| | | | Adventures... in Hope - Redeemer Devotions | | | | | | | Like a week comes to an abrupt end, so too does creation - and it ends in rest. Again from "Mandate to Difference." What a piece of literary architecture, that Exodus 25-31 imagines and construes a safe, ordered place where the holiness of God can touch down without pollution or disturbance. Except that at the last moment, in the seventh speech, the promise of space, in characteristic Jewish fashion, is converted to a safe, ordered time for rehabilitation. In this regard, the tabernacle-to-sabbath sequence is exactly parallel to Genesis 1 that ponders fruitful space for six days and at the last moment turns to holy time. What is holy time? It is the realm of peace. It is the day in which the fullness of God is available without restriction - therefore it is a time of complete rest. All the work and all the planning and all the action and all the creation of that which is new and springing forth as though it is truly the gift that it is, is now at its end - for now. Rest comes - breath comes - memories hold us deep within the promises of our God - the sabbath rest (that "cathedral in time") is where we can wander and wonder and prayerfully consider the gift of life that is handed to us all. Where is this day to be honored? I suppose without limit. And yet it must have some intention about it. Even if it is in the middle of the work within time that so often buries us with worry and agendas. For even there, we must be a people who enter the rest that can be presented to us at any moment. I find that at times, this time of rest sits down right alongside me and just stares at me and waits for me to notice what is not yet a part of my life. It is not a condemning presence. It is a loving presence that seeks to keep me well and bring about refreshment. It takes discipline to respect those moments when the world is asking us to press on. Connection: Are you able to enter that rest - that gift - even when your sense that your are being carried away by the day? Your touch, O God, nurtures us and guides us and reminds us that we are your beloved children. In the face of all that must be done you continue to whisper a word of peace and well-being so that we will remember that you love us into restfulness. Amen. |
| | | | Adventures... in Hope - Redeemer Devotions | | | | | | | Today, Brueggemann gives some insight on how to consider this notion of our nephesh. For this day ponder you nephesh in its wholeness, its complexity, its social location, and imagine the voices and tasks that deplete and the voices and tasks that restore. And rest! If you need a guide for nephesh pondering, try Psalm 35: - say to my soul, "I am your salvation" vs.3
- then my soul shall rejoice in the Lord, exulting in his deliverance. All my bones shall say, "O Lord, who is like you? You deliver the weak from those too strong for them, the weak and needy from those who despoil them" vss 9-10
- How long, O Lord, will you look on? Rescue me from their ravages, my life from the lions! vs. 17
(read life/soul as nephesh) There are never-ending ways to rest when such words are handed to us. There is the God - our God - who brings rest and who makes promises and is the eternal keeper of promises no matter what the day holds for us. This is how we begin to rest. This is how we take the time to step back and rest or step back and watch the unfolding joy of God's Reign take place all around us. When we become so tied up and tied down to the events of the day we do not give time and space to rest and openness to the way God can and does surprise us with life that will take us beyond our limits and into a reality that come into simply through being re-nepheshed. Connection: When you hear those words: "I am your salvation" and you know that it is a word of promise that shakes all creation with the one truthfulness that cannot be ripped from us, what does it do to your heart? With the whole church and all creation, we pray that it will bring us rest and peace. Come, Lord of the Wind and God of Creation. Come and lift us up to see your promises even when we are being consumed by the events around us. Amen. |
| | | | Adventures... in Hope - Redeemer Devotions | | | | | | | Let's continue with this notion of being re-nepheshed - from Mandate to Difference by Walter Brueggemann. ....sabbath is about recovered nephesh, and nephesh is not a "religious idea," no "soul," but self in all of its complex social existence. That is why I entitled this presentation, "You Cannot Fool Your Nephesh." We say often, "You cannot fool your body." Of course not, but the nephesh more so, for nephesh is that intertwined complexity of all things, spiritual, moral, mental, bodily, and material, the whole self, the true self. And it will not be lied to. There are limits because we are in the image of the God who is limited to six days of energy. We are often depleted like God and just like the ox and just like the donkey and just like a slave and just like and immigrant, we must pause. Pushed beyond that limit, the nephesh evaporates and creation fails. And so we must pause. I suppose we could say that we are not fully human unless we rest. It is there that the creativity of our humanity is renewed and ready to be a part of every day. Without rest - without the time for refreshment - do we let ourselves look up to the beauty of the sky and the image of God in the faces of those around us? I often write of taking a breath and letting that be the beginning of seeing thing new and even uncovering the joy that is always right alongside or even in front of us. That breath is just a taste of what comes with rest that persists and interrupts everything we think we must do our finish or attain. This refreshment is something that comes more readily when we have others who remind us of the gift that is ours. For me, "remind" is a more graceful action than a list of regulations that are meant to put shape to the time of refreshment that is able to bring us into full life. I need you to remind me of the gift of sabbath rest. If you attempt to push me into rest, my mind never rests. I enjoy invitation and I think I respond best to that. This may even mean that this rest or refreshment may be something utterly spontaneous - but greatly needed. Such rest may teach me what more rest is able to bring to life. Connection: Are you able to noticed that you are depleted? I mean this as a question directed to each week - not the whole year. If so, how and when are you refreshed? Living water of life, you refresh us by our word of promise and your participation in all of creation and by leading us into the pathway of refreshment that opens us to new life again and again. Tickle us with your promises that we will look up and find time to stop all that we attempt to do and let your gift of life come together in all its fullness. Amen. |
