Letter from Aaron Kennedy – Vicar of Otley Parish Church
I don’t know what comes to your mind when you hear the word “sabbath”, but I was raised in a Christian home, and we observed sabbath as a family. Certain rules applied, the chief one being “no TV!”. My studious older sister would do her homework, but my brother and I would often get pretty bored, and then up to no good.
And to be honest that word “bored” is the dominant memory I have of keeping sabbath as a child.
So, why, I hear you ask, am I seeking to introduce the idea of sabbath keeping at Otley Parish Church? The story of sabbath is written into the fabric of the universe, and most human cultures, but the word itself is not used in the Bible until the book of Exodus. God has just liberated the Hebrews from slavery in Egypt where they had worked without a day off from one year to the next. God was determined not only to free them physically from slavery, but spiritually also. It is no good being a free people who are still trapped in fear, still not believing that they were, as God had told Moses to say to Pharoah, his “first born son” – desired, beloved, cherished and protected by powerful, trustworthy, loving Father God.
At the heart of the wisdom of sabbath is the idea that only God can set us free. And that outside of his freedom we are never free. Many in our world do not believe this; a great many doubt the goodness and trustworthiness of God. And that is painful for us, but what should cause us much more concern is that while many of us believe that God is good with our minds, not all of us are actually free from slavery in practice.
Many of us carry, as it were, the weight of the world – burdens that our not ours to carry. Many of us are stressed, anxious and fearful. Many of us are unable to forge a healthy relationship with our smart phones and many of us are oppressed by a magnetic sense that we must read all the news, scroll through all the social media feeds, and keep up with YouTube and podcast content. Pornography too is a massive problem for Christians, as it is now so easily accessed through the super-computer in our pocket. And many of us see no other way to live. We have accepted our fate, and live lives of quiet desperation.
We are, in short, slaves, and willing slaves at that.
While practicing sabbath is going to be a wonderful liberation for some of us, it is going to be hard for most. We will run up against the stories we actually believe, rather than the ones we consciously think we believe. We may start out on our practice and then, like the Israelites, regret our newfound freedom and wish to back in Egypt. We may give in to the temptation to grumble and complain. We may realise that, despite many years of going to church, God is not actually the Lord of our lives, and that we rather like being in charge.
This Lent I hope that our teaching and practice of Sabbath will shine the light of God’s truth in our lives. I pray that the old stories of unconscious belief – the lies of the evil one will fall away. I pray that the ingrained habits of our bodies that lead us to continue living in slavery will be broken and that new, lifegiving habits will begin to form.
Sabbath is about stopping, resting, delighting in and worshipping God. It is his gift designed to free us, as only he can, from the inevitable slavery of spirit in life outside of his Kingdom.
I warmly invite you to join me on this experiment in living in the way of Jesus.
Let the Exodus begin!
