But one of things people remember from 2008 were the iconic images of Obama, with the three brilliantly chosen words that carried him to power – “Yes We Can”.
I have to admit, I had a laugh to myself imagining how that campaign would translate across to Scotland. The first minister with the subtext "Aye, Mibbe...." or if he's having a bad day, just "Naw".
They’re a go-ahead, pioneering people, the Americans, and their whole culture is permeated with this can-do attitude which I guess we could learn from. As long as they’re willing to learn a wee bit of measured humility from us in return!
“Yes” is a word that most Americans love. It’s a word that allows them to participate and experience and commit and succeed and has made them the nation they are today. And it’s a good word to have in your vocabulary.
But let’s not kid ourselves that giving our ‘yes’ is always a good thing. It depends on what you’re saying ‘yes’ to.
America says ‘yes’ to freedom of speech, freedom of religion, the right to pursue happiness, the right of any man or woman to make their way in life regardless of where they start from.
It also says yes to unbridled consumerism, the right to bear arms despite 30,000 firearms related deaths every year, to a fifty hour working week and until recently, a Darwinian health-care system which amounted to the survival of the richest.
“Yes” isn’t always good. It depends on what you’re saying ‘yes’ to.
And saying “yes” indiscriminately can end up making you a slave to your culture.
It seems like in all developed, or developing countries, we’re coming to measure our well being, maybe even our worth, by how busy we are and how much we own.
I’m told that inChina
When people ask me how I’ve been doing, my first inclination is to talk about what I’ve been doing and how busy I’ve been, and more often than not I have to work hard to find something else to say. And I’m pretty sure I’m not alone in that. It’s ingrained in all of us.
And the church, which should be an escape from that culture of busyness, can end up being no different. Even here, where we know our worth is based on God’s love for us and nothing else, we can end up running ourselves ragged with busyness - becoming grumpy Marthas instead of contented Marys.
I heard a sketch a while back by a guy called Adrian Plass in which a man comes to faith.
“So what do I do now?” he says to his Christian friend….
“Well there’s the Bible Study on Monday, the Prayer Meeting’s Wednesday evening, on Thursday there’s a new Nurture Group starting – you’ll need to get to that. Friday there’s a bus going to hear an American Evangelist, Saturday there’s a day long conference on next years Mission and on Sunday it’s service in the morning, Cambodian meal at lunchtime and communion in the evening.”
"Free at last” says the new convert.
Of course, we need to say ‘yes’ to some of these things. But we also need to say ‘no’ without guilt, and that’s why, today we are looking at the Spiritual Practice of Saying ‘No’, and it might surprise you just what a long tradition that practice has in Scripture.
Life would have been a lot easier if Eve had said ‘no’ to the serpent, or Adam had said no to Eve when the subject of forbidden apples came up. But they didn’t
And when the Christ was conceived to sort out Adam’s sin, the church celebrates Mary’s ‘yes’ to God in consenting to bear his Son. but we often forget Joseph’s honourable ‘No’ – No, I won’t divorce her. No, I won’t send her away in disgrace, even though I don’t fully understand.
We’re in Lent just now, a season of ‘no’s’ as Christ refused food and company in the desert to help him concentrate on God. And in his weakness, the tempter came calling once more….
“If you’re the son of God, turn these stones into bread” – NO
“If you’re the son of God, throw yourself off the temple” – NO
“I can give you everything that you want; all you have to do is worship me” – NO
And though there were three years between that experience andCalvary , that testing stood him in good stead when it came to the end, and the old men gathered round the cross to mock him: “If you’re the Son of God, then come down from the cross”. NO.
There’s a time for ‘no’. And our readings for today focus in on one way we can practice saying ‘no’ in a very positive and counter-cultural way. And it’s the practice of keeping a Sabbath.
Interesting piece of trivia. The first thing that God declares holy in the Bible isn’t a place, or an altar or a temple or even a person. It’s a day.
It says in Genesis 2 that “God rested on the seventh day, and hallowed it”.