| | | | Adventures... in Hope - Redeemer Devotions | | | | | | | In Exodus 25-31 God speaks to Moses seven time (instructions about holy place and holy ordination). Some say it is a play on the creation of Genesis 1. Brueggemann picks up on the seventh speech - holy time. Again, in "Mandate to Difference" by Walter Brueggemann. This seventh speech culminates with references to the divine sabbath: "it is a sign forever between me and the people of Israel that in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested." (Exodus 31:17) And then in a quirky conclusion, the text adds, no longer remembering that it is cast as God's own speech, "and was refreshed." This is a stunning theological statement! The Hebrews uses the term nephesh, which occurs often in the Old Testament as a noun meaning "self" and often rendered as "soul," as in "bless the Lord O my soul." But here the term nephesh is a verb in the reflexive niphal; YHWH "was nepheshed." .... Sabbath is a time for being re-nepheshed, for recovery of full self by withdrawal from all that drains and exhausts and depletes. And so for God. Because of God's own life and God's own time and God's own experience, God has ordered, in the very fabric of creation, that there are limits to the demands and expectations that are to be placed on our naphshim. God is refreshed. This is fresh for life. Fresh to be again the one who creates. That is also for us. That we be a people whose acknowledge that our lives can and will be drained of our life essence. Rest is the same as "was refreshed." Makes me wonder how God is within this time of refreshment. Then again, that is my need to figure that out. I also think it is quite odd that we humans think we must define and legislate every second of this day of rest. Are we afraid to rest without rules that really allow for the fullness of rest. Can you imagine God piling on rules for how he can rest or what would be the best way to rest or what cannot take place within the domain of restfulness? Can it be enough that we know that God was refreshed and we are invited into that experience of refreshment. It must be enough to know that God rested. It must be enough that we are trusted to rest also. Otherwise, would God rest?!?! And yet, we all know that we do not rest well (this is me speaking to me here). So instead of mandates that can fill pages and pages of notes on how to rest, we are simply told to rest. It is the way of our creative God - rest. How? Rest. Connection: Sometimes I find it strange that I am in the middle of restfulness even when it is not a designated time to rest (and vice versa). So is it good for us to let those times expand and be noticed and appreciated in order that we can be refreshed. I suppose being people of little discipline - setting aside a day and time to make us rest is good. But to have to make that day another list of things to do and follow seems out of character for the day. Come, O God of Refreshment, Come and help us rest in you alone. Amen. |
| | | | Adventures... in Hope - Redeemer Devotions | | | | | | | We ended last week with the reminder that God rested. Today we pick up with that thought. Again, in "Mandate to Difference" by Walter Brueggemann. This God rests! this God so rests that Israel in its poetic imagination can entertain the thought of YHWH's dormancy. Indeed Israel can issue a wake-up call to God: "Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the Lord! Awake, as in days of old, the generation of long ago! Was it not you who cut Rahab in pieces, who pierced the dragon? (Isa. 51:9) The summons in Isaiah 51 is to the creator God, the one who had in ancient times dealt with evil sea monsters. God rests because the world will work, because the tasks of creation have been delegated, and because creation, blessed as it is, knows the will and energy of the Creator and does not need constant attention. God rests, because God engages in self-care and because there came a silence over heaven and earth and the radishes said to the porcupines, "Shhh - be quite because 'Himself' is resting, and we must tiptoe until Sunday morning when we will arise after rest to new life." The rest of the Creator causes serenity in creation. The creatures, like the Creator, are competent and trusting and unhasting. the world works and all is well. So, rest - the world will work. Even when there is so much we are handed as caretakers of creation - it will work. Rest is an essential part of all life. God rests as we are trusted to be a part of the ongoing generativity of creation. As we all know, we don't seem to take the caretaker role very seriously. Too often we have let ourselves think that "it will work" means that we don't have to keep our eyes on things. When we do that, we are most likely to take even the little gifts of creation for granted and forget about how we must seek the well-being of all things. God rests as God trusts what will be done by all of us as we enter into the role we have been given. Our resting reminds us what God has put into action before us. Our resting reminds us that we cannot control the working of the world no matter how we work. In fact, it seems like the more we try to get done in our world, the more we seem to take advantage of creation and forget about keep things in good condition. Getting things done often leads to putting our task as stewards on the shelf and going forward as we please. Connection: We are competent and trusting and unhasting - good reason to take our resting and our working as stewards seriously. Creating God, as you rest you hand us the day and consider us to be the overseers of the creative process that continues to unfold around us. Within such a blessing you have once again called us your own and we ask that you encourage this life of faithfulness. Amen. |
