Sermon by Reverend Dr. John W. Mann | May 26, 2024

We once visited the island of Raasay off the coast of the Isle of Skye. Raasay is 14 miles long and 3 miles wide. 175 people live on the island. In the village on the island there is a playing field with a football pitch, swings and a colorful climbing apparatus. At the entrance to the field is a sign that reads, “Please do not use the playing field on Sundays.”

It looked like it had been there for a good while. What did it take to put that sign up? Before it was there, were there children playing in the playing field on Sundays – maybe kicking a ball around? Did some errant toddler climb on the jungle gym? Did a parent mistakenly push their youngster in the swing set?

Did someone complain – was there talk at the local café – not just about people breaking the rules – but the idea that we seem to be losing touch with our identity – that the foundations of our culture are made of certain assumptions about what is right or wrong – and also about what is good and healthy – that child playing on a swing set on a Sunday threatened all that?

We need to do something about this – nip it in the bud.

Not just anyone can go putting up signs around the village. There are rules and regulations. The village council needed to discuss it and vote on it. Certain people were in favor of it, people in the village who if they said it was a good thing then it was a happening thing. Naturally someone raised the question of where the money would come from. Signs that last cost money.

Was there a fundraiser perhaps? A Village Ceilidh?

When the sign was installed, it was a request – not, “It Is Unlawful to Use This Playing Field on Sundays.” It was a kind request – “please do not….”

How would the directive be enforced?

Imagine the children on an island with a population of 175, staring wistfully at the swings laying still on Sunday – thinking rebellious thoughts, perhaps – “Someday when I grow up I’m going play on a Sunday!”

When the Hebrew people told the story of creation, it began with God. “When God began creating . . .” The story of creation ended with God taking a day off. “And God rested . . .”

One wonders why. Why did God need a day off? Was the work of creation so taxing that God was worn out? But if God is God, all-powerful, God does not get worn out.

Maybe the story is about God taking a day off simply because that’s what God wanted to do. God being God can do anything God wants to do. So what did God do on that day off? How does God rest? How does God relax? What invigorates God for week ahead?

Maybe like some of us, God likes to work in the garden. As the story goes, there was a garden where God enjoyed spending time. But there were people there and they got into trouble, and you wonder if God has had a day off ever since.

When the descendants of Abraham and Sarah were slaves in Egypt, they worked all the time. Day in and day out, making bricks. When they were set free, they would have gone on working day in and day out, but God had to remind them to take a day off.

It wasn’t just a friendly reminder as if to say, “You really should slow down now and then. Stop and smell the roses.” God said, “Remember the Sabbath. Keep it holy. Don’t do any work on that day. You or your servants or your animals. Give it a rest. It’s the law.” A law with the same importance as not stealing or committing murder.

Remember the Sabbath. For people who were modern 3,000 years ago and people who like to think of themselves as post-modern today, remembering the Sabbath is not an easy thing to do. It’s easier to forget the Sabbath.

Some people think of the Sabbath as a day to sit around with their hands folded and not do any work or engage in any activity that might profane. Including play – no fun on the Sabbath lest that fun interfere with the day’s true purpose. And some people see it as just a day like another day.

Why should one day out of the week be any different, or make any difference to us?

Even Jesus ran into difficulties with the Sabbath. He was an observant Jew, but he tried to point out that the Sabbath was supposed to serve our well-being rather than us being slaves to the Sabbath.

He was accused of breaking the law. He and his followers were harvesting grain on the Sabbath. It wasn’t as though they were involved in farm work. They were walking through a field and as they went, they picked some grain and ate it – rather like you would eat bramble berries along the trail. But according to a strict interpretation of the law that was work. No work on the Sabbath.

Jesus said, “But people have to eat.”

Remember, there is a rhythm to life. If all we do is work, we miss the beat that God desires. We start walking to the beat of a different drum. A drumbeat that hammers out nothing but work. So that even our play becomes like work. It takes on a desperate quality, because we don’t have as much time as we would like to have so we must squeeze in quality time and then get back to work.

Some years ago I went through what’s termed a “Watershed” experience – a time that redefined and changed my sense of life and work.

It happened when I took a three-month sabbatical. The purpose of the sabbatical was to engage with rest, reflection and renewal. Sort of like three months of Sundays. When the sabbatical ended the idea would be to return to work with renewed imagination and energy.

My project was simple. I had a reading list – some travel plans – I was going to keep a journal and I was going to listen for the prompting of the Spirit –and rest. I was going to have a three-month day off, then to come back to work, rested, refreshed and with some sense of renewal. I had no preconceived idea of what that renewal might look like.

What seemed like a great idea at the time, was met with mixed reactions from the folks in church. There were people who thought it was a great idea, some who were likely indifferent and some who were opposed to it. Looking back at it from the perspective of over 20 years, I think the resistance to the idea of a sabbatical was rooted in cultural norms or assumptions based on the American work ethic at that time. In the American scheme of things some of those assumptions were –

1. A sabbatical is nothing more than a free holiday.
2. I never got that much time off from my job – why should the minister be any different?
3. You haven’t earned it.
4. It is something beyond our ability to control.
5. It’s a step into the unknown.

I really needed that rest, so I was going to take the sabbatical. There was no sense of bon voyage, via con Dios or God be with you till we meet again. And so my time away, while in some ways restful, refreshing and with some feeling of renewal, was also spent in marking time until I had to go back – back to work. And upon returning there was no sense of sharing together what we learned from the journey.

Even though one of my supporters lettered the church sign to say, “Welcome back from Sabbatical, Dr. Mann,” the reality of the situation was summed up by the first person to greet me upon returning who said, “Oh, it’s you.”

One important lesson I learned from that experience is that if you want to take the time you need for self-care, you must take it. You have to take it because the demands and pressures of life will take everything of yourself that you have to give, if you let them.  

When I moved to Scotland I thought, “When I’m done here, I’m done.” I planned to retire at the age of 65 and take a year off before stepping into a church for any reason, and then see how I felt about it. But something happened on the way to that.

People expected that I would take all the available time off that came with the job, because that’s what they would do. That meant a day off every week; six weeks of holiday every year, plus an extra Sunday just for the heck of it. Plus ample time for continuing education. If you were sick in any way, stay home and take care of yourself. When I had hip replacement surgery, they insisted I take eight weeks to recover and only come back to work if I felt up to it. Because that’s what they would do.

By the time I turned 65 I had been able to engage in 15 years of a healthy work-life balance. It was like a 15-year sabbatical of rest, reflection, and renewal. Instead of retirement, I was prepared for the next leg of the journey; which led to here.

We need vacations, we need holidays, we need a holy day. We can do that because the first thing God did after making us, was to take a day off. Amen.