And in today’s Old Testament reading, that hallowing is codified and set down in the form of the fourth commandment:
They’re a go-ahead, pioneering people, the Americans, and their whole culture is permeated with this can-do attitude which I guess we could learn from. As long as they’re willing to learn a wee bit of measured humility from us in return!
“Yes” is a word that most Americans love. It’s a word that allows them to participate and experience and commit and succeed and has made them the nation they are today. And it’s a good word to have in your vocabulary.
But let’s not kid ourselves that giving our ‘yes’ is always a good thing. It depends on what you’re saying ‘yes’ to.
America says ‘yes’ to freedom of speech, freedom of religion, the right to pursue happiness, the right of any man or woman to make their way in life regardless of where they start from.
It also says yes to unbridled consumerism, the right to bear arms despite 30,000 firearms related deaths every year, to a fifty hour working week and until recently, a Darwinian health-care system which amounted to the survival of the richest.
“Yes” isn’t always good. It depends on what you’re saying ‘yes’ to.
And saying “yes” indiscriminately can end up making you a slave to your culture.
It seems like in all developed, or developing countries, we’re coming to measure our well being, maybe even our worth, by how busy we are and how much we own.
I’m told that in
When people ask me how I’ve been doing, my first inclination is to talk about what I’ve been doing and how busy I’ve been, and more often than not I have to work hard to find something else to say. And I’m pretty sure I’m not alone in that. It’s ingrained in all of us.
And the church, which should be an escape from that culture of busyness, can end up being no different. Even here, where we know our worth is based on God’s love for us and nothing else, we can end up running ourselves ragged with busyness - becoming grumpy Marthas instead of contented Marys.
I heard a sketch a while back by a guy called Adrian Plass in which a man comes to faith.
“So what do I do now?” he says to his Christian friend….
“Well there’s the Bible Study on Monday, the Prayer Meeting’s Wednesday evening, on Thursday there’s a new Nurture Group starting – you’ll need to get to that. Friday there’s a bus going to hear an American Evangelist, Saturday there’s a day long conference on next years Mission and on Sunday it’s service in the morning, Cambodian meal at lunchtime and communion in the evening.”
"Free at last” says the new convert.
Of course, we need to say ‘yes’ to some of these things. But we also need to say ‘no’ without guilt, and that’s why, today we are looking at the Spiritual Practice of Saying ‘No’, and it might surprise you just what a long tradition that practice has in Scripture.
Life would have been a lot easier if Eve had said ‘no’ to the serpent, or Adam had said no to Eve when the subject of forbidden apples came up. But they didn’t
And when the Christ was conceived to sort out Adam’s sin, the church celebrates Mary’s ‘yes’ to God in consenting to bear his Son. but we often forget Joseph’s honourable ‘No’ – No, I won’t divorce her. No, I won’t send her away in disgrace, even though I don’t fully understand.
We’re in Lent just now, a season of ‘no’s’ as Christ refused food and company in the desert to help him concentrate on God. And in his weakness, the tempter came calling once more….
“If you’re the son of God, turn these stones into bread” – NO
“If you’re the son of God, throw yourself off the temple” – NO
“I can give you everything that you want; all you have to do is worship me” – NO
And though there were three years between that experience and
There’s a time for ‘no’. And our readings for today focus in on one way we can practice saying ‘no’ in a very positive and counter-cultural way. And it’s the practice of keeping a Sabbath.
Interesting piece of trivia. The first thing that God declares holy in the Bible isn’t a place, or an altar or a temple or even a person. It’s a day.
It says in Genesis 2 that “God rested on the seventh day, and hallowed it”.
And in today’s Old Testament reading, that hallowing is codified and set down in the form of the fourth commandment:
9 You have six days in which to do your work,
10 but the seventh day is a day of rest dedicated to me. On that day no one is to work — neither you, your children, your slaves, your animals, nor the foreigners who live in your country. 11 In six days I, the Lord, made the earth, the sky, the sea, and everything in them, but on the seventh day I rested. That is why I, the Lord, blessed the Sabbath and made it holy.
