Our Saviour Episcopal Church 
Worship Service
Rebuilders, or, Keeping the Sabbath
Proper 16, Year C, RCL. The Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost. August 22, 2010. The Episcopal Shared Ministry of Our Saviour, Salem and Trinity, Alliance. The Rev’d Jerome H. (Kip) Colegrove.
The point of keeping the Sabbath—setting aside one day in seven to do no work in the usual sense of making a living—is to pay attention to God and so be transformed in a Godly direction.
Part of that is rest and refreshment. Part of it is worship and fellowship among believers. Part of it is bearing witness to the world about what we believe.
But the part we don’t so easily see is the part where the plain fact of Sabbath-keeping is in itself a kind of prayer. In the Jewish religious tradition this is clearer. Doing what God has commanded changes you, transforms you. Isaiah says it loudly in today’s Old Tesatament reading: keeping the Sabbath turns you into a rebuilder. Let’s hear it again [Isaiah 58:12-14a, NRSV]:
Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt;
you shall raise up the foundations of many generations;
you shall be called the repairer of the breach,
the restorer of streets to live in.
If you refrain from trampling the sabbath,
from pursuing your own interests on my holy day;
if you call the sabbath a delight
and the holy day of the LORD honorable;
if you honor it, not going your own ways,
serving your own interests, or pursuing your own affairs;
then you shall take delight in the LORD,
and I will make you ride upon the heights of the earth[.]
What are we supposed to be rebuilding? Surely more than a few streets and a hole in some city wall! You bet; this is high poetry. To “ride upon the heights of the earth” is to triumph over all that opposes or ignores God. This fits with the great sweep of salvation in the Bible, which tells us of God’s intention to save, rescue, rebuild not just individual people but the whole show, in the end. And each of us is called in Christ to play a part. God’s rebuilders rebuild the whole universe. Of course, we live, move and have our being in just a corner of the universe, but this corner, which God gave us to manage, has been spoiled by rebellion against God, and (following St. Paul’s analysis) this has affected the universe as a whole. We are responsible for that. God proposes to work with us—or let us work with him (it comes to the same thing)—in repairing the catastrophe.
God has given those who seek his face a day out of every week in which to find him by paying serious attention to his call to holiness. Prayer, study (especially of Holy Scripture) and godly conversation are especially important on this day. Part of our prayer can be sitting quietly, trustfully waiting on the Holy Spirit, the same Spirit that brought a sick woman to Jesus on the Sabbath to be healed. A person becoming whole on the Sabbath glorifies God profoundly, and the legalists of Jesus’ time—who thought you shouldn’t heal on the Sabbath because that would be doing work and work is forbidden on that day—those legalists were ashamed of themselves when Jesus reminded them that to rescue living things from suffering on the Sabbath was always considered a holy deed. That’s from today’s reading from the Gospel of Luke. (Luke 13:10-17)
God is rescuing his creation from suffering. Keeping Sabbath—being renewed by the discipline of a holy day that anchors our week—is part of God’s rescue operation. Keeping Sabbath is not an antique curiosity. It is not small potatoes. It is abundant life.
To declare a day for peace and quiet in God. To declare a day for God to strengthen and renew us by intentional fellowship with him and our fellow believers. To declare before the world that this day has been set aside to honor the new heaven and new earth that God has promised through Jesus Christ—that is keeping Sabbath.
So here we are. May our hearts be still. May we know the presence of the living God. May we find strength in our hearts, minds and hands to repair the breach, to be builders every day for God’s kingdom. May we find better and better ways to use Sabbath time to find and be found by God. Jesus calls us to meet him in Sabbath time; by his grace, may we keep it holy.
Proper 16, Year C, RCL. The Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost. August 22, 2010. The Episcopal Shared Ministry of Our Saviour, Salem and Trinity, Alliance. The Rev’d