The Rev. Jeannie Martz In North Palm Beach, Florida, on a beautiful piece of property that runs from US Highway 1, which is always busy, down to the shore of the Intra-Coastal Waterway, there is a retreat center owned by the Passionist Fathers of the Roman Catholic Church. The dormitory wings of the center form a squared off “W,” with each arm of the W extending towards the Intra-Coastal and the rooms angled, so that every room has a balcony with a private, and serenely beautiful, view of the water. Years ago, when I served in the Diocese of Southeast Florida, I was fortunate enough to spend some time at the Passionist Fathers on a silent retreat for diocesan clergy – and trust me, trying to keep Episcopal priests silent for a full two days is like the proverbial herding of cats! Those clergy who were normally fused to their cell phones were in agony, and so the Bishop made some slight provision for taking “really (really) important calls.” Now, I’m enough of an introvert to relish enforced non-conversation, but even I was surprised during this retreat to discover silence as more than just the absence of noise. I discovered silence as a physical place; silence as a state of being. On the retreat’s free afternoon, I chose to take a walk off the grounds. I walked along US 1, and then along the road that leads to Jupiter Island, and back again. I was gone for about two hours in those days before the ever presence of ear buds, surrounded by the noise of traffic and the sounds of everyday life. When I got back to the driveway of the retreat center and stepped onto the property, stepped off the sidewalk of US 1, the contrast was physical and instantaneous. I felt as if I had opened a door and stepped through, back into my own center; back into a realm of peace. I had re-entered Silence. The Jewish sabbath, Shabbat, the day and the reality that figure in two of our readings this morning, is a similar sensory and spiritual state of being – and yet, Shabbat is so much more as well. Lasting 25 hours, from sundown Friday until 3 stars are visible in the sky on Saturday night – or more prosaically, lasting until an hour after sundown on Saturday – Shabbat is the theological and spiritual highlight of the Jewish week and the unity that binds together all the branches of Judaism. Described as “a weekly holiday;” “…more than just a day off from labor;…[Shabbat] is a day of physical and spiritual delights.” Shabbat is “a reminder of the purposefulness of the world and the role of human beings in it;” and “a day of joy, a sanctuary from travails, and even a foretaste of the perfected world that will someday be attained.” (Shabbat 101, online) Another source says that Shabbat stands alone, “separate from the rest of the week;” Shabbat is “the centerpiece of Jewish life,” “a time that is set aside to take notice of the wonders around us.” (ReformJudaism.org, Chabad.org) Most importantly, Shabbat is seen to be a personification of God’s Law and of Israel’s relationship to the Law. Once invited into the family through the opening prayers and candles lit as darkness falls on Friday evenings, “…[T]he Shabbat is a ‘queen,’ writes one rabbi, “whose regal presence graces every Jewish home for the duration of the Shabbat day.” (Chabad.org) The standard greeting for the day, “Shabbat Shalom,” is an additional invitation and welcome not only into the state of being that is the peace of Shalom, but also an invitation into the home where Queen Shabbat is present. Christian interest in the spiritual implications of the Sabbath, both devotional and personal, has grown over the past 40 years or so, with great attention now being paid to what each of us designates as our own “Sabbath time” – a time ideally free from, or at least insulated from, our own “travails,” as the rabbis phrased it; and “a time to take notice of the wonders around us.” As Christians, we also honor Genesis and God’s resting on the seventh day of Creation, seeing Sabbath time as a time of our own re-creation, of personal refreshment, and a time for reevaluating our relationships with God and with the others around us. As probably all of us know from personal experience along the way, however, relationships are tricky business. As the late Jimmy Buffet, one of my personal favorites, once said in one of his songs, “Relationships! We’ve all got ‘em. We all want ‘em. What do we do with them?” Relationships, bless their hearts, have lives of their own, with growth and developmental patterns all their own; and it doesn’t matter whether a relationship is one on one, one on group, or group on group. In each case, the interpersonal dynamics are the same. A relationship experiences tension when the needs or the expectations of one or both parties in the relationship aren’t being met. Depending on how seriously this tension is being felt, the relationship can either go into a pinch, or into a crunch. In order for the relationship to survive – and not just endure, but survive – both parties must recognize the tension, hopefully of a pinch, renegotiate their expectations, and start again from this new point. In our reading from Mark this morning, however, we’re well beyond pinch. The relationship between Jesus and the Pharisees, the experts on the Law of Moses, this relationship is definitely in a crunch mode, and will need major renegotiation to survive. In Jesus, the Pharisees’ expectations of God and of the promises about the Messiah, as well as their traditions about the Law of Moses, are not being met in the person and in the actions and teachings of Jesus. They have zero interest in renegotiating these expectations with him, and so Mark concludes this section of his Gospel with the observation that “The Pharisees went out, and immediately held counsel with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him.” The livedout