Monday 4 June 2007

Today is another one of those texts that can help us all to live in the midst of hope even when there appears to be evidence that we can stake a claim in that wondrous life - from "Mandate to Difference"- Walter Brueggemann



Take sabbath rest by taking a break from our contradicted life of silenced coercion. A you tell the truth that breaks denial, so become a "hope-teller" that breaks the spell of despair. Do you imagine, as many do, that there is no way out of our moral morass, our ideological fantasies, our burden of a world mismanaged and irreversible? Do you imagine a church so preoccupied with ideological passion that it has no energy for mission and leaves you weary and without hope? Well, take a sabbath rest and become hope-teller, a poet of "assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." Take a sabbath from despair by the staggering truth that Christ is risen and that creation surges with the Easter power of new life that God is now giving.



Telling the truth demands that we begin to speak. We are invited to "break from our contradicted life of silenced coercion." That break happens when we step up and speak up. In some ways, it is like a sabbath rest. To speak up and witness to the truth rather than being coerced in the silence that kills is to step out of that silence and begin to be refreshed within a domain of hope and renewal. We take a rest from the work of the world when we take part in the life on the sabbath. Well, we also can take a rest from the world of silence that goes along with the ways and coercive powers of the world. We do not have to live as though we must pledge allegiance to any power that attempts to rule by coercions and fear. Sabbath rest from such a life means that we resist what is. The rest -within that resistance- is that we do not put up with its definition of life...we do not remain in the prisons of despair that is ruled by a story that does not allow us to imagine a different way or a new life. Sabbath rest, gives us the space to dream and imagine and hope...and then we are ready to live within our world with a voice. That voice comes because we have experienced an atmosphere of life in which we are not beaten down in an attempt to keep things as they are. Sabbath rest is the beginning of all hopefulness. I simply would say it happens because we give ourselves the time and space to let our minds wander and wonder without limits. Out of that expansive world of sabbath rest, the boxes in which we often live our lives begin to collapse because we have come to see that they are not necessary to keep our lives together.



Connection: I would say rest. No only that...dream. It would be my bet that if we would rest, we would dream. There is no work involved in such a time. We may regain some energy for living and find that we have a spark for life that we did not let ourselves see.



Lord of Life, as you ignite our lives by your Spirit, encourage us to stop and listen and feel the breeze of your Spirit. Guide us so that we may be moved by your Reign and step aside from the rushing lanes of a world trying to move ahead of itself. We long for the rest you promise and the hope that revives us - even now. Amen.