21 Aug SUNDAY, AUGUST 21, 2022
What I remember of Stephen Covey’s book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, is this: “Do what is both urgent and important.” Jesus understood this method of prioritizing very well. Since the beginning of time, God has tried to teach people this lesson: There’s an urgent important need for both Sabbath and acting with compassion. All three scripture readings say so.
Why should we listen and do as scripture and Stephen Covey say? Because the direction society’s been heading for years grows even more unhealthy. Our habits and actions are leading to further damage of relationships. Family values continue to suffer as priorities that are neither urgent nor important take precedence.
Scripture offers prescriptive advice, not just rules. Jesus demonstrates how we can take care of what ails us by noting an urgent important need for both Sabbath and acting with compassion. He models what it means to decide not to merely comply with expectations or yield to pressure whose goal is conformity.
At the beginning of time, Sabbath meant finishing the workweek with rest. God created, then rested. That day was to be different from the rest and God claimed it. But then people warped it by making rules that were ridiculous, complex, and nonsense.
On the Sabbath, there were certain knots you could untie and others you could not/knot, lol. Jesus, better than Stephen Covey, knew how to prioritize and be effective.
Compassionately serving the greater good by loving people is God’s most important value. Urgency must focus on that. Society is replacing values with activities that are neither urgent nor important. Reinstating Sabbath is essential to preserve our culture, religious values, and overall health .
Remember Blue Laws? “Blue Laws” came to America with the first colonists and restricted almost every activity on Sundays, including hunting, dancing and laughing too loud. In Pennsylvania, it was illegal to play professional sports into the 1930s. In Texas, to sell housewares like pots and pans until 1985. In several states, retail sale of alcohol and cars is still restricted or prohibited.
https://www.khou.com/article/news/americas-blue-laws-once-involved-a-lot-more-than-just-alcohol-sales/285-7e2f11ca-18ee-4ebd-b6fc-0271287f0915
Those were the days neighbors borrowed a cup of sugar or milk ‘cause they couldn’t go to the store. Menus were based on what you had. Towns were quiet. Activity was slower than usual. Church and family visitation happened weekly. But then, even back when my kids were playing sports, there was talk of having games on Sundays. Stores which had already begun opening at noon, began opening up at the same time as any other day.
The idea of sabbath was prescribed early on, then encroached upon. People did exactly what the prophet Isaiah suggested they avoid. Refrain from pursuing your own interests and going your own way. Don’t let your affairs keep you from honoring the holy day of the Lord and calling it a delight.
I’m not judging anyone who doesn’t come to church because they want to sleep or pursue something else on Sunday. For many years, I did the same. We all crave rest and freedom. But, what better way to ensure that we get it than by carving out Sabbath: a cease day for work and time to pursue what really matters? Also: Think about how your decision to spend time being busy, entertained, or able to accomplish something involves other folks performing a skill, a job, or duty seven days a week around the clock to provide that service.
Let’s turn our attention to the woman who was bent over, unable to straighten up. Ailments and disease were attributed to Satan back then, but the cause of her disfigurement was probably no different than folks we know whose spines twist, collapse or bend as a result of time, injury, pinched nerves or collapsed discs.
The inability to stand up straight can happen for obvious reasons or subtle ones, being bent over or facing downward can also happen quickly or very slowly. The process can be described as: the effect of forces applied to either a physical body, a person’s mental status, or the overall down-trodding of something’s essence or being. To illustrate, I’ll tell you a story.
Steve and I had a native dogwood right outside the front window of our townhouse in Maryland. I’d bought several from Soil Conservation and planted them when they were literally ten inch sticks. Because they’re pretty fast growing, in no time the dogwood tree was ten feet high and filled the double hung living room windows with shade, pretty white flowers, green leaves and dangling red cherry bombs.
Alongside the front stoop, several feet away, I’d planted blue Morning Glories. The vines wrapped nicely around the iron banister on one side, covering up the stoop’s concrete base and filling the entrance way with color.
One summer, I went away for two weeks straight. Upon my return, I noticed right away that the morning glory vine had run amuck. It had encircled and pulled not only multiple branches of the dogwood down, but actual limbs of the tree to the very ground.
The leaves and flowers were strangled and lying horizontal. The strength of the tree, not even the four inch diameter of its limbs were no match for the morning glory’s fine tendrils: none of which were bigger than the flimsiest bread bag twist tie.
Left unattended, unchecked and without proper boundaries, the tiniest things can run amuck. What ails our society is not so much big as small. Sunday activities are like Morning Glories, they add color to our weekends, bring beauty and delight. But they can’t be allowed to take over and become detrimental to other important things.
Look how Jesus demonstrates what we already know: Actions speak louder than words. Urgency and importance should determine priorities. Identifying what drags people down and makes it impossible for them to live a “normal” life isn’t good. Stop what you’re doing, even if it feels like important work. Do what you can to help recover healthy posture and composure so all can thrive.
That’s the lesson of the Morning Glory, Dogwood Tree, Jesus and the woman bent over, unable to stand. Immediately address what’s going on. Call or go over in person. Free her or him, or yourself. Don’t waste time doing what isn’t important or urgent. Get to the other stuff as necessary and hopefully honor God.
The morning glory illustrates how something can be a grave detriment as it takes over by tiny degrees. Harm has been done as time has unfolded, as subtle changes to our culture have run their course. At first, I took offense at the wording in the Prayer of the Day. Being called “fragile creatures surrounded by great dangers” seemed overly dramatic and inaccurate. We don’t wish to think of ourselves as fragile or surrounded by great danger.
Yet, our ability to pursue our own interests and do as we please seven days a week comes at great risk and peril. The nature of human sin and morning glories is to appear delightful and pleasing at first, but then to gradually take over and bring others down.
All that we currently have and possess is vulnerable. Our branches and limbs are being pulled down by societal pressures to give children opportunities we didn’t have, to experience more and achieve greater things academically and competitively. We are urged to work and reward ourselves, but rarely to let the whole world rest in creation, the work God has already done.
Tiny tendrils encroach the territory of well established traditions, like going to church on Sundays. A family, like a tree, must maintain an upright stance if it hopes to resist a host of forces. A religious stance that values God’s sense of priorities and God’s view of what’s important and urgent is rooted to withstand.
A day called Sabbath is God’s gift to the world. For centuries Romans did business eight days a week until Emperor Constantine established seven with Sunday being the first day. https://www.britannica.com/science/week
What do you think? Do we need to add another day to the calendar to try and reestablish Sabbath?
First we must decide if Sabbath is about not doing or doing. What is God’s prescription for the world? Listen to the psalmist. Remove the yoke. Stop pointing the finger. Don’t speak of evil. Offer food to the hungry. Satisfy the needs of the afflicted. Well, those sound like rules that apply to everyday of the week, even if there were eight instead of seven. Let’s pray about establishing healthy boundaries, time for rest and God.
Lord, we know that you guide us continually, satisfying the needs of the thirsty, weak, and broken down. May your word direct our actions so history won’t record what happened when our generation failed to notice tiny tendrils reaching farther from the intended goal of the seeds we once planted.
Restore never-ending springs of living water. Restore and raise up, repair what’s getting ruined. Help us refrain from trampling the holiness you established in this world, to delight and honor you and your ways exactly as you’ve spoken and shown us. In your holy name we pray for your strength and ability to always see what is urgent and important. Amen.