Dear Emanuel Members and Friends –
The Lord spoke to Moses on
Mount Sinai, saying: Speak to the people of Israel and say to them: When you
enter the land that I am giving you, the land shall observe a sabbath for the Lord. For six years you shall sow your field, and for six years
you shall prune your vineyard, and gather in their yield; but in the seventh
year there shall be a sabbath of complete rest for the land, a sabbath for the Lord: you shall not sow your field or prune your vineyard. You
shall not reap the aftergrowth of your harvest or gather the grapes of your
unpruned vine: it shall be a year of complete rest for the land. You may eat
what the land yields during its sabbath—you, your male and female slaves, your
hired and your bound laborers who live with you; for your livestock also, and
for
the wild animals in your land all its yield shall
be for food. (Leviticus 25:1-7)
Most of our readers will likely remember that
among the Ten Commandments is the commandment to keep Sabbath:
Remember
the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your
work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD
your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter,
your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner
who is within your gates. Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days
you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the
LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work,
you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant,
or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. (Exodus 20:8-10)
This commandment is restated in Deuteronomy 5:12-14. However, Deuteronomy’s statement of the
commandment differs in an interesting way from that of Exodus. In Exodus 20:11, the explanation for the
Sabbath is given as “For in six days the Lord made
heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day;
therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and
consecrated it.” In Deuteronomy 5:15,
the explanation is “Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and
the Lord your God brought you out from there with a
mighty hand and an outstretched arm; therefore the Lord
your God commanded you to keep the sabbath day.” That is to say that in Deuteronomy, keeping
the Sabbath is explained as a way to remember and affirm liberation from
slavery. Later, in Ezekiel 20:12, God is
quoted as saying, “Moreover, I gave them my sabbaths, as a sign between me
and them, so that they might know that I the Lord
sanctify them.” Christians came to celebrate the Lord’s Day, dedicated to
worship and rest from daily labor, on the first day of the week rather than the
seventh, in remembrance that Jesus was resurrected on the first day of the
week. Nonetheless, whether on the first
or the seventh day, the pattern of one day of rest in seven remains.
In Leviticus 25:1-7, God commanded not only the
observance of a Sabbath day, but of a Sabbath year, to be held every seventh
year. This commandment recognized that not only people,
but the land itself requires seasons of rest.
This also meant rest for those who worked the land. Immediately after this command, in Leviticus
25:8-13, God provides for a Jubilee Year every fifty years. The Jubilee Year was a sort of “super-Sabbath”
or “Sabbath of Sabbaths”, in which slaves were to be freed and debts cancelled,
and all who had lost property to debt were to return to their ancestral lands.
These commands – the designation of one day in seven
as a Sabbath for people, of one year in seven as a Sabbath for the land, and as
Jubilee year – one year in fifty – as a sort of grand national reset button,
recognize that God’s creations – humans, animals, plants, the land itself - are
not designed as perpetual motion machines.
We need seasons of labor and rest for our own physical, mental,
emotional and spiritual well-being. Without periods of rest over extended periods
of time, there is risk of exhaustion, illness, even early death. Without fallow
periods, even the land itself can become exhausted and lose its fertility, its
ability to support life.
As I write this, I am beginning a two-month
sabbatical from Emanuel Church, during which I will be away from Emanuel
Church. The United Church of Christ
recommends that pastors take a sabbatical every seven years, in order to allow
time for renewal and to guard against burnout.
I’m mid-way through my 11th year at Emanuel, and felt that this
summer is an opportune time for renewal.
Emanuel’s Consistory (leadership team) – Margie Schieber,
Gail Barbich, Carol Donlon, Jim White, and Barbara Kelly – is prepared to guide
Emanuel Church through this sabbatical period.
For the Sundays from June 30 through August 18 – eight Sundays in all –
a preaching schedule has been set up, and is printed later in this newsletter. For six of the Sundays, worship will be led by
guest preachers. Two Sundays – June 30
and July 14 – have been designated as hymn sing Sundays. Our leaders will temporarily be taking on new
roles in preparing bulletins for worship, maintaining the prayer list and
sending prayer alert emails, responding to requests for assistance, and caring
for the property. Please give them your encouragement
and support.
I consider this sabbatical time a precious gift
from the congregation, for which I am incredibly grateful. (I’m also very
grateful for the send-off luncheon on June 23!) In addition to getting needed rest and catching
up on months of backlogged reading, I also hope to attend some seminars during
the summer, in order to improve my pastoral care skills. While I hope to do some learning, there will
also be learning moments for the leadership, members, and friends of Emanuel
Church. I hope this sabbatical will be a
time for the congregation to take greater ownership of the various ministries
in which we have been engaged.
Statistics for the longevity of pastors in ministry
are sobering – on average, 80% of new seminary graduates leave ministry within
five years, and only one in ten of those who are ordained or otherwise authorized
as pastors will retire as pastors.[1] In short, many, perhaps most, of those who invest
significant amounts of time, energy, and financial resources in order to be
educated and authorized and called to be pastors sooner or later make the
difficult decision to walk away from their ministries to pursue other vocations. While
ministries end for any number of reasons, many end in discouragement,
disillusionment, and burnout. It is
because of my commitment to continuing in ministry at Emanuel Church that I am
taking this sabbatical time away, so that I can return with renewed energy and
fresh vision for our life and ministry together.
Blessings for the summer! See you in church (starting again on August
25)!
Pastor Dave
“Stop for one whole day
every week, and you will remember what it means to be created in the image of
God, who rested on the seventh day not from weariness but from complete
freedom. The clear promise is that those who rest like God find themselves free
like God, no longer slaves to the thousand compulsions that send others rushing
toward their graves.”
Barbara Brown Taylor
[1]
The Pastor’s Sabbatical – A PSEC Resource, http://psec.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/PSEC-Sabbatical-Resource.pdf
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