty was a saint to those who knew her! AMEN. 

Proper 7, Year B 2018

Grace Episcopal Church, Galveston
Gospel:  Mark 4:35-41
24 June 2018

"The Storm on the Sea of Galilee"
Painting by Rembrandt (1633)

There was a time when the sea was the final frontier, the boundary beyond which was wilderness and danger.  Our spiritual ancestors passed on the belief that God is with us even when we must cross the threshold beyond civilization.  There is no place where we might go (or be taken) where God cannot hear us. Our loving God remains with us even as we traverse the “uncharted waters” of life. 

Today's reading from the Book of Job includes a reference to God’s creation of the sea.  The appointed psalm mentions the sailors whose work involved crossing this dangerous frontier.  Repeatedly riding-out storms on the sea taught these hardy folks to place their trust in God.  In our Gospel reading, the disciples are crossing the sea in the midst of a windstorm.  Their teacher is asleep on a cushion.  Driven by fear, they wake Jesus and cry out to him.  Much to his disciples’ amazement, the storm is calmed as Jesus gives direct instruction to the winds to stop blowing.  The danger passes, but then the disciples are left wondering about their teacher and friend, and what it could mean that even the wind and the sea obey him.

The book of Job is a story about a person of faith who encounters unimaginable tragedy.   As the book begins, Job is a person of wealth and means; a person of faith who gives thanks to God for the blessings of family and abundance.  But then the winds of fortune change as Job enters the uncharted waters of one loss after the other.  He loses his wealth, his children, and eventually even his health.  Job and his well-meaning friends all try to make sense of this loss but no one seems to be able to explain why bad things happen to such a good person.  Job believes he has been unjustly punished and cries out to God for answers.

Our reading picks up with the divine response to Job.  The Lord indicates that Job is asking for something beyond human comprehension; no wisdom is given that will enable Job, or us, to wrap our finite heads around evil.  Some things just do not make sense.  

Do you recall Descartes’ famous statement proving his existence? “I think therefore, I am.”  Madeleine L'Engle, speaking at a conference at Kanuga, once describe a postcard showing a man in 17th Century clothing walking in front of his horse leading it with reins in hand.  The caption below the image read...."Putting Descartes Before the Horse." Get it?  So there you have some mental "Velcro" to help you remember that you heard René Descartes quoted in this sermon!

At the same conference, L'Engle said, “René Descartes wrote ‘I think, therefore I am,’ and in writing this, he set back Christian spirituality by 500 years.”  Now, Episcopalians have high regard for human reason, and I often extol this in sermons.  But we should not forget reason is held as an authority only alongside scripture and tradition.  Reason itself must have checks and balances.  L’Engle was saying our spirituality is diminished when we think that we can with our own minds understand all things both in heaven and earth.  Perhaps, she had made this point indirectly many years earlier by imagining a disembodied brain as the antagonist in her novel “A Wrinkle in Time.”  Spirituality is about wholeness, mind, body, and spirit.  Sometimes our drive to make sense out of life can distort reality.  This is especially so when it comes to Job’s question of why good and bad things happen to people.  

On some level I tend to think Layne has this uncanny ability, rain or shine, to score a great parking space at the Kroger.  Now, when I drive to the grocery, on the other hand, I feel I’m always trolling for a spot up and down the rows of vehicles.  When Layne pulls into her usual super convenient parking spot, I often say out loud, “You are living right!”  Yes, I’m joking but the sentiment that belies this humor pervades our culture.  When something very good or very bad happens to someone, our brains want it to make sense.  We do not want to live in chaos, so we work it out that the unfortunate must be getting what they deserve. It is as if these thoughts get served-up right from the deep unconscious part of our psyche.  Yet, experience shows that the rain falls on the just and the unjust alike.

