Leviticus 25:1-7
The Lord spoke to
Moses on Mount Sinai, saying: 2 Speak to the people of Israel
and say to them: When you enter the land that I am giving you, the land shall
observe a sabbath for the Lord. 3 Six years you shall sow your
field, and six years you shall prune your vineyard, and gather in their yield; 4 but
in the seventh year there shall be a sabbath of complete rest for the land, a sabbath
for the Lord: you shall not sow your field or prune your vineyard. 5 You
shall not reap the after growth of your harvest or gather the grapes of your
unpruned vine: it shall be a year of complete rest for the land. 6 You
may eat what the land yields during its sabbath—you, your male and female
slaves, your hired and your bound laborers who live with you; 7 for
your livestock also, and for the wild animals in your land all its yield shall
be for food.
Matthew 11:28-30
28 “Come to me, all you that are weary and are
carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my
yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you
will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my
burden is light.”
In his poem “Sabbaths,” American novelist and poet Wendell
Berry writes these beautiful words:
Whatever
is forseen in joy
Must
be lived out from day to day.
Vision
held open in the dark
By
our ten thousand days of work.
Harvest
will fill the barn; for that
The
hand must ache, the face must sweat.
And
yet no leaf or grain is filled
By
the work of ours; the field is tilled
And
left to grace. That we may reap,
Great
work is done while we’re asleep.
When
we work well, a Sabbath mood
Rests
on our day, and finds it good.
The field is tilled, tilled and made ready, tilled so that
we might step away and let God take over for the plants and crops to bloom. The
field is tilled and we have worked well, and there is a new mood. A mood of
rest. A mood of comfort. A mood of grace. And it is called and found good,
called good by God. Wendell’s words reflect the words given to us by the writer
of Leviticus—words of work and labor, words of rest and grace and Sabbath,
words spoken by the Lord to Moses for the people: “For six years you shall sow
your field, and for six years you shall prune your vineyard and gather in the yield; but in
the seventh year there shall be a complete Sabbath for the land, a Sabbath for
the Lord. You shall not reap or gather or prune. It shall be a complete year of
rest for the land.” Work, work hard, God says, on the land that I have given
you. Sow and reap. Prune and gather. Work for six years. But in the seventh
year, you shall rest. There will be a break, for the land, for you, for
everyone to rest in me. You have worked well. We have worked well, God says,
and just as I rested on the seventh creation day, you shall rest in the seventh
harvest year. A Sabbath mood will be created, and it will be good.
I love the term “Sabbath mood,” and I think we should use it
more in churches and universities. Sabbatical leaves, moods, are usually given
in the church after six to seven years of service, nine in my case (don’t get
me wrong—you tried to give me sabbatical grace earlier, but two other ministers
discerned that God was calling them to something new, causing me to delay a
bit). Over the past several months, you all were so kind by gracing me with a
sabbatical mood, a few months to rest and travel, think and discern, to travel
for several weeks and stay still for others, a time to be renewed. You all gave
me a leave from the fields I had been planting in partnership with all of you,
a time to stay still and reflect and live off the yield from the planting. And
although Leviticus suggests a year, three months is probably just enough
time—ministers, after all, are doers by nature. It is a bit too hard to rest
and renew and stay still for too terribly long!
And what I know now is that God has been at work all through
this—although I had thought about sabbatical just as Lisa left and another as
Frank retired, that God had created and sustained my sabbatical time for such a
time as this. The past two years of my life have been an absolute whirlwind.
When God called Lisa to a new place two years ago now, we all lost a minister
and friend. I lost that, along with another female colleague in ministry, along
with a family who invited this single girl into their own, a confidante. I also
knew then what most of you didn’t know, that Frank would be announcing his
much-deserved retirement only a few months later. That was a heavy burden to
have, not at all his fault, but the reality of the situation. My beloved Aunt
Linda was dying after years of chronic pain and debilitation. I was also in the
midst of co-directing a conference for 1000 incredible college students. Hard
and lovely work. And my aunt lost her battle just a few days before the
conference started. It was hard leaving my family to go to Montreat the morning
after the funeral, but lovely to be in a place I relish with people I love.
