Rev. Susan Maginn
Holy Space, Holy Time
December 7, 2008
Wy'east UU Congregation
Portland, OR

I have a top ten list for you today. I'm really just aspiring to be a little more like David Letterman everyday.

Of all the Ten Commandments, which one gets violated the most?

Here they are, in no particular order, I should add:

10. Do not covet...very tempting to want some else's things, someone else's life.

9. Do not falsely accuse

8. Do not steal

7. Do not commit adultery

6. Do not kill

5. Honor your parents

4. Do not take the Lord's name in vain

3. Do not make idols

2. Have no other gods

But the number one most violated commandment is...

Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy! (throw postcard)

My sense is that most of us believe honoring the Sabbath is not relevant for a tradition such as ours, that it would apply to traditions that are unified by creed or religious practice or unified by a single scripture.

However, I think our tradition has a great deal to learn from honoring Sabbath time. Not only is this a way to deepen your own spiritual development, but it is also a way to say 'no, thank you' to our overworked, consumer culture. Honoring the Sabbath is anything but a path to a stayed religious life. It is a challenging discipline because it is outwardly counter cultural as well as being inwardly deepening.

The Sabbath is talked about in two distinct ways in the Hebrew scriptures. 'Remembering' the Sabbath is emphasized in Exodus (20:8-11). We remember the Sabbath to follow God's rhythm in the creation stories. God worked all week creating the oceans, the heavens, the earth, humans, creatures and then God rested after creation was complete. Our rest, our Sabbath time, is recreation, re-creation. Our rest and play creates us anew.

In Deuteronomy (5:12-15) the Sabbath emphasizes 'observing' the Sabbath. You see, if you can 'observe' the Sabbath, then you must be free. Over and over in the Hebrew scriptures the character of God reminds the people to remember that they were once slaves in Egypt. After all, slaves cannot rest. Free people can choose to rest. For ancient Hebrews, observing the Sabbath was a way to reaffirm their covenant to God and to celebrate their freedom.

One passage emphasizes God's power to create and the other emphasizes God's power to liberate. One emphasizes holiness and the other emphasizes social justice.

Remember it. Keep it holy. Thus sayeth the commandment.

While the UU way might affirm the importance of Sabbath time, it is important to point out that you will not get much help beyond that. There is no central church teaching to tell you when is the right time for you to remember the Sabbath. You may do it one day a week from sundown to sundown or you may get Sabbath time in pieces throughout your week. So we aren't going to tell you when to remember, but when you do remember, there is also no central church teaching to tell you how to keep it holy.

What I can and will say is that, from my experience, it is not enough to know about the virtues of Sabbath time intellectually, nor it is enough to remember and like the mere concept of the Sabbath. Our hearts must be open to experience the peace that passes all understanding. And these are not just pretty words! This is a real experience, to bring ourselves to stand in the presence of God, in the presence of the holy. We remember to do this not just as a nice idea, but we arrange our lives in such a way so that there is holy time, a Sabbath. We sacrifice to be sure that we have a time away from work, devoted to honoring our soul's longing for reverence, beauty and celebration.

It has been said that if you want to know what you believe in, look at your checkbook. You could also look at your calendar.

When we consider holy time, we might want to start by asking a simple question: What do we mean by time? The ancient Greeks had two predominant understandings of time: Chronos and Kairos. Chronos time is the experience of when you are marking time, in a linear way, following the calendar, in a timeline.

Kairos time is when you are marked by time. When an event happens not according to a calendar, but that event shapes your experience of that day or that season for the rest of your life.

No January will pass without remembering her death.

No October will pass without remembering that fall into love.

No June will pass without remembering his birth.

The ancient Hebrews, who are responsible for the ten commandments as we have them, had a very different understanding of time. For ancient Hebrews, time is not a time line, nor it is marked by singular events. Rather there are layers of time. For all things, there is a time - a time for living, a time for dying, a time for loving, a time for raising children, a time for working, a time for playing, a time for worshipping, and a time for resting.

The Sabbath was not always based on a seven-day week, as it is for the descendants of Abraham - Muslims, Jews and Christians. In many ancient societies, the lunar cycles told us when was the right time for rest and when was the right time for work. The waxing and waning of the moon lets us know when energy is rising or falling.

Whether it is a day of the week or a phase of the moon, why do we need Sabbath time anyway? Why isn't it enough to know in our hearts that we honor reverence, beauty and celebration? Why can't we just like this idea and not have to plan it? 'Just take it easy, let it happen whenever it happens,' we might say.

