Reflection
Sabbath is not about following particular cultural practices, but is an every-day, moment to moment process of birthing God’s rest into the world. Sabbath is not a particular day, but a way of life: a way of life that lives out Jesus’ mission in the world. This will look different in various contexts, but it will always promote life, love and healthy relationships with God and others. Will we try to pour this into the old wineskins of “the way we’ve always done it,” or the cultural traditions we’ve decided our lives should conform to? Or will we let go of our comfortable, familiar old skins and allow God to give us daily new wineskins? These will not be completely different from the old ones… or perhaps they look different depending on the culture and time in which we live. But they all serve the same function: they are vessels in which the Spirit can be poured into the world and can ferment to maturity.
Quaker Oats Live
Prayer
Come Holy Spirit.
Action
Try to have mind and heart open to the freshness of the Spirit’s movement in our times.
Suggested Reading
Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.
Romans 12:2
Profoundness of the heart grows with silence, silence that is not mutism
but which leaves space for wisdom, reflection and the Holy Spirit.
Pope Francis
Keeping the Sabbath day holy is much more than just physical rest. It involves spiritual renewal and worship.
James E. Faust
Anybody can observe the Sabbath, but making it holy surely takes the rest of the week.
Alice Walker
The spiritual rest, which God particularly intends in this Commandment, is this: that we not only cease from our labor and trade, but much more, that we let God alone work in us and that we do nothing of our own with all our powers.
Martin Luther
The longer I live, the more highly do I estimate the importance of a proper observance of the Christian Sabbath, and the more grateful do I feel towards those who take pains to impress a sense of this importance on the community.
Daniel Webster
Like a path through the forest, Sabbath creates a marker for ourselves so, if we are lost, we can find our way back to our center.
Wayne Muller
The people who misuse the Sabbath lose the blessings of spiritual food and growth promised to those who keep this commandment.
Joseph B. Wirthlin