Now what does it say about us that that commandment often reaches our ears not as a gift, but as a bind?
God is saying “I insist that you rest! I insist that for this one day in the week you don’t work!” but somehow that doesn’t reach us as good news.
In part, I guess, that’s the legacy of dour Sabbatarianism in our corner of the world, where folk seemed to be frightened of enjoying themselves on a Sunday in case God took offence.
Even in my childhood, Sunday was the day when nothing happened except church and the odd visit to a relative, and I wasn’t allowed out to play – not even to kick a football in the back yard. But it was all show because in the privacy of our home we read the Sunday papers and got to watch TV like everyone else. It wasn’t like God was especially on the agenda. Boredom was on the agenda.
So with that kind of cultural baggage, small wonder the word Sabbath has such negative associations. But let me try to re-enchant you this morning!
The best definition of Sabbath I’ve heard is that it’s the day when your work’s done, even when it isn’t.
There is always more to do. You could fill every moment of every day with more profitable work that could be done. The only person who can police that is you. So police it. Cordon off one day in the week when you remember to be a human being rather than a human doing. When you get back in touch with the deep and important truths that you are not indispensible, that life does not revolve around consumption, and nor are you a machine that can keep running indefinitely without a break.
You need a Sabbath. They’re good for you. As Jesus reminds us, they were made for us, not us for them.
Note, please, that I’m talking about taking a Sabbath, not observing THE Sabbath. I believe that what God was hallowing was the principle of a Sabbath’s rest, not one particular 24 hour period in the week. If you wish to get shirty with me on that one, remember that if we’re going to defend the holiness of a particular 24 hour period, it’s actually Friday evening ‘til Saturday evening we should be defending, rather than Sunday, because that was the Jewish Sabbath!
And I love that the Jewish Sabbath, on Friday evening, begins with food and then sleep, and not just because they’re two things of which I am particularly fond! Practically the first act on the Sabbath, for Jews at least, is to turn in for the night and leave it all in God’s hands. Can we do that, for 24 hours? Or will the world fall apart if we don’t run it?
Now I know there are tasks some of you need to do every day – and there’s no escaping them. But I bet you could build some rest in around those tasks if you tried.
We function better with rest, we feel more alive with rest. We go back to our work with more reserves when we’re rested.
It’s like when you’re hiking and you’re tired. If you allow yourself to stop for half an hour, to put down the big heavy rucksack for a while and have some lunch and splash your face in the water from the burn. When you come to pick up the load again, it feels much more manageable.
So for one day in the week, God says ‘don’t work’. Simplify. Slow down. Do less. Be more. Leave your email unopened. Step away from the phone. Breathe the fresh air. Go and do something that will enlarge your heart and your soul and your mind. And be mindful of God in all of it – that is your worship. Thank him for blessing you with the Sabbath, and your finding the will to keep it.
I know that sounds impossible for many of you. And it sounded impossible to me too. But sometimes little voices come into our lives that make us realise it’s actually the way we are living that’s impossible.
That kind of voice came to Eugene Peterson when he was working as a pastor in a new church, and it came through the person of his five-year old daughter. She asked him if he could read her a story and he said he couldn’t because he had another church meeting to go to.
“Daddy” she said. “This is the thirty eighth night in a row that you have not been home”. And she was right.
He felt so convicted by that that he went to the Session Meeting fully intending to resign, but his people had the good sense to burrow down into what was going on and put some practical solutions on the table that would allow him to be about the work he felt called to. And out of that, came his practice of Sabbath keeping.
I read that story about 5 years ago, and since then my colleague Matt Canlis and I have been trying to keep a Sabbath and we hold each other to account for it. I know Monday’s usually a minister’s day off, but that wasn’t working, so where possible I take a Friday.
And on a Friday, depending on the weather, I get in about the vegetable patch, because that doesn’t feel like work to me, or I write, or I go for a walk or a cycle, or I do some reading. Sometimes I take Rhona or one of the kids out for lunch. I don’t open the email, I screen my calls and only answer the important ones.
