Narrative Lectionary Key Verse for Today
“Six days shall work be done, but on the seventh day you shall have a holy sabbath of solemn rest to the Lord; whoever does any work on it shall be put to death.”
NL Daily Devotion for Tuesday, August 22, 2023
by R. M. Fergus, Clergy Stuff
Whoa. That’s drastic. I hope it was never carried out literally. But it is a testament to just how important it is to God that we care for ourselves through the blessed practice of sabbath rest. This is something we, as a society, are terrible at. We are constantly pulled in a million directions by our jobs, families, and activities and we put incredible pressure on ourselves to perform in every arena of our lives. The result is a kind of collective exhaustion which I believe comes out sideways in the terrible ways people so often treat one another—the toxic political climate, the constant gun violence, the innumerable microaggressions toward our BIPOC siblings, and so much more. Our failure to care for ourselves in vital and restorative ways is detrimental to us and all of creation. I wonder if the threat of death would actually make us want to stop and rest. Somehow I doubt it; we’re already killing ourselves with our constant need for activity. This is something we will always have to strive for—to work against the strident messages to go, go, go! and set aside sacred time for doing nothing at all.
What pushes or inspires me to take time to rest and care for myself?