The image of the boat traversing the waters with Jesus and the disciples is also an image of the Church.  One thing I’ve learned from the Gospel According to Mark, is that Jesus is a teacher.  His lessons are parables of word and of action.  So today, Jesus calms the storm in order to teach his disciples including us.  He did not establish his Church as a weather-control ministry nor leave instructions for his disciples to rebuke tornados.  Jesus was showing first that the Church must traverse unknown territory. In each generation, we must figure out how to communicate the Love of God in new and changing circumstances.  Secondly, Jesus was revealing his identity as one with God.  Like the Creator in Job setting limits on the sea, Jesus is able to command the winds to stop.  And thirdly, Jesus shows that he is with us in life’s storms.  As a weaker fourth point, I did consider adding something about the power of a "cat nap"...it’s not just for Gracie and Molly (Grace Episcopal Church’s resident felines).  That might be a stretch….oh well, why not?  Jesus modeled "cat naps"...that's my fourth point!

Jesus heard the disciples’ prayers even when the words sounded a lot more like alarm and anxiety...these aren’t the types of prayer you learn in Confirmation class...but they are authentic and from the heart....no one has to teach these words.  When we are scared sometimes we lash out at God, and yet we are still received with compassion.  God did not answer Job’s question the way he wanted….but the story makes crystal clear that God walks with those who suffer.  Jesus gave no explanation of the storm, but we know he did nothing to deserve one and neither has anyone else.  AMEN.

Proper 6, Year B 2018

Grace Episcopal Church, Galveston
Gospel:  Mark 4:26-34
17 June 2018

Thanks to current events, I need to preface my sermon with an unprecedented advertisement for our Bible 101 class. The Attorney General of the United States recently quoted from scripture to suggest that God supports the hard-line way the Department of Justice is prosecuting illegal immigrants including separating children from their parents.  The way Jeff Sessions used a reference to the 13th Chapter of Romans is known as proof texting.  This taking a portion of scripture out of context is a misuse of the Bible and may lead to conclusions that are not supported by a more disciplined study.  I’m not focusing today’s sermon on this issue but will defer this to our Bible 101 class, where we will forgo what had been planned in order to take a look at Paul’s words in Romans, Chapter 13.  Bible 101 meets in the Quin Hall Parlor about 20 minutes after the conclusion of worship.  OK, on to the sermon….

*******

My father, William A. Dearman, Jr.,
smiles at the 9 year old me in 1969.

Today is Fathers’ Day.  It is a time to recognize, remember, and give thanks for our own fathers...those whom we love who have already crossed from this life to the next as well as those whom we love who as yet share with us this mortal life.  This is also an appropriate time to think about the role of being a dad. 

Now that I’m the parent of 3 adults, my role for them is typically that of a prayerful observer and occasional consultant.  As time has advanced, I am more aware that my children have given me much more than I could ever hope to give them.  It was hard to see this in the soup of everyday life with young children.  With my own father, I have thought of times when he was angry and I felt shame in the wake of some way I had annoyed or disappointed him.  As the years have gone by, though, my memories tend more to show me how much I was loved.  There was no mistaking the expression of joy, the way my father’s face would light-up, when he would see me after a trip or a visit away from home.  Being a parent has peaks and valleys.  Having had my turn at the role of raising children, I now approach the memories of my own father with more compassion and understanding, and this, I think, has led to more positive memories for me to enjoy.

Once when I was preparing to lead a parenting class, our daughter, Charlotte, who was a student at A&M at the time, happened to be home on break.  Being an experienced parent and freshly informed by a week-long conference with Brené Brown, I thought I was just about near-expert on how to be a “super-parent.”  As it turns out, one of my children would help disabuse me of that over-estimation.  Over dinner, Layne and I asked Charlotte something we had never asked any of our children before: “Thinking about us as your parents, how did we do in that role?  Is there anything, you wish we had done differently?”  Now, to be honest, I thought she would need to think about this some... you know, struggle with trying to think of something or even suggesting that she would need to get back to us on that one.  Instead, her immediate response was: “Do you just want me to hit the high points, or do we have time for me to go into each point in detail.” Ouch!