I used to think it was impossible to have a day like that. Now I think it would be impossible to get through the week without a day like that. I love my Fridays – my Sabbaths – because in saying ‘no’ to all the other things that I might be doing, I’m saying ‘yes’ to God, to my family and to myself.
Your Sabbath will look different – I’m aware I have a freedom in organising my time and work that few others have. But the important thing, whatever your circumstances, is that you choose to try.
One of the lovely things about the fourth commandment is that other people get the blessing of your keeping Sabbath. According to Exodus 20, your spouse, kids, servants, the strangers in your care, even your animals and your fields will benefit from your taking rest.
For one thing, you’ will be a better person to be around. But I wonder how theUK
It’s a profoundly counter cultural choice to keep Sabbath, and not an easy one.
I wonder what kind of voice would make you seriously think about it?
The voice of a five-year old you haven’t read to for 38 nights in a row? The voice of a husband or wife who’s becoming a stranger to you? The voice of your own body, feeling stressed and exhausted because of the burdens you’re carrying and the fact you never get time to tend it. Maybe the voice of a desire you fear will never be fulfilled because you have no time to pursue it.
I hope you’re not too busy to hear those voices when they speak, because they usually whisper rather than shout. And I hope you can hear the voice of God through them, reminding you that one of the blessings of being a child of God is that our Father positively encourages us, for the best possible reasons, to learn to say ‘NO’.
Now what does it say about us that that commandment often reaches our ears not as a gift, but as a bind?
God is saying “I insist that you rest! I insist that for this one day in the week you don’t work!” but somehow that doesn’t reach us as good news.
In part, I guess, that’s the legacy of dour Sabbatarianism in our corner of the world, where folk seemed to be frightened of enjoying themselves on a Sunday in case God took offence.
Even in my childhood, Sunday was the day when nothing happened except church and the odd visit to a relative, and I wasn’t allowed out to play – not even to kick a football in the back yard. But it was all show because in the privacy of our home we read the Sunday papers and got to watch TV like everyone else. It wasn’t like God was especially on the agenda. Boredom was on the agenda.
So with that kind of cultural baggage, small wonder the word Sabbath has such negative associations. But let me try to re-enchant you this morning!
The best definition of Sabbath I’ve heard is that it’s the day when your work’s done, even when it isn’t.
There is always more to do. You could fill every moment of every day with more profitable work that could be done. The only person who can police that is you. So police it. Cordon off one day in the week when you remember to be a human being rather than a human doing. When you get back in touch with the deep and important truths that you are not indispensible, that life does not revolve around consumption, and nor are you a machine that can keep running indefinitely without a break.
You need a Sabbath. They’re good for you. As Jesus reminds us, they were made for us, not us for them.
Note, please, that I’m talking about taking a Sabbath, not observing THE Sabbath. I believe that what God was hallowing was the principle of a Sabbath’s rest, not one particular 24 hour period in the week. If you wish to get shirty with me on that one, remember that if we’re going to defend the holiness of a particular 24 hour period, it’s actually Friday evening ‘til Saturday evening we should be defending, rather than Sunday, because that was the Jewish Sabbath!
And I love that the Jewish Sabbath, on Friday evening, begins with food and then sleep, and not just because they’re two things of which I am particularly fond! Practically the first act on the Sabbath, for Jews at least, is to turn in for the night and leave it all in God’s hands. Can we do that, for 24 hours? Or will the world fall apart if we don’t run it?
Now I know there are tasks some of you need to do every day – and there’s no escaping them. But I bet you could build some rest in around those tasks if you tried.
We function better with rest, we feel more alive with rest. We go back to our work with more reserves when we’re rested.
It’s like when you’re hiking and you’re tired. If you allow yourself to stop for half an hour, to put down the big heavy rucksack for a while and have some lunch and splash your face in the water from the burn. When you come to pick up the load again, it feels much more manageable.