| | | | Adventures... in Hope - Redeemer Devotions | | | | | | | From the story of creation, here is an interesting look at the Creator - again this is from the chapter, "You Cannot Fool Your Nephesh" in his book "Mandate to Difference." And God rested! God had done enough. god was tired. It was the weariness of a kingly ruler who had spent a week issuing orders and edicts. It is a weariness of a caregiver who has been using energy to infuse creation with the energy of life. The fatigue of God is replicated by Jesus in the narrative of the woman who has hemorrhaged for twelve years: "Immediately aware that power had gone forth from him, Jesus turned about in the crowd and said, 'Who touched my clothes?' And his disciples said to him, 'You see the crowd pressing in on you; how can you say, 'Who touched me?' He looked all around to see who had done it. But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling, fell down before him, and told him the whole truth." (Mark 5:30-33) Being a healer is costly to the one who heals. Being a creator is costly in the extension of blessing. Being a caregiver is costly, as every caregiver notices, because it entails the transmission of the self to the other. In a conversation yesterday, a woman told me about the the healing that she experiences as being a healer. Though we hear of this energy going out from God at creation and Jesus with this woman, what if there is energy that simply envelopes everyone. This does not mean there is no need to rest, rather it is a reminder that healing involves the energy of the community. Healing makes itself known on all who stand within the action of healing and making things new. It is too easy to feel the presence of destruction and brutality and despair. This is the way the world is too much of the time. I think we get used to it so that we do not let it touch us as it needs to. Then on the other hand, when we live in a world beat up and pushed around and neglected, it can be very, very difficult to sense the presence of healing. Could this be why some intentional rest is so important. In times of rest, we may give ourselves the time to look over the condition of our own lives and the life of the world. We are given the opportunity to breathe and contemplate on the welfare of all. Such an intentional time potentially lifts us out of our self-concern (that often leads to self-centered lives that can be quite uncreative) and enables us to see the healing that is taking place and the places that are in need of healing. The rest prepares us for more healing as it helps us acknowledge the healing God has already brought to our lives. Connection: Resting is a part of the week that is creative and healing and full of care. It is part of the essential flow of life that is so easily experience within a few moments of paying attention to our own breathing. Spirit of All Holiness, you bless your creation and invite us to be a part of that blessing that continues through time. We are stewards who are the active presence of your blessing. In and through all things of the day, your healing and creative power is upon us. Help us to release and use that power for the well-being of life - all life. Amen. |
| | | | Adventures... in Hope - Redeemer Devotions | | | | | | | Again this is from the chapter, "You Cannot Fool Your Nephesh" in his book "Mandate to Difference." The creator God....is a God of blessing, capable of assigning life and well-being to every aspect of creation. When the Creator had arrived on the scene, the already extant chaotic matter of "Tohu-wa-Bohu" was distinctively unblessed and incapable of life. by word and by act, the creator God transposed that seething chaotic matter into an ordered, coherent life-support system. The blessing-giving God transposes reality by three times blessing the creation: - The first blessing is toward sea monsters and winged creatures
- The second blessing is toward the human couple
- The third blessing is of the seventh day now made holy
The blessing, the infusion of the life force of God, is in turn to (a) non-human creatures, especially sea monsters - thus, a witness that God has ordered even chaotic waters; (b) humans as God's regents in the maintenance of an order of abundance; and (c) a day of rest intrinsic to the structure of the created order of fruitfulness. I was caught up in the blessing of the sea monsters. If God can bless the sea monsters - those beasts from the deep that we cannot see but are always a threat to where we can go in life - and in that show God's dominion over such disorder and chaos, certainly God can handle and bless this day in which I can so easily be overcome by the beast who I envision are biting at my life. Then again, what a place of responsibility we are bless to take on. We are to maintain this order of abundance. The abundance is a reality - we must make sure that it is managed so as to provide for life that is ordered and well - for all. It is our responsibility to make sure that the produce gets to those whose need is at hand. We do not have a good history of doing this. In fact, too often we follow the lead of Pharaoh who makes sure there is surplus without making sure that all are well-fed and sustained. Connection: How do we - as individuals and as church and as community - make sure that the abundance is spread around? How to we break the mighty cycle of self-indulgence and enter into the miracle of enough for all? When you bless us, O God, we are handed the opportunity to shape our lives into the stewards you call us to be through this blessing. Within this day continue to bless us and move our hearts. Amen. |
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