{"id":23601,"date":"2024-04-09T10:57:07","date_gmt":"2024-04-09T14:57:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=23601"},"modified":"2024-04-09T11:07:03","modified_gmt":"2024-04-09T15:07:03","slug":"23601","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=23601","title":{"rendered":"Practicing Sabbath"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"The Cause Of Christ - [Lyric Video] Kari Jobe\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/1LPB_bygtQ0?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p><em>For many practicing Jews and Christians, Sabbath rest is an essential practice to \u201ctend the fire within.\u201d Biblical scholar Renita J. Weems recalls the Sabbath of her childhood:&nbsp;<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Once upon a time Sunday was a special day, a holy day, a day different from the other six days of the week\u2026. This was a time when [Black] people like those I grew up with still believed that it was enough to spend<strong> six days a week trying to eke out a living<\/strong>, \u2026 fretting over the future, despairing over whether life would ever get better for [us]. Six days of worrying were enough. The Sabbath was the Lord\u2019s Day, <strong>a momentary cease-fire in our ongoing struggle to survive and an opportunity to surrender ourselves to the rest only God offered. Come Sunday, we set aside our worries about the mundane and renewed our love affair with eternity\u2026<\/strong>.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Our working-class hearts were ultimately fixed on one thing alone. Sunday held out to us the promise that we might enter our tiny rough-hewn sanctuary and find sanctity and blessing from a week of loss and indignities. Remembering the Sabbath where I grew up involved delighting oneself for a full twenty-four hours, ultimately in good company, with fine clothes and choice meals. The Sabbath allowed us to mend our tattered lives and restore dignity to our souls. We rested by removing ourselves from the mundane sphere of secular toil and giving ourselves over fully to the divine dimension, where in God\u2019s presence one found \u201crest\u201d (paradoxically) not in stillness and in repose but in more labor\u2014a different kind of labor, however. We sang, waved, cried, shouted, and when we felt led to do so, danced as a way of restoring dignity to our bodies as well. We used our bodies to help celebrate God\u2019s gift of the Sabbath. For the Sabbath meant more than withdrawal from labor and activity. It meant to consciously enter into a realm of tranquility and praise.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>After a week of the body toiling away in inane work and the spirit being assaulted with insult and loss, Sunday was set aside to recultivate the soul\u2019s appreciation for beauty, truth, love, and eternity.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Weems acknowledges that <strong>Sabbath is difficult to maintain, but can be a healing balm if practiced:\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Lord\u2019s Day allows us to bring our souls, our emotions, our senses, our vision, and even our bodies back to God so that God might remember our tattered, broken selves and put our priorities back in order. The <strong>Sabbath makes sure we have the time to do what\u2019s really important and be with those we really care about.\u00a0<\/strong>\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I miss the Sabbath of my childhood. I miss believing in the holiness of time. I miss believing there was a day when time stood still. There\u2019s virtually little in this culture, and hardly anything in my adult comings and goings, to serve as a timely reminder of how precious time really is, to remind me of sacred moments.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>========================<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-table\"><table><tbody><tr><td><strong>Neither Separation Nor Domination<\/strong><\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-table\"><table><tbody><tr><td><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"auto\" height=\"15\" src=\"https:\/\/mcusercontent.com\/87188c8737bc50c1a2fb8e2c9\/images\/b66516eb-1f2d-8d90-0e02-d4223f78f6f7.png\">A significant number of our cultural and social challenges arise from a simple fact\u2014diversity. The United States is one of the most ethnically and religiously diverse societies the world has ever seen, and despite the warped history believed by some Americans, the country\u2019s<strong> pluralism is what its founders intended.