So for one day in the week, God says ‘don’t work’. Simplify. Slow down. Do less. Be more. Leave your email unopened. Step away from the phone. Breathe the fresh air. Go and do something that will enlarge your heart and your soul and your mind. And be mindful of God in all of it – that is your worship. Thank him for blessing you with the Sabbath, and your finding the will to keep it.
I know that sounds impossible for many of you. And it sounded impossible to me too. But sometimes little voices come into our lives that make us realise it’s actually the way we are living that’s impossible.
That kind of voice came to Eugene Peterson when he was working as a pastor in a new church, and it came through the person of his five-year old daughter. She asked him if he could read her a story and he said he couldn’t because he had another church meeting to go to.
“Daddy” she said. “This is the thirty eighth night in a row that you have not been home”. And she was right.
He felt so convicted by that that he went to the Session Meeting fully intending to resign, but his people had the good sense to burrow down into what was going on and put some practical solutions on the table that would allow him to be about the work he felt called to. And out of that, came his practice of Sabbath keeping.
I read that story about 5 years ago, and since then my colleague Matt Canlis and I have been trying to keep a Sabbath and we hold each other to account for it. I know Monday’s usually a minister’s day off, but that wasn’t working, so where possible I take a Friday.
And on a Friday, depending on the weather, I get in about the vegetable patch, because that doesn’t feel like work to me, or I write, or I go for a walk or a cycle, or I do some reading. Sometimes I take Rhona or one of the kids out for lunch. I don’t open the email, I screen my calls and only answer the important ones.
I used to think it was impossible to have a day like that. Now I think it would be impossible to get through the week without a day like that. I love my Fridays – my Sabbaths – because in saying ‘no’ to all the other things that I might be doing, I’m saying ‘yes’ to God, to my family and to myself.
Your Sabbath will look different – I’m aware I have a freedom in organising my time and work that few others have. But the important thing, whatever your circumstances, is that you choose to try.
One of the lovely things about the fourth commandment is that other people get the blessing of your keeping Sabbath. According to Exodus 20, your spouse, kids, servants, the strangers in your care, even your animals and your fields will benefit from your taking rest.
For one thing, you’ will be a better person to be around. But I wonder how the
It’s a profoundly counter cultural choice to keep Sabbath, and not an easy one.
I wonder what kind of voice would make you seriously think about it?
The voice of a five-year old you haven’t read to for 38 nights in a row? The voice of a husband or wife who’s becoming a stranger to you? The voice of your own body, feeling stressed and exhausted because of the burdens you’re carrying and the fact you never get time to tend it. Maybe the voice of a desire you fear will never be fulfilled because you have no time to pursue it.
I hope you’re not too busy to hear those voices when they speak, because they usually whisper rather than shout. And I hope you can hear the voice of God through them, reminding you that one of the blessings of being a child of God is that our Father positively encourages us, for the best possible reasons, to learn to say ‘NO’.
After reading 'an alter in the world' I decided to give this practice a try for Lent. From Fri eve to Sat eve I've been saying 'no' to TV, music, my computer, driving, phones, commerce, household chores etc. and 'yes' to enjoyable pass-times that don't involve any of these things. What a treat this has been and what a difference it's made to me. I feel fantastic and I'm sure it's made me a nicer person to be around! Without knowing what I've been doing, my closest work colleague exclaimed last week that she couldn't believe how calm I was. I love this practice!!
ReplyDeleteThat's great! Do you think you'll keep it up past Easter? I know I couldn't go back. Thanks for dropping a line - it's nice to know folk are reading. How did you come across the blog?
ReplyDeleteYes I'll definitely try to keep going with it, it just takes a bit of planning but I think it's well worth it.
ReplyDeleteI followed the link to your blog from the church facebook info page. It's great to be able to reflect on your sermons at home. Thanks for posting them here.
No worries - just glad someone is reading and making use of the site :-) I'd hoped to use it for more dialogue, but I think some of the folk who read aren't sure how to post.
ReplyDelete