And, as most of you know, as soon as I got back from
co-directing the conference, Frank retired 3 weeks later. It was incredible to
be the interim head of staff in this place—all of you were so incredible and
gracious; I learned so much about myself, and, with your help, I discovered so
many new gifts I had for ministry. At the same time, I happened to meet a guy,
a sweet, gentle, and kind man for whom I fell deeply and quickly, someone I
thought I could spend my life with. It was a lovely time—me discovering new
gifts here and really living into my ministry; the guy and I getting to know
each other and reveling in being together. At age 40, I felt better than I ever
had, on top of the world, more confident and strong and happy than I had ever
been.
What I didn’t know then that I know now after sabbatical
reflection is that it would be more difficult than I thought to step back into
the associate pastor role once our transitional pastor got here. It had to
happen that way, but I had no way to anticipate what a whirlwind of change that
would be. Once God’s Spirit works through you to help you discover new gifts
and new energy, it is hard to go back, hard to revert, hard to not preach and
plan worship every week, hard not to do pastoral care with folks of all ages,
just hard. What I also didn’t know then that I know now about my new romantic
relationship was that his prior divorce was more hurtful and harmful to my
boyfriend than either of us could imagine, and we spent the next year dealing
with the implications of it, taking breaks, getting back together, trying to
figure life out separately and together. I put every single bit of my heart and
soul into the relationship, hoping for it, praying to God that it would finally
happen, yearning—and it was deeply painful when it couldn’t work. I was hurt in
ways I never could have imagined going into the relationship, something that
was so hopeful and exciting in the beginning, something that ended up hurting
me worse than I had ever been hurt before.
I spent last year in a whirlwind over so many things—missing
Frank and Lisa terribly, feeling like I let our students down because I was
weary but not really knowing what to do about it, physically hurting and in the
worst pain of my life from a shoulder injury, trying to deal with change each
day here, and confused, brokenhearted, and lost about my personal relationship.
I walked away from him on my 41st birthday, May 1st. It
was one of the most difficult things I’ve ever done. I guess it’s just harder,
different, in your 40s, to lose the love you truly believed you had finally
found. Everything was so hard, and my heart and soul felt so heavy, so burdened.
Finally, as most of you know, I woke up in an ambulance on my last day of work
before sabbatical on May 14th. The seizure was caused by stress, by
a lack of sleep, but not eating well, by weariness and sheer exhaustion. I’ve
never been so scared by anything in my life. I think my body and my brain just
finally colluded and said, “Enough, Rachel. Enough.”
“Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy
burdens, and I will give you rest.” Come to me, Jesus says, when you are
exhausted and weary, come to me when you are carrying burdens weighing heavily
on your heart. Come to me. In Leviticus, we are invited by God to rest a while
from our work, to live off of what has been sown, to just be; in Matthew, we
are invited by God’s Son to come and rest in him, to let him carry our burdens
for a while, to just be. And that’s what sabbatical season was for me—what it
should be for all of us—a time just to be. A time to accept God’s invitation of
renewal and rest. My sabbatical season, my Sabbath mood of renewal and rest,
could not have come at a better time.
And I did the best I could! As soon as the cat and brain
scans and the MRI came back clear after the seizure, I headed across the pond
with my best friend. London was amazing in so many ways—we stood in the crowds
at the changing of the guard; we looked for Mr. Darcy in Jane Austen land; we
marveled in incredible architecture and rode to the top of the London Eye; rode
a double decker bus and played in a red phone booth; geeked out as we stood at
Poet’s Corner in Westminster Abbey (the perfect place for the English major and
seminary graduate in me to come together); we rested in the Queen’s beautiful
gardens as schoolchildren played; we saw “Antony and Cleopatra” at
Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre. From London, I went to New York with my nephew,
where it was such a joy to watch a 17-year-old kid experience a huge city for
the first time, watching such diverse and interesting people, marveling at how
fast everything moved, being overwhelmed by the 9/11 Memorial, the Statue of
Liberty and Ellis Island; laughing and singing at the musical “Jersey Boys,”
both of us moved by the beauty of the famous Gothic Riverside Church. We had
such a great time. I was able to spend time at the Chautauqua Institute in a
very different part of New York, a gorgeous, little quirky part of the earth
where I listened to folks talk about the expansion of the American West—the
people there, the influence of Mormonism and Scientology, how the West grew
because of religious folks. All of these trips were renewal for me as I saw new
places and met wonderful people, ate delicious food and saw different parts of
the earth.
