wfn.org | Speaker gives welcome invitation to Sabbath rest

[PCUSA NEWS <PCUSA.NEWS@ecunet.org>]

Note #6058 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

29-June-2000
GA00110

	Speaker gives welcome invitation to Sabbath rest
	
	Noted author, Wayne Muller, reaffirms place of rest in the "rhythmicity" of
Creation

	by Emily Enders Odom

LONG BEACH, June 29 - "Shabbat shalom" was the opening greeting offered by
Brad Kent, associate for Spiritual Formation for the Presbyterian Church
(U.S.A.), as an expectant group of exhausted Presbyterians came together on
the evening of June 28 to receive a refreshing call to Sabbath rest.  Wayne
Muller, author of the best selling book, "Sabbath: Restoring the Sacred
Rhythm of Rest," presented a compelling, humorous and exegetically-sound
thesis on the role and the import of the Fourth Commandment.

	Reminding his listeners that Jesus, "a relatively articulate guy," said,
"Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest,"
rather than "I will give you seven secret coping strategies for spiritual
success," Muller affirmed the role of rest in what he called the
"rhythmicity" of Creation.  "Sabbath is the day when we are forced to
remember who we are, and that things need to be rested in order to grow."

	The call to rest, which is about God's desire that we not be exhausted but
happy, is also a cure for our "functional atheism."  Quoting Thomas Merton,
who said that the "business of doing good can become an insidious kind of
violence," Muller made his own profound pronouncement to a hushed room. 
"Sabbath," he almost whispered in making his statement a second time, "is a
time when we attend to small precious things, and to not be so seduced by
the grandiosity of the enormity of our imagined usefulness in the world."

	As people have become increasingly convinced that it is only their labor,
their efforts, that matter, never finding a reason to stop, Muller observed,
"cancer becomes the sabbatical of our culture," the "quasi-unconditional
permission" for keeping the Sabbath.  "We need a language of permission," he
said, and a place to begin to invite this conversation about Sabbath into
the lives of our churches, our marriages.  "Remember the Sabbath," Muller
urged, "not for some legalistic reason, but because it is the gift of
delight given to us."

	"This is the day the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it,"
Muller suggested, "is not just a psalm, but a sound piece of advice."

	Muller, who received from Kris Haig, associate for Spiritual Formation for
the PC(USA), the gift of one of the earthenware Communion bowls used during
the Assembly's opening worship, will be available to sign copies of his book
on Sabbath at the Cokesbury Bookstore in the Exhibit Hall on Thursday, June
29, from 11:30 a.m. until 1:30 p.m.

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