One of the memories she shared was from when she was in 4th Grade.  Let’s call it the “milk jug mishap.”  Layne was out of town, and I had just returned from the store with a car full of groceries.  Our 3 kids mobilized as “all hands on deck” when it was time to put away groceries.  The cold things needed to be put away first, so Charlotte grabbed the milk jug.  Turning toward the fridge, she overcompensated for the weight of the gallon container bumping it hard against the hard corner of the kitchen countertop.  She lost her footing and the full gallon fell spilling the contents all over the kitchen floor and under the cabinets as well as splashing upwards onto the cabinet doors.  I wasted no time directing Charlotte to clean up the mess.  By my calculation, this was her problem to deal with.  After all the intervening years, I think what she remembered most readily was the sense of being ashamed.  Every time we revisited that story in humor, the memory was no fun for her.  If I could go back and have a “do-over,” I would have stressed that we all have accidents, given her a hug, and helped alongside her with the clean-up.  That’s the better way to parent.  We should be careful to avoid shaming our children; guilt, which is not the same as shame, can be appropriate and helpful in our development, but not shame.  Guilt says “I made a mistake;” shame says “I am a mistake.”

In our Gospel reading Jesus offers parables for the Kingdom of God which apply to parenting and every other endeavor of discipleship.  Jesus reminds us that planted wheat takes time to grow.  There are stages to go through long before the time to harvest.  Likewise, Jesus compares God’s work to a mustard seed.  The seed is just a beginning.  It's so small as to seem insignificant.  This is a powerful reminder for all of us that our hope is based not on the results that happen to manifest in this moment, but rather, our hope is based on God’s love.  In this moment, the Love of God is like yeast hidden in the dough.  It has the power to change the nature of the entire thing, but at first it’s hard to tell just by looking at it.

Charlotte asked me to tell you that she was 20 years old and in full “adolescent mode” when she gave her evaluation that day including the milk jug mishap.  To her it is no longer such a big deal….literally, there is no use fretting over spilled...well, you know.  Now, 5 years later, she has earned a degree in forensic science, completed the police academy, and serves as a patrol officer.  She is a self-confident, faithful young woman of whom her parents could not be more proud.  Layne and I were not perfect parents, but we managed to instil a sense of worth in our children despite not always responding to them in the best way.  I learned that parenting does not stop when our children leave the nest.  Conversations with our adult children can provide the opportunity for reflection and for the healing of long-buried wounds.  Love allows parent and adult children to experience genuine friendship.

Christian discipleship is a journey.  We have not arrived at the promised land, and we don’t know how long it will be.  We make mistake after mistake; we spill milk; we show impatience and act in self-centered and fearful ways, sometimes even toward our own children.  It does not always seem like Love is winning in this world.  But even though often it does not seem like it, the Love of God is, nevertheless, inexorable.  There is grace in parenting as there is grace in living as a whole.  Love turns everything upside down; it takes our failures and turns them into opportunities for reconciliation, growth, and better understanding.

In life, we are faced with a cosmic choice...over and over we run into the same paradigm, the same dichotomy, the same duality...it is the choice between Love and fear.  The Kingdom of God is about Love...it is about everything old having passed away and in place of the old, there being something like a new creation.  The world tries to convince us that there is nothing new, that scarcity is and always has been knocking at our door; life is a zero-sum game in which other people must lose in order for us to win.  The world tries to capitalize on our fear encouraging us to “circle our wagons” and project evil onto the innocent.  Fear can even justify acts of cruelty out of a distorted view that the ends justify the means.  As an educator I know... fear makes you stupid!  But, the Kingdom of God seeks to capitalize on Love urging us to share from our abundance and always to balance justice with compassion.  With Love there is no us and them; there is only one Earth and one family of God.  I know it is a lot easier to hold this ideal than it is to figure out how to live by it. The Gospel tells us that Jesus explained everything in private to his disciples.  I imagine him saying to them, “When it comes to the rule of Love, do not be overly anxious about trying and failing...the important thing is not to fail even to try.”  AMEN  

    

Proper 5, Year B 2018

Grace Episcopal Church, Galveston
Gospel:  Mark 3:20-35
10 June 2018

Unless you had insanely overprotective parents, you probably learned early on that actions have consequences.  Some of you, like me, can recall childhood experiences when you did something that “put you in a pickle,” so to speak.  


