Sabbath Practice: When doing nothing is radical discipleship

I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed right now.  Okay, maybe more than a bit.  From several directions in several ways I’m staring at my screen thinking – what do I do with this???  How do I make this work???

So you know what I’m going to do with it?   Nothing.

I mean it, I’m. Doing. Nothing.

And by this I do not mean that I’m avoiding it.  I’m not procrastinating.  I’m not passing the buck.  I’m actually just not going to feed my anxiety and pretend that I can control the world around me.  So I’m going home to rest for half an hour before I pick up my son for his piano lesson.  And as I do this, I leave you these words that led me to this decision from the great prophet himself, Walter Brueggemann, in a reflection on the Sabbath commandment and the creation story that leads one of those Sabbath commandments to be about rest as God rested.

And then, it is reported as the culmination of the liturgical recital, God rested. God rested on the seventh day.  God did not show up to do more. God absented God’s self from the office. God did not come and check on creation in anxiety to be sure it was all working. God has complete confidence in the fruit-bearing, blessing-generating processes of creation that have been instituted. God exhibits no anxiety about the life-giving capacity of creation. God knows the world will hold, the plants will perform, and the birds and the fish and the beasts of the field will prosper.  Humankind will govern the earth in a generative way.  All will be well, and all manner of thing will be well!

 The message I hear? 

 God didn’t helicopter parent.  God didn’t micro-manage.  God didn’t play puppet-master.

 And this means that I shouldn’t either.  So this is me, leaving a bit early today.  Taking a deep breath.  And trusting that all will be well – or that I can’t just will it all better, and to think that this is my job alone (or in any kind of special way) is to presume more than even God is willing to take on.  (Yikes!)

 See you all tomorrow! 🙂

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