Sabbath

Sabbath Blessing

May this day bring Sabbath rest to my heart and my home.
May God’s image in me be restored, and my imagination in God be re-storied.
May the gravity of material things be lightened, and the relativity of time slow down.
May I know grace to embrace my own finite smallness in the arms of God’s infinite greatness.
May God’s Word feed me and His Spirit lead me into the week and into the life to come.

Taken from Lectio365 daily devotional July 5th 2020

What is Sabbath?

Eugene Peterson describes Sabbath as ‘a time to receive silence and let it deepen into gratitude.’* And so, on this day of rest, as I prepare to pray, I settle into silence and allow thankfulness to take hold.

*Eugene Peterson, Tell It Slant, p82

Sabbath,’ says the theologian Walter Bruegemann: ‘is the refusal to let one’s life be defined by production and consumption and the endless pursuit of private well-being.’*

Lord, I come to You for a deep rest today. I spend so much of my life dissatisfied; wanting more stuff, more money, more friends, more applause, more miracles. Today I put away my superhero cape and thank You, very simply, that because I have You I have everything I will ever truly need.

I take a moment now to pray for those who really don’t have enough. Is there a particular person I know, or crises elsewhere in the world, where God’s justice and mercy are desperately needed today?

Lectio365 Sunday Aug 16th 2020

Sabbath,’ writes John Koessler, ‘affords a rest by which we are not so much restored as re-storied.’* And so, as God’s people gather around the world today, I pray for new chapters to be written in our midst.

Father, would You re-story us today. We ‘stand at the crossroads’ and ‘ask for the ancient paths’ (Jer. 6:16). Root us in the faith of our fathers and mothers, as we participate this day in Your Word.

Jesus, maker of tables and teller of stories, create in us, we pray, a new imagination. Invoke in us greater celebration. And grant to us new language with which to sow Your eternal Word into a tired world.

Creator Spirit, You who moved over the darkness and gave the chaos form, inspire new songs of worship. Disrupt our dead religion. Draw artists, prophets and innovators from the peripheries of our communities right to the heart.

I take a moment now to earth these big prayers personally, in my own life locally. I name an artist or innovator I know and remember friends who are finding life particularly tough today.

Lectio365  Sept 6th  2020  

‘Sabbath,’ says the theologian Walter Bruegemann: ‘is the refusal to let one’s life be defined by production ad consumotion and the endless pursuit of private well-being’

Lord, I come to You for a deep rest today. I spend so much of my life dissatisfied; wanting more stuff, more money, more friends, more applause, more miracles. Today I put away my superhero cape and thank You, very simply, that because I have You I have everything I will ever truly need.

I take a moment now to pray for those who really don’t have enough. Is there a particular person I know, or crises elsewhere in the world, where God’s justice and mercy are desperately needed today?

Lectio365 Sept. 20th 2020