One such memory, for me, was about this time of year when I was 10 or 11 years old.  School was just out, and I was worried about being bored.  “Back in the day,” grocery stores ubiquitously handed out a little something extra with your change at the check-out.  I’m talking about stamps, “S&H Green Stamps” at some stores and “Top Value Yellow Stamps” at others.  The grocery near our neighborhood gave out the yellow ones.  My parents had saved these stamps in a large paper grocery sack which by summer’s start was brimming full of the colorful, glue-backed tickets.  I had the idea that a good project for me would be to go about the work of pasting the stamps into the booklets provided by the grocery.  The stamps had to be moistened, one-by-one, and affixed to each page in the prescribed way.  The completed books could then be taken to a (now, here’s religious language for you) “redemption center” and exchanged for valuable prizes.  I figured that, in exchange for this constructive behavior, I should be allowed to redeem the stamps for something I wanted.  My mother jumped on the idea.  My parents both worked long hours 7 days a week at the nearby pharmacy they owned, leaving me with a lot of unsupervised time.  With this project I could be constructively occupied for a few days and be rewarded for some tedious work.  (I still remember the nasty taste of the glue.  It took me a book or 2 to realize that wetting the stamps with a damp sponge was the way to go.)  Of course, my mother was thinking that I would, in the end, exchange the stamps for something wholesomely age appropriate.  As it turned out, she was wrong about that.

Being a resourceful chap, I scored my own ride to the redemption center with my stack of stamp books. I perused the in-store catalog with wonder.  In the end what called out to me from the shelves to be released from bondage was a butane blow torch.  The torch came in a blue metal box with a latch.  I think I was attracted to the power of the idea of a tight metal flame.  Perhaps I would start by cutting a small hole in some corner of our driveway.  The unit came with instructions….but as I said at the beginning, I was 10 or 11; the way to make this thing work seemed obvious enough to me.  Anyhoo, I took the brass nozzle with knob and screwed it onto the blue butane tank.  Then I turned the knob which produced a slight hissing sound.  Conveniently a striker was included in the box, so I made it spark over the nozzle.

That’s when it all went downhill.  Instead of the tight flame in my imagination, there was a billowing flame.  It scared me so, that I dropped the torch in the grass and ran to hide behind the corner of the house.  I watched for a moment as flame billowed from the torch.  I began to wonder that, if the thing exploded, it might take out some of the house with it.  I imagined that I would be in a great deal of trouble with my parents.  In the moment that fear of my parents’ wrath outweighed fear of injury, I ran to the torch, kicked it with my foot so the knob was up and turned the thing off.  Somehow, the knob was not too hot...otherwise, the story might have had a very different ending.  I confessed to my parents that evening.  As I recall, my father started taking me with him to the drug store in the mornings.  I never saw the blowtorch again. So, learn the lesson of the blowtorch: it is possible for anyone (young or old) to suffer from the consequences of his or her own dumb decisions.

Both the story from Genesis and the story from the Gospel According to Mark are about consequences.  In Genesis, we hear how, from the beginning, human beings misused free will.  We chose to be disobedient to God’s will.  The result was alienation from God, from each other, and from self.

In Mark, we start seeing that Jesus has a difficult relationship with his own family.  They think something is wrong with him.  He’s “one taco short of a combo,” so to speak.  They seek to restrain him because he’s crazy.  As far as Mark knows, the consequence for this is that Jesus took leave of his family focussing instead on the greater family of God...a new family, now related by faith, who could be restored to wholeness and forgiven for Adam’s sin.  Thankfully, we know from tradition that Jesus’ human family members were part of the early Jesus movement too.  In John, Mary the mother of Jesus follows Jesus to the foot of the cross where Jesus places her in the care of the Beloved Disciple.  In the Acts of the Apostles, we see that James, the brother of Jesus, becomes one of the early leaders in the Church at Jerusalem.  A fruit of the Spirit is reconciliation among believers...even among those who at first thought Jesus was a “nutcase.”