And then there was rest. You can’t get much more restful
than spending two weeks at the beach, walking through the sand in the morning
and watching dolphins roll through the water; sitting on the porch at night,
reading, drinking wine, and waiting for the sun to set. My week at Montreat was
cool and lovely as always, worshiping with 1200 teenagers and adults, sleeping
and reading a lot.
During all of these weeks away, I tried to observe that
Sabbath mood for myself, sleeping late when I could and taking naps when I felt
like it, observing a much different daily schedule from my working one, reading
a lot (some books about Jesus and faith, some the exact opposite), spending
time with my friends and family, taking time to stop in new places as I
traveled, knowing that I didn’t have to be anywhere at any specific time or
hour. Heck, one of my Sunday mornings was even literally spent traipsing
through a field of gorgeous sunflowers. Can’t get much more of a Sabbath mood
than that!
But in the midst of all of that, I also spent a lot of time
thinking, discerning, watching, wondering, reflecting about my life over these
past many months. I spent a lot of time wondering what is going to come next in
the next season my life, much of which I can control, much of which I cannot.
I’m not telling you my story today hoping for your pity or
asking for your help, because I’m working that out. And I promise I won’t share
like this very often because I think that can be dangerous for pastors. I’m
sharing because this is the only way I know how to respond honestly to all of you.
You all have been the face of Christ for me in granting me this sabbatical
time, sending me off and guiding me through it with prayer, with words of love,
with hugs and kind words, with lots of work you did in my absence. It struck me
each time I saw one of you throughout the summer, forgetting that I hadn’t seen
you since the seizure, reminded of that as you asked me how I felt, if I knew
why the seizure happened, telling me that you prayed so much for me. What a kind
gift.
You all have so kindly asked me, “Are you rested and
renewed? Are you ready to go?” The most honest way I know how to answer your
questions is, “In some ways yes, in others no.” It was such a joy to travel to
new places and revel in friends and family, lovely to eat what I wanted and
drink what I wanted and take time just to be without any kind of schedule or
calendar in front of me. It was refreshing not to have my Presbyterian planning
calendar in front of me, getting away from a schedule filled with committee
meetings and Bible studies to plan, lunches to attend and people to meet. It
was incredible to observe the Sabbath mood of rest in so many ways. I rested as
I tried to wrap my head around the seizure, truly coming to understand the
power that stress can have on a body and a mind. It truly is amazing to
discover how much a season of rest can lower your stress level! And, in the
end, I was ready to come back, ready to fill my planning calendar with those
meetings and planning times, ready to plant and sow again, so ready to see all
of you.
But I also come back knowing there are still a lot of
questions, still a lot to deal with. Things will continue to change here in the
upcoming months as God calls a new pastor to be with us—this means more change,
change in things that happen every day, change that comes with having to
discover someone new, the way they do things, their hopes and expectations for
me and our staff and our congregation. It will be lovely, but also hard, a
whirlwind n many ways. And I come back knowing that I am still grieving over
folks who have left my life in different ways, grieving deeply over a lost
relationship. As so many of us know, grief is a strange animal, popping up at
different times in different ways, some of which we never expect. I wish that
my grief had been dissolved over that sabbatical time, but I know that it is
still there—and I know that I will just have to deal with it when it comes,
however it comes.
But I know, more than ever before, that all of these things
are best dealt with in community, the community of a congregation, the
community of people who were created by God and belong together in Christ. I am
profoundly thankful that you are my community, that we all belong to one
another in Christ. I was reminded Thursday how powerful our community is as I
left spent time talking with several members at the church, with Catherine at
the hospital as she sat with her mom, with several students in my office that
afternoon. My throat was hoarse from talking and laughing, and it was lovely.
It was community. And because you are my community, I pray for all of you as I
always have, pray that you will be able to establish a sabbatical mood of your
own, a sabbatical space in all of your lives, a space for rest a renewal, a
space in which you can ask big questions and deal with the things for which you
grieve, a space for play and discernment and honesty. I hope we can all find
this place, a space where we can find rest for our souls, a space where we can
rest in the God who created us all. Thanks be to God.
