Exodus 16 Sabbath 3 Trusting Grace. about how Sabbath is in part about setting some boundaries. God creates the world in 6 days and then

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1 Exodus 16 Sabbath 3 Trusting Grace This is week three of four weeks with Sabbath stories. The last two weeks we ve been talking about how Sabbath is in part about setting some boundaries. God creates the world in 6 days and then sets a firm boundary that work can t get through and completely stops on the 7 th day. No matter what Pharaoh says we can t make an unlimited amount of bricks with a limited amount of straw, we can t do everything in a limited amount of time. To protect Sabbath time, time for rest and relationship and renewal, we will have to say no to some things. For me, today s story is about God s grace, and specifically our willingness to trust and surrender to God s grace. Sabbath is also about grace. The invitation to stop and renew ourselves is a gift, and when we stop we are able to remember that there s more at work in our world than our own toil and effort. Maybe we can let go a bit and trust that God is also at work. That s what the Wendell Berry poem we read earlier is about. That we may reap, great work is done while we re asleep. There is a power greater than us at work and that power does indeed provide for us. Sabbath gives us some time to trust that again. I like today s story because I see myself in it, in those nervous Israelites. God promises to provide manna every day for food and a double portion on day 6 to last through day 7. The Israelites are told to stay inside on day 7 because there will be no manna on that day. Some of the Israelites are able to stay inside and rest, but some can t help themselves, they have to go out and look for any manna that might be around, just in case.

2 The reason I identify with these Israelites is because they are worried about tomorrow. They have food for today, they were given a double portion yesterday. I don t think they are a bunch of gluttons who have wasted it all. They are worried that God won t provide enough tomorrow, they are worried that the manna switch will turn off on day 8, or it won t provide the full fare and so they d better work now to make sure they have enough later. There s gotta be some manna around here somewhere. If I work harder maybe I can control this uncertainty. In our Sabbath book, Wayne Muller says that we often believe that if we keep working we can control events, we can control what frightens us about the future. Last week, I suggested that straw used to make bricks is like time, this week I m suggesting that the manna is like time. Everything s like time when you are preaching about Sabbath, apparently. The challenge with remembering the Sabbath, truly stopping, is trusting that God will provide the time we need tomorrow for us to get the work done that we know is waiting for us, the work that we could start on today that we feel like we should start on today, just to be safe. This is about trusting God s grace. Interestingly, there are Israelites in the story who do trust. They don t go out on the Sabbath to gather but stay in. They say, I m sure there will be manna tomorrow. God has provided what I needed in the past, God will provide what I need in the future. God is providing what I need right now which is rest. A question then is, How do we grow in trusting God s grace? How do we get better at that? It s possible, and as we do we take a big step forward on the spiritual journey. How do we deepen our trust in God s grace? The religious answer is, You start a spiritual practice. You do something on a regular basis, and that practice then reshapes your heart, and then reshapes your thinking, and reshapes your action. The secular answer is similar. This is from the book Made to Stick: How to Change Things When Change is Hard by Chip and Dan Heath. One is a professor at Stanford and one is at Duke. They say, For an individual s behavior to change you have to influence their environment, their hearts, and their minds. For people to change they have to build new habits. To grow our trust in God s grace, we ll have to do something that s different that can shape us over time, a new practice, a new habit. Spiritual practices change us. For instance, researchers have

3 found that participating in a Mindfulness Meditation training for 8 weeks physically changes brain structure. Over the last few weeks I ve heard people say, I want to find some Sabbath. I think the way to do that is to commit to a practice for a couple months, mark it on the calendar. This can be small or big. We may need to tweak our environment a little bit to make some space for this new habit. If you are trying not to eat ice cream it is helpful not to have ice cream in the freezer where it will be calling out your name. If you are trying to get a break from work and other obligations, it may be helpful to change something so those obligations aren t staring us in the face. Go somewhere else, turn off a device for a while, something that will create space. I m going to share the Sabbath practice that has been helpful for me. Not to suggest that this is what everyone must do, but hoping that my story may help you find a practice that could work for you. This Sabbath practice has been changing me over time. I trust God s grace and God s ability to provide more than I used to. I still have a ways to go but I m growing. My Sabbath practice began when I started serving as a pastor in Dodgeville, WI just over 10 years ago. I m someone who has a tendency to never stop working, to go through life at a sprint. This habit was formed in junior high and high school. Worrying about tomorrow like my friends the Israelites was a major motivator. During college and seminary, worrying about tomorrow was combined with a deep love for what I was doing. That s a very potent combination. In college I was a trombone major and I loved it. I played in ensembles all the time and when I wasn t playing in ensembles I was practicing, a lot. In seminary I loved the work I was doing. I spent a lot of time fretting over all of my assignments, I read everything that was assigned, and when I was done I read other theology books that I was interested in. I d ask the professors questions about what I believed and they would suggest I read other books and I d read those too. I was always focused on the work I was doing. About this time I started to learn about clergy burnout. I realized that to sustain myself in work I was excited about, and to sustain the relationships I cared about, I would need to break this pattern. I decided that when I started working as a pastor, Monday was going to be my Sabbath day. Sunday is a work day, it s hard for me not to be doing some work on Saturday too, but Monday I should

4 be able to stop, I thought. I told the church that we couldn t have council meeting on Mondays because that was going to be my day off. When those first few Mondays rolled around, I didn t work. Instead, I went crazy. I knew there was work that needed to get done. There was another sermon to write, and I had zero ideas. After I d written three sermons I felt like I didn t really have anything more to say. What if I didn t have time to get the next one done? How can I stop and rest when I don t know for sure if I ll have time? And there were people that needed to be visited, and what if there were emergency calls left on my office voice mail or ? Time off really stressed me out. I was relieved when Tuesday came and I could go into work. Wayne Muller writes, Sabbath requires surrender. If we only stop when we are finished with all our work, we will never stop because our work is never completely done. Slowly, by practicing this Sabbath day week after week, I began to accept this and started to surrender. Over the course of weeks and months I began to long for Monday as much as I had initially longed for Monday to be over. More of Monday became true Sabbath because I began to trust. I was increasingly trusting that God would provide the time I needed to get the next week s work done. I found I was more willing to trust God s grace in other parts of my life too. More and more I was able to let little stuff go. More and more I was able to trust that it isn t all up to me. More and more I was able to trust that I was loved when things went well and when they didn t. This change wasn t immediate, less lightning bolt, more waves washing onto the shore. It s 10 years later and there are still Mondays where my mind is at work more than I want to admit. But the Sabbath time is increasingly restful. This Sabbath practice has become a gift I now can t imagine doing without. Over the last ten years there have been a few times when a funeral or a hospital call or a wider church meeting has required me to work on my Sabbath, but otherwise every Monday for 10 years I ve practiced Sabbath the whole day. My main Sabbath rule is If it is work, if it feels like work, don t do it. I don t read churchy books on Monday even if I m interested and want to. I don t look at because I can t resist the temptation. I try to do some things I enjoy, I usually spend extra time cooking which feeds my spirit. I m still a Dad on Monday so my Sabbath isn t always a spiritual retreat. But it s helpful

5 for me to put a boundary in place in this one significant area in my life and that seems to me to be a big step. Not working does make space for other things, more time for relationship, some true leisure, and moments where I remember grace, and even trust it. A Sabbath practice can take many shapes and forms. It has to be flexible because we don t all live the same life. But the right practice can be a very helpful thing. I give thanks for that. Amen.