March 2, 2003

Ralph DiBiasio-Snyder

Genesis 2:1-3, Exodus 20:8-11

Have I got a deal for you! We want to tell you about something that will bring, right into your home, a greater measure of peace, an experience of serenity, of calm; a simple activity that promotes communication among all the members of your family, whether there are many in your family, or few, with small children or no children. We offer you something that allows you to wind down at the end of a week, and look forward to the next, making that week seem different, and better. It will remind you that everyone has a place in the family, and that God dwells among you in your home just as much as here at church. Here is a family activity that you will come to look forward to, and that the kids won't let you skip. All this, and it's free too! It won't cost you a dime.

In early January we recruited six families in our church to participate in an experiment - a Sabbath experiment. We told them about the Sabbath ritual that Carol and I have been doing for some time now. And we gave each family a Sabbath Kit: a pair of candles, and a ritual booklet, and we invited them to try it for eight weeks. The families were all different. Bob and Carol Niendorf's kids are grown and gone. The Bosserts have four-year-old twins, and Noah who is a little older, and a couple of teens and even a college student from Russia living with them. Becky Black and Sandie Miller declared themselves a family and met weekly to celebrate Sabbath together; Sandy and Chris Schwebke also participated in the experiment with their seven-year-old daughter Rachel. The Bauknechts have three kids from 6^{th though 11th grade. And Cathi Pipping's Sabbath was observed with her three dogs Chloe, Baily and Riley!}

Off they went, these brave six families, into the unknown of practicing something as unheard of as a family doing a religious ritual together, on a regular basis, and resting from the whirl of school and work, responsibilities and worries; resting even if for only a few minutes from the sensory overload that marks most of our lives. Now, I say "unheard of" but that isn't quite true, of course. As Carol told us earlier, Jewish families have been observing Sabbath for millennia. And there was a time when even the laws of this land - "Blue Laws" we called them - enforced a break from work for all of us, religious or not. Foolishly, we exchanged a healthy rhythm of work and rest for a lifestyle that prides itself in being on "24-7, 365" We as a people, including religious people like us, have given up what pastoral counselor Wayne Oates so wisely called, "your right to rest."

But if we say we believe in the Ten Commandments, we have to include the Fourth one. It's the one that begins with "Remember" because we so often forget it: "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy." So, as I say, we sent off our six families, armed only with two candles, the same booklet you have in your hands, and our well-wishes to try in some small but very important way to keep the Fourth Commandment.

Today the results are in. And they are all good! This morning as you leave the sanctuary the families will be presenting you a "Sabbath Kit" - a pair of candles, an instruction sheet, and you can add your booklet to it. It is our hope that you accept the challenge to take on a Lenten experiment to practice a Sabbath ritual in your home, from now through to Easter to see how it might change your life in small or large, and very significant ways. And to encourage you in this we want to share with you some of the experiences our six families had these past two months.

Greg and Mary Beth Bossert perhaps had the biggest challenge to do something quiet and regular and ritualistic, given the number and age of their kids, especially the twins. They couldn't do it always on the same night every week, so they moved it around a bit - other families did that too. And they had a special meal together, with special glasses for the juice. What do kids that young get out of the Sabbath ritual? Max said that Sabbath is about praying to God. His favorite part is the lighting the candles. Zoe on the other hand concluded that Sabbath is about praying to each other. Her favorite part is drinking the juice. Older brother Noah thinks Sabbath is a time of sharing as a family, and to thank God and pray. His favorite part is the blessing of the cup. Let's hear directly from Greg about their experience:

Well like Ralph said it was really hard to find a day to meet our schedule, so we choose Monday and the beginning of the week not at the end of the week . Kind of back words -- like we unusually switch things around at home! We all got together on Monday nights and sat down and we shared dinner together. That was the one day out of the whole week that we were usually all at home for dinner. It was basically about an hour of everyone's time that was, at first, a bit of a hassle for everybody. And then the comments were "do we have to do that?" "Why?" "How come we have to do that?" and lots of questions you can probably understand with the twin four year olds and with 7 year old Noah. Well once we got it going they were expecting it. Noah would say "are we going to have Sabbath?" And Max and Zoe . . . well they really like the juice so they thought Sabbath would be good every night!

In the spirit of St. Francis, Cathi Pipping shared her Sabbath experiment with her house mates - Chloe, Riley, and Bailey - her three golden retrievers! Cathi lit the candles, and only she could read the liturgy . . . But when it came to partaking of the fruit of the vine, well, the dogs were happy to have raisins to help welcome the Sabbath! Cathi would have a simple pasta meal - a favorite of the whole household - and she made a point to eat at the kitchen table. Other families did this too - more and more we Americans are eating anywhere but at a table! But it was helpful to eat the Sabbath meal at a special place. Then the Sabbath evening was observed by listening to classical music, and reading. Cathi said that is was very interesting to watch the dogs during the Sabbath time; even they seemed more peaceful . . . they didn't even beg for food as is their custom!