reality of Jesus and the Pharisees’ traditional expectations of the Messiah didn’t match – and therefore, something had to give. What are our own expectations concerning our relationship with God? What are our own expectations of, and understandings of, discipleship? What do we think being a disciple of Jesus Christ looks like, and means in the world today? If being a disciple means being a student, at what point do we graduate? When do we move beyond simply sitting at the Teacher’s feet? Studies in education have shown that one of the best models for learning is “action/reflection.” That is, although it may sound counterintuitive and actually descriptive of most teenagers, studies say that we all really do learn better when we act first, and then think second. According to this model, we understand better when we engage in an activity, and then reflect on our actual experience of the activity rather than reflecting only on the theory of the activity. In theory, the stove is hot, but that’s just what people say. In practice, yep, the stove is hot – and my reflection upon this action of touching the stove is, what do I personally need to do to avoid being burned again? What, as a disciple of Jesus Christ, do I personally need to do to show forth this discipleship in my life? This is the question, this is the learning model, of this season we’re now in, the long, green Season after Pentecost – and I’m delighted it’s green, because this is the first chance I’ve had to wear this green stole from Jerusalem that a friend brought back from the same pilgrimage I was on and, total surprise, gave it to me for Christmas. Today is its maiden voyage! Back to the calendar -- this season between Pentecost Sunday two weeks ago and next November’s First Sunday in Advent is known in some Christian traditions as Ordinary Time, which sounds kind of sad and ho-hum; but actually just means that we keep track of the Sundays with ordinal numbers: the Second Sunday after Pentecost, the Third Sunday after Pentecost, the Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost, and so on. But going back to action/reflection, Ordinary Time is this space when we reflect on, and learn from, all the activity that has come before in our liturgical year: the anticipation, nativity, ministry, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus, and the outpouring of God’s Spirit upon God’s people -- in other words, Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Holy Week, Easter, Ascension, and Pentecost. Here in Ordinary Time, we have the spiritual space to look back and say, “Holy Guacamole! Now what do I do??” – and we have the time to reflect on the teachings of the Christian year. What happened, we ask? What does all this mean? And what difference does “all this” mean in our life together as a faith community? What does it mean in each of our lives individually? How is God calling me as a person of faith to respond to Jesus on a daily basis? In addition to being questions of the Spirit, these are all questions that have to do with relationships. What do we do with them? In these coming weeks and months, through our readings, the Church gives us space to examine the assumptions and expectations that we have about life, about God, and about being a Christian and a follower of Jesus. It gives us space to examine these expectations and to compare them, both to the lived-out reality of Scripture, and to the lived-out reality of our own lives. Today’s readings show the early Church beginning this process, a process that in turn can help to guide us as we reflect. Even so, as we determine our words, our actions, and our expectations of ourselves and those around us, Paul’s words from 2 Corinthians remain a healthy touchstone: “We do not proclaim ourselves,” he writes. “[W]e proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord and ourselves as your slaves for Jesus’ sake. For it is the God who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. “But,” Paul reminds us, “we have this treasure in clay jars” – or in “earthen vessels,” as traditionally phrased; the “clay jars” of our own mortality, fallibility, and finitude. “We have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear,” Paul writes, “that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us.” This extraordinary power – power to examine our relationship with God, to examine our own expectations of this relationship, to be a participant with God in the ongoing Creation and re-creation of the cosmos, to invite God’s Sabbath into our lives with the Peace of Sabbath, the state of being that is Shabbat Shalom; all this is a gift that lies at our fingertips, waiting to be invited in. And so, I have an additional invitation for all of us. I invite all of us to approach this Ordinary Time, this long Season after Pentecost, as a season of Sabbath: a season we dedicate as a time and a space to be with God – a time of refreshment, renewal, and re-creation, welcoming God into our homes and into our lives. Most of us don’t light candles just before sundown on Fridays to welcome in the Sabbath – but I invite each of us to reflect on the Sabbath places in our lives. Where are the places that enhance, make us aware of, our relationship with God? Where are the places that feed us spiritually, that are to us, as those rabbis said, “a reminder of the purposefulness of the world and the role of human beings in it,” “a time that is set aside to take notice of the wonders around us.” (Shabbat 101 (online), Reform Judaism.org) Early June to late November is a long time, which means we can savor, rather than rush, our reflections. We can step back from the world’s busyness, find a place of quiet, and think about what the presence of Jesus in our lives means – and as we do, may the peace of this Sabbath time be with us all.
Amen.