From sports leagues to school clubs, and youth groups to women’s groups, sororities, fraternities, PTA, service leagues, and men’s Bible studies. We long to be a part of something bigger than ourselves, to be in community with others.
Our belonging in some of these yields friendships, opportunities to grow and learn, an experience of care, and shared appreciation of something beautiful – places where God’s work is clear. And some of these associations cause us to bend over backward, turn ourselves inside out, and stretch our resources of time, talent, and treasure thin to earn and maintain membership. The need to belong and achieve, to demonstrate our worth and value is so loud it seems to block out the calm reminders that we are loved, full of the Holy Spirit to do good in the world, and our Creator is well-pleased.
How do we measure what “enough” or “plenty” feels like in our lives?
When are those moments of deep breaths and gratitude when we see that we are not lacking? Who convinces us that these moments of plenty are not, in fact, enough?
Enter sabbath.
Sabbath provides an opportunity to remember what enough feels like. It makes space for measuring our schedules to see if our time, talent, and treasure are being used to build peace and share love or if they’re taking away from our pre-existing condition of belonging to the Kingdom of Love. It may be worth our time to focus on getting out as much as getting in. Out of some of our worldly commitments… and outside.
Wendell Berry wrote much about sabbath, and I love this line: “…the natural and the supernatural, the heavenly and the earthly, the soul and the body, the wondrous and the ordinary, all appear to occur together in the one fabric of creation.” It is important to step back into creation and find the moment and place of equilibrium if only briefly, so we can recognize as we re-enter the world, whether our pace and participation in the world is Godly or worldly.
Might this be sitting around the dinner table after a regular Tuesday or enjoying both coffee and silence before the rest of the house is awake? Perhaps a wander out in nature where our senses are filled with the gifts of creation or in a Festival of Lessons and Carols full of re-membering the stories of creation? In these moments of sabbath, we can recall in the quiet, that by simply existing, we belong to God.
Welcomed and loved… always
Belonging to God is not linear. There is not an if/then equation to solve. Belonging to one another isn’t either. We exist in a web of connections, individual to individual and as a part of a larger whole. We exist in a web of being made stronger by the love and care we share with one another, whether or not we agree on a set of beliefs, expectations, and actions. When we feel as though we have fallen out of community in the Kingdom, that community is there to hold us in and hold us together. We get to offer the same to others when we recover.
Radical welcome and belonging are given to us freely. We do not have to achieve, perform, care-take, or otherwise prove ourselves to be loved or belong in the Kingdom of God. And the more we fill ourselves with that understanding, the more freely we can share love and belonging with others.
Our baptism and belonging are nothing that we do. It is done to us and for us. We welcome infants at the font not because they have finished a set of requirements, but because they are here, dwelling among us. “John answered all of them by saying, ‘I baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.’” And when we exist in that communion, we are partners in the peace that passes all understanding. So as a new year gears up, and you wonder how to improve or how to “organize your life,” rest well, and re-member your belonging.
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