Breathe.  Breathe in the breath of God’s Spirit.  Breathe out the debris of everyday existing.

Sabbath day is the time when we remember to breathe in God’s Spirit and breathe out the debris. 

Worship on the Sabbath provides us the opportunity to be in God’s presence in a focused way, with God’s people, in God’s house.  We can experience God in many ways and in many places, but worship on the Sabbath day is that time God has shown us and called us to rest intentionally in God’s presence.

In worship, we take the time to focus our lives on God, to sing out with the joy of God’s love, to open our hearts deepest desires and joys to God, to open our soul to God, that God might fill the empty places of our lives with the living water of God’s love.  We open our ears, our minds, our hearts to hear God’s word to not only teach us, but also to enliven us.  Sabbath worship is the time and place to experience afresh God’s care and love for us and to do so in the midst of our sisters and brothers who also need that same experience and receive it as God’s Spirit moves among us.

A favorite scripture of mine comes from 1 Peter 1:9&10: But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of God who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.  Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

Sabbath worship is the time when we are still and allow God to remind us, we are God’s own people.  In a world where so many strive so hard to have an identity based on what they have or what they wear or where they live, when so many feel so alone, Sabbath day worship is the time to reclaim that God has named us and calls us His own.  And not only that; God gives us the privilege of inviting others to experience God’s gracious love and care and to join us in taking the time God has called us to, to rest and be in God’s presence.

Wayne Muller shares in his book Sabbath Finding Rest, Renewal, and Delight in our Busy Lives  a quote from Tao Te Ching, “Do you have the patience to wait till your mud settles and the water is clear?”

Sabbath is God’s gift of time to us, to claim that patience, to remember and reclaim who we are and whose we are and that God has given us purpose and meaning and direction for our lives.

On September 12^th, Open House Sunday, we once again open Our Hearts, Our Mind and Our Doors to each other and our community to claim God’s gift of Sabbath day and reclaim our lives as God’s people. I pray you will once again enter in, whether you have been entering into God’s Sabbath presence throughout the summer, or have been away for a time, or even if you have not entered in for a long time or ever, the invitation of God is there and God is ready to welcome you with open arms.

All the opportunities for growing in your faith, for being in mission and service and giving generously of your prayers, presence, gifts, service and witness grow out of our Sabbath Day worship.  Come, claim and reclaim you are God’s own child, breathe in God’s Spirit, fill your soul with God’s love, shine with the joy of God’s grace.

Shalom,

Rev. Dr. Peter LeValley