Dan Goleman is someone who writes and speaks extensively on emotional intelligence. He tells a story about a class at Princeton Seminary where the divinity students were given a topic to preach on. Half of the class was given the Good Samaritan, the parable about helping the stranger in need by the side of the road. The other half of the students were given a random selection of biblical topics. Then one at a time, they were told to walk outside and go to another building where they would give their sermon. As they went outside, they each passed a man who was bent over and moaning. Some stopped, many didn't. The question is: did contemplating the story of the Good Samaritan determine whether someone helped out or not. No. What determined if someone helped or not is if that person felt that they were in a hurry. If they were preoccupied, then they rushed past, but if they felt that they had time, then they could stop and help.

Our ability to live the kind of lives we seek, to be generous, to be fully present, these things do not have to do with learning an intellectual concept. That's what these students were doing. They were learning the concept of compassion via the Good Samaritan parable. It made no difference. Our ability to live generous and fully present lives is not about knowing concepts. It has to do with a state of being, with cultivating a spaciousness of spirit.

We tend to easily say, 'I can't do it. Don't have enough time.' Or 'I can't do it. Don't have enough money.' These limits may have more to do with our state of being than the state of our time or money. If we are only living by our calendars and rushing from one thing to the next, then we are not going to be spacious. We will be harried and worn thin and worn down. Sabbath time gives us the strength to live a full life with buoyancy and resilience.

We must have spaciousness in our spirit to be generous and present. This spaciousness doesn't just happen. It could be and, dare I say, should be cultivated with Sabbath time. If we are intentional about creating time for something as seemingly unproductive as the health of our spirit, then we are going to feel a new ability to create time for many other things. This newfound ability could be the effects of the Sabbath practices; could be the effects of getting better at organizing and prioritizing your life. The reason doesn't really matter. The spaciousness of spirit is being created and that is what matters.

I think a lot of us leave spiritual experience up to chance. Spiritual serendipity is what I call it and it can be a wonderful and even magical thing to have, in the rush of all our daily duties, these moments of awakening and even healing. When I am honoring Sabbath time on a regular basis, then these serendipity moments, or some might call them grace-filled moments, they seem to happen a lot more frequently. I think it is because when I am honoring Sabbath time regularly, I am attuned to being spiritually awake and noticing things that would otherwise get lost in the wildness of the daily routine. Without Sabbath time, we are left with the scraps of spiritual serendipity, which assures us just a few inspired but pretty random moments scattered throughout the year. I believe that this is simply not enough to sustain a strong, healthy and spacious spirit that can be awake and generous in all kinds of circumstances.

The other challenge of leaving Sabbath time up to serendipity is that it is a completely passive way to live a religious life. In talking with many of you and reflecting in my own life, I hear that your experiences with the divine are the most formative and important experiences in your life.

They are the moments when we are able to transcend what is before us, to stop the headlong tumble, to stand on the forming edge of our lives and remember the depth of our soul's longing. If these experiences of reverence, beauty and celebration are important to you, then why not bring them to life? Why wait?

It has been said, "When Sabbath comes, commerce halts, feasts are served, and all God's children play." Sounds so fun, doesn't it? My favorite Sabbath time involves cooking good food, relaxing and playing at home with loved ones. There is time for making art, loving, meditating and praying. It has been said that Sabbath is an exercise in vulnerability - to intentionally open ourselves to what is deeply appreciated about life - our relationships, our God, our home, our health. It is a time to give thanks for our work by stepping away from it.

What does this say to us about those people who are working odd hours and multiple jobs and still living in grinding poverty without time for play or rest, little time to appreciate their home or family.

Remember the Deuteronomy passage that tells people to observe the Sabbath so that they can remember that they are not slaves, they can celebrate their freedom from constant work on the Sabbath. Those who are overworked and underpaid often do not get to say when they work and when they rest. They must work whenever they can, as much as they can - whether it violates a need for Sabbath time or not.

Coming here is part of your Sabbath. You might not have all day Sunday set aside as a day of reverence, beauty and celebration - perhaps you will think about growing into that today. Coming here is already set aside for many of you. Coming here is a time of rest and play and celebration, a time to remember and honor. Perhaps you can build on this and begin to set aside more Sabbath time on Sundays or throughout your week.

We are going to be considering how to best use this space on Sundays. We have it all day long, from early in the morning till late in the evening. How do we want to use this space? When we consider this question, let us have our use of this holy space be worthy of holy time. We are here to deepen our spirits, to honor our experience of God, to look out into the wider world so that our lives may serve the highest calling we have: the creation of peace for each and all. We must start with ourselves if we are going to have spiritual blessings to share with the wider world.

So be it. Amen.

Let us pray.

Spirit of Life, let us remember our right to Sabbath time and our responsibility to create it. Enable us to discover the beauty and freedom of Sabbath rest. May we rejoice in all that is holy and call the Sabbath a delight. We pray for those who are overworked, those who are worn down by work. We pray that they may have fair wages and that as justice is being created, may they be sustained and strengthened by love and grace. May we remember and keep holy the gift of being recreated by Sabbath time.

So be it. Amen