<\/strong> George Washington said, \u201cThe bosom of America is open to receive not only the Opulent and Respectable Stranger, but the oppressed and persecuted of all Nations and Religions, whom we shall welcome to a participation of all our rights and privileges\u201d (emphasis added).In many ways, America\u2019s diversity is a great strength, but it\u2019s not without some significant difficulties. After all, with diversity comes disagreement. Over the last 50 years, the number of Americans who attend church has declined dramatically, and only a minority of Americans remain committed to orthodox Christian doctrines about sex and marriage. Often overlooked, but perhaps more bewildering, is the plummeting biblical literacy among self-identified, churchgoing Christians, and the corresponding rise in the number of Christians who dismiss basic public virtues like honesty, humility, and mercy.Some Christians look at these changes and long for the past. They romanticize an earlier era they never experienced assuming it was more hospitable to their faith and values. Unfortunately, this sentimentality for the past can easily become antipathy toward their non-Christian neighbors. Today, we are witnessing the rise of<strong> powerful religious and political movements predicated on blaming immigrants, non-Christians, and ethnic or sexual minorities for all the country\u2019s problems.<\/strong> For the Christians swept up in these movements, America\u2019s heritage of welcoming and embracing diversity is a curse rather than a blessing. For them, tolerance is seen as the enemy of truth.The challenges of faithfully following Christ in a religiously and morally diverse society help explain the rise of two trends. First,<strong> Christian voices are calling for cultural separation<\/strong>. Rod Dreher\u2019s\u00a0<em>Benedict Option<\/em>\u00a0is a vivid example. He calls for a \u201c<strong>strategic withdrawal\u201d<\/strong> of Christians from America\u2019s public life and institutions to protect themselves, their children, and their churches from the corrupting influence of secularism. Second,<strong> other Christians are calling for cultural domination. <\/strong>Stephen Wolfe\u2019s book,\u00a0<em>The Case for Christian Nationalism<\/em>, articulates this view. He advocates for the <strong>takeover of America\u2019s public life and institutions by Christian leaders and the imposition of Christian values upon non-believing citizens.Domination and separation represent the \u201cfight or flight\u201d instincts of a threatened animal.<\/strong> They are both born from fear and ignore our higher calling in Christ to seek a wisdom from above. As <strong>Jesus told Pilate, \u201cMy kingdom isn\u2019t the sort that comes from here\u201d <\/strong>(N.T. Wright\u2019s translation of John 18:36). Unlike the kingdoms of the world that are rooted in fear and must use violence, coercion, or segregation to maintain their power, Christ\u2019s kingdom is built on no such insecurity. Therefore, it is sustained by neither fear nor force. It is a kingdom that can thrive even where it is opposed.We see a glimpse of this reality in Naaman\u2019s story. Facing the challenge of maintaining his allegiance to God upon returning to his homeland, Elisha <strong>does not tell Naaman to flee Syria to live among God\u2019s people. Nor is he commanded to impose his religious convictions upon his pagan neighbors. Instead, Naaman is told to simply \u201cGo in peace.\u201d <\/strong>Elisha\u2019s words reveal that Israel\u2019s God is not threatened by the pagan deities of Syria, and therefore Naaman does not have to fight nor flee those who oppose his faith. He may, with God\u2019s blessing, live among them.<br><br>DAILY SCRIPTURE<br><a href=\"https:\/\/withgoddaily.us2.list-manage.com\/track\/click?u=87188c8737bc50c1a2fb8e2c9&amp;id=b9a3311abd&amp;e=f52fc38132\">JOHN 18:33-37\u00a0<br>2 KINGS 5:1-27<\/a><br><br>WEEKLY PRAYERfrom Thomas Aquinas (1225 -1275)<br><br>Give us, O Lord, a steadfast heart, which no selfish desires may drag downwards;<br>give us an unconquered heart, which no troubles can wear out;<br>give us an upright heart, which no unworthy ambitions may tempt aside.<br>Give us also, O Lord our God, understanding to know you, perseverance to seek you, wisdom to find you, and a faithfulness that may finally embrace you;<br>through Jesus Christ our Lord.<br>Amen.<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For many practicing Jews and Christians, Sabbath rest is an essential practice to \u201ctend the fire within.\u201d Biblical scholar Renita J. Weems recalls the Sabbath of her childhood:&nbsp; Once upon a time Sunday was a special day, a holy day, a day different from the other six days of the week\u2026. This was a time [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23601"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23601"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23601\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23606,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23601\/revisions\/23606"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}