Sandie and Becky chose Friday to be their evening to observe Sabbath most of the weeks. They used silver candlesticks and particular cups for the ritual, and did their best to read the blessing of the candles and the cups in Hebrew as well as English. Sometimes this was followed by a meal together, or they came to church for one of the movie nights in January. Sandie will tell you what she and Becky discovered through their Sabbath practice together.

Becky and I were friends before we did the Sabbath experiment. We would maybe get together once in a while and it was usually related to church. I would have considered her a friend of mine. Well, once we started sharing this weekly getting together we wondered why we hadn't done this a long time ago. It was a great excuse for us to get together. We usually ended up talking the entire time to one another and enjoying each others company and for me it was a very meaningful experience. Becky and I do consider each other to be a part of our family now.

We non-retired people sometimes think that retired folks have a much less busy and scheduled and stressful life than we do. And we might think that it would be easier for them to keep a regular Sabbath. Bob and Carol Niendorf, like the non-retired people had to observe their Sabbath on different nights to accommodate their schedules. And like the other families they spoke of the practice as bringing some serenity to their busy lives - and the fact that it took effort to stop their work, and to rest, taking a break from all the things they might normally do.

And they had a most interesting experience because of their Sabbath practice. In January they were on an Elderhostel trip to the Baja peninsula, and there they met a Jewish couple from Brooklyn and told them about the Sabbath experiment. They were very interested in this, of course, and after they returned to New York they sent Bob and Carol this Hebrew prayer book for them to use. Wisconsin Congregationalists meet Brooklyn Jews in Mexico, and find common ground in the ancient ritual of Sabbath! I'd like to share one passage from that prayer book: "For us, no less than for our forefathers, the Sabbath is an ever-lasting fountain of life and beauty, the means of an ever-deepening attachment to God . . . "

Kris, Sandy, and Rachel Schwebke celebrated their Sabbath on Sunday evenings, as the start of a time set aside for them as a family. Rachel lit the candles each week, and after the meal she got to choose what the family would do together. The readings in the booklet were a little hard for her to understand, so they supplemented the ritual with a devotional book written with children in mind. Sandy reports that the weekly Sabbath became a time for the family to wind down and also to look forward to the week ahead. And it was Rachel who was most excited about making sure that they didn't forget to do Sabbath together!

The Bauknechts observed their Sabbath like the other families by lighting the candles, reading the liturgy and drinking the juice, followed by a simple meal. But to make it a special time, the meal was served in the dining room. And they added some customs of their own: One member of the family was given the assignment of choosing a Bible verse, and Carolyn volunteered to make a dessert with the verse for the week written on it. Shorter verses work better in such an arrangement! Their Sabbath time was a time to be a family together, for simple communication, for relationship-building not only with each other, but with God. Brad will tell us what the time has meant to them as a family:

Work challenges, basketball, school board, housework, homework, volleyball, swimming, piano lessons--and all the worries that go along with them. We had recently invested in and completely filled up a 60-day dry erase wall calendar to keep everything straight. So when Ralph and Carol asked us if we would set aside more time to observe a Sabbath every week for a couple months, our reaction surprised us. Mary and I thought about it for no more than a couple seconds and almost simultaneously said, "yes, it's just what we need." The kids agreed. We are all hard-wired to worship God.

The practice of Sabbath, be it as short as a ten-minute ritual, or as long as an evening or a day, brings a measure of predictability and regularity into our hectic lives. Gathering with family or friends to pray, to listen, to light candles, to read a simple ritual together says week after week that we each have a place at the table, and that God is there among us. Sabbath offers to us an oasis of serenity, or peace, of calm. It gives us a time talk to each other, to listen to each other, to be nice to each other. Sabbath lets us stop and rest and think about what life is about.

And so we invite you to join these families in their experiment of rest. It will not be easy. It will not be encouraged by the culture around us, a culture in which the demands that are made on us by our work, and even our leisure are many and loud. Sitting down each week, with our family or with a friend, not to do but to be, to foster relationships with each other and with God instead of chasing after this or that, earning money or spending money, being entertained or being bored by entertainment . . . that is counter-cultural, one could even call it a subversive act. Society will not encourage Sabbath. And it may be difficult at first. But know that you won't be alone, that other families in this your faith community will be participating in the same experiment in these weeks of Lent. And if it starts to seem just too much to pull off, that life is just too complicated to take a Sabbath break from it, and you wonder if it's really worth sticking to, then ask one of the families who have been practicing the discipline a while. I think they'll encourage you to keep up the good work of making a place of rest in your life. And see if we are not all better people for it.