We also see that Jesus’ relations were strained with religious intellectuals from Jerusalem.  The scribes thought Jesus was a liar.  Instead of manifesting the power of the God of history, he was, in their thinking, wielding the power of the Adversary of Scripture.  Jesus used a parable to show that believing he was using the power of the Adversary to defeat the Adversary was illogical.

I end this sermon with advice I was always sure to give the kiddos who took my Bible classes.  This advice is from C.S. Lewis’ book, Mere Christianity (Chapter 3).  Lewis states that, logically speaking, Jesus words and actions leave us only 3 choices that make sense regarding the truth of who Jesus is.  As someone who claimed to forgive sins, for example, Jesus was either 1) a liar (he deliberately misled others), 2) a lunatic (he might as well have announced himself to be a poached egg), or 3) the Lord of Life.  I advised my students to remember these choices, because one day (perhaps when they would be in college) someone would tempt them into bypassing these 3 choices.  The argument would be that Jesus was a good man who had great advice for living our lives but certainly not the manifestation of God.  The problem is that Jesus forgave sins...his actions and words repeatedly presented himself as God.  In all of life, including (and especially) religion, wholeness requires that we not check our brains at the door.  Logic does not allow us to pick and choose from Jesus’ words and actions to construct our own private “sanitized” Jesus with no pesky stuff that might lead to questions of his sanity or his character.  Our view of Jesus must take the “whole enchilada” if we want to maintain intellectual integrity.

There we are; the choice before us is "Lord, Liar, or Lunatic."  May our Savior mercifully guide us to choose wisely and accept the love of God into our lives anew each day!  And most importantly, may the Spirit grant us the humility to trust that our salvation is ultimately not a function of our own doing like some kind of reward for good behavior.  It is so easy to stop at the idea of behavior and consequence because life in this world teaches us that lesson.  In that scenario, we are all toast.  The Good News is God's love.  To roughly quote William Langland, as I often do, our misdeeds are to the Love of God, nothing more than a live coal thrown into the sea. Being in the family of God is pure gift...what's that word that we all know so well.....ah, God's love is simply Grace!  AMEN.

Proper 4, Year B 2018

Grace Episcopal Church, Galveston
Gospel:  Mark 2:23 - 3:6
3 June 2018

One of the Seraphim with face
uncovered from the Hagia Sophia
(Holy Wisdom) Basilica, Istanbul

The most awe inspiring building I have ever entered is the Hagia Sophia in the historic Old Quarter of Istanbul.  Translated Holy Wisdom, this great basilica church was built in the Byzantine capital of Constantinople in the 6th Century during the reign of Justinian.  After the city was captured by the Ottoman Turks in the 15th Century, the building was re-purposed as a mosque and all signs of Christianity, including works of art, were removed or covered-over.  Islam was rather high on the iconoclast spectrum, so religious art in the mosque was limited to geometric patterns and calligraphic writing. The building was eventually secularized and opened as a museum in 1931.  Today, some of the art from its Christian past has been uncovered and restored including one of the faces of the seraphim which had adorned each of four main arches.  I would be remiss in failing to mention that Christianity has had iconoclastic periods too.  The original Hagia Sophia was built during a time when representational art was considered suspect by the Church.  After all, one of the 10 Commandments prohibited the making of such images.  But, the thinking of the Church changed and the building was eventually adorned with images of Christ and with creatures from heaven and earth.

Representational art became suspect again in the 16th Century Protestant Reformation.  The Bible, literally translated, forbids the making of images of living things in heaven or earth.  But, for many Christians, including Anglicans, the Council of Nicaea in 787 had settled the issue in favor of religious art.  If God became incarnate in Jesus, a real human figure, then representations of human beings in worship spaces were from that time onwards surely acceptable to God.

The main theme in our appointed readings is another of the 10 Commandments, the direction to “Observe the Sabbath day and keep it holy.”  Like the prohibition regarding images, this commandment seems to be largely bypassed by modern Christians.  But, let us remember that authority in our church rests on Scripture, Tradition, and Reason...the so-called “three-legged stool” of Anglican theology.  If something is stated in Scripture, which we hold to be divinely inspired, we must not simply bypass what we disagree with or find inconvenient, but should look at it through the lens of tradition (i.e., ask how have those who have come before us wrestled with this?) and through the lens of reason (i.e., ask what makes sense as I try to apply this scripture to my everyday life?).

Taken literally, the ancient Sabbath Commandment means a restriction from work on Saturday, the day when God rested from the work of Creation. Some Christians, as do Orthodox Jews, do their best to follow this restriction literally.  The very conscientious, just to give 2 examples, do not start cars or switch-on lights during the Sabbath.  In the Gospel reading for today, Jesus encountered some Pharisees who objected to healing on the Sabbath because that was considered work.  In case you’ve wondered if Jesus ever became angry, now you know.  He was quite off-put by the Pharisees’ choice of rules over compassion.  I am reminded of a story told by Holly, an Episcopalian friend, about a date she had in her college days.  She and her date went to see a movie.  This was not a problem for her date, whose tradition strictly adhered to the Sabbath, because they opted for a Friday matinee.  On the way home, they were delayed by traffic, and as luck would have it, the car suffered a flat tire.  She managed to pull over.  Holly looked at him and there was silence.  Then, he said to Holly that the sun had gone down...he would not be able to help with changing the tire.  She managed to get the lug nuts loosened and the jack placed.  She wrestled the spare tire out of the trunk covering her blouse in grime.  She was fit to be tied.  They did not go out again after that.  

Most Episcopalians do not observe the Sabbath in a strict literal sense.  But, since we take the Bible seriously, we must still wrestle with how to apply this commandment in our lives. Jesus said that the Sabbath was made for human beings.  It is something that is supposed to be life-giving and helpful.  The idea that our spiritual ancestors were directed to take one day of the week to refrain from all work reminds me of the importance of life-balance.  A fully-lived life is more than our work, it is more than how productive we can be, it is more than how much money we can make.  A fully-lived life is about wholeness.  

If we take seriously both the Sabbath and Jesus’ willingness to break that law in service to others, then we must use reason to figure out how to apply Sabbath.  In order to be a disciple, there is no getting around having to think about what we’re doing.  If we mindlessly devote every moment of our lives to some form of survival, then we will squeeze-out all down time, all fun, all reflection, all worship, all thanksgiving, all compassion.  In short, we become something less than whole.

In this long Season After Pentecost, the themes will be about the Christian Life.  We are reminded today that Jesus intends for us to take some time for worship, for prayer, and for being still before God...something that you can’t do when you’re on the clock, checking Facebook, or otherwise engaged in non-stop busy-ness.  We are also reminded today that Jesus intends for us to devote time to self-care.  The idea of Sabbath was something that was given to help with our wholeness.  Think about the things we might do for self-care: drinking enough water, watching what we eat, getting enough exercise, staying mindful, having enough rest, being creative and playful, keeping a list for that which we are thankful ...I could go on, but you get the idea.  Such is the stuff that brings us Sabbath wholeness.

The emergency instructions given on every air flight remind people of the drill when cabin pressure is lost and the oxygen masks deploy.  If you are travelling with children, put on your own mask first!  If you don’t do that you run the risk of not being able to help those you love.  This is a good analogy for figuring out how to have Sabbath in your life.  The Jesus of the Gospels modeled self-care.  He attended worship in synagogues, he encouraged his disciples to take some time just for themselves to talk and pray, he showed that there would be times when rules conflicted with compassion...and in such times, he showed them to choose compassion.  Sabbath is about showing compassion for yourself in order to enjoy life, to find wholeness, and in so doing, to become equipped to be compassionate toward others.  So, today’s take home question is…. “What’s in your Sabbath?” AMEN.