[Propertalk] 3 Lent b 2018 - part 2

[Robert P Morrison]

	 “Wait up!” says God. “Think about what a gift Lent is, for
instance. It can heal you of the urgency of life. It can teach you to
be patient. It can change your outlook on life.” 

	 God WANTS us to rest, even to sleep, NOW. God knows, as the ultimate
scientist, that we can’t operate at maximum efficiency if we don’t
allow ourselves to regenerate. 

	 Remember that our bodies are described as temples? Think, then, of
Jesus acting in Lent within our bodies, driving out all the things
that keep our gears whirling every second or every day and making us
so preoccupied with making the maximum profit. Think of Jesus, trying
to get us to see the real purpose of our bodies and everything we do
with them. Think of how, sometimes, we need someone outside of
ourselves to say, “Aren’t you ever going to clean up? Aren’t you
ever going to set priorities based on living with God and caring for
God’s people?”  

	 THIS can be sabbath-living-clearing-up and seeing with good vision
what we’re doing with ourselves 

	 If ever God says that breaks are necessary, then surely we ought to
rejoice that God saw how vital they were and still are, maybe
especially still are in our age as human beings in creation. 

	 SO, if we ARE to observe the Sabbath here in March, 2018, what are
we to do? 

	 Well, first, we’ve to remember that the Sabbath, just like
creation, was made for us, for our pleasure, our refreshment, our
coming to recognize God’s Presence in our lives, blessing us and
whispering encouragement to us. AND the Sabbath, like creation, is
made and given for our stewardship – for its right use. Because,
really, without taking time out to think through all that we’re
inclined to do for the rest of the week, we don’t get a clear
picture of how what we do intersects with all the other commandments.
ALL of them are to become such a part of our lives that we behave out
of purity for God all of our waking lives. 

	 Jesus was really serious that day in the Temple courtyard. He blew
up. He’d railed against the abuse and the usury imposed by the
authorities, especially on those who couldn’t afford it. But,
commandments or not, the government officers simply ignored that. So,
when Jesus saw one egregious example of the way that the leaders were
ripping off those who had no way to get around all the regulations
with which these same leaders were encumbering the people; when Jesus
saw how these leaders were able to twist around those regulations
themselves while ignoring the plight of the people of COURSE He blew
up. 

	 But it was more than money being extorted. It was the way that the
people’s entire physical, mental and emotional lives were being
manipulated. 

	 So God said, Keep the Sabbath holy. Make it a time for listening,
for praying, for being quiet, for running over in your minds how you
and I need to configure our lives continually. And it will take ALL
the Sabbath day, EVERY Sabbath day, to work on this because we, like
those to whom Moses brought the first edition of the commandments; we
NEED time to think seriously about our relationship to God. It may be
Friday night to Saturday night; it may be Sunday; it may be ANY day,
as long as we keep it holy and don’t contaminate it with anything
that contradicts any of the other commandments. And this has to become
second nature to us, not some rote learning which we trot out when
asked and push away when the questioner’s back is turned. 

	 We have to relearn what holiness means too. It needn’t be dressed
in the finest linens and silks. It needn’t involve the priciest of
objects and possessions. It needn’t involve things which make us
comfortable, even. Holiness, and the act of carrying that in our
Sabbaths and the rest of our lives; holiness comes from discovered,
often in the most wrong places, the glory and beauty of God. As
Brother Curtis Almquist wrote, “We receive a much fuller picture of
God, the fullness of God, in the face and form of those whom we could
deem the poorest, because this is how God has revealed himself in
Jesus, poor Jesus. In respecting the dignity of every human being,
especially those who show up poorly on our own lists, we will
especially know the love of God, so much love of God that we can’t
help but share it. To love as we have been loved.” 1 

	 We see God in the act of someone who boils over in resistance to
those who abuse, and segregate, and try to erase holiness from those
whose lives have become awkward to us. 

	 We need to think on THIS on our Sabbaths. 

	 Or as Marjory Stoneman Douglas, after whom the Parkland, Florida
High School was named; as she put it, “Speak up. Learn to talk
clearly and forcefully in public. Speak simply and not too long at a
time, without over-emotion, always from sound preparation and
knowledge. Be a nuisance where it counts, but don’t be a bore at any
time… Do your part to inform and stimulate the public to join your
action…. 

	“Be depressed, discouraged and disappointed at failure and the
disheartening effects of ignorance, greed, corruption and bad politics
— but never give up.” 2 

	 But this speaking up, this living out of holiness, begins in the
silence of God-seeking which forms the Sabbath – and which we’re
invited to use to form our Lent too. 

	NOTES: 

	[1] “_Dignity – Brother, Give us a word”_ by Br. Curtis
Almquist, SSJE 7th February, 2018 

	2  https://www.snopes.com/marjory-stoneman-douglas-quote-on-activism/
[1]

Links:
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[1] https://www.snopes.com/marjory-stoneman-douglas-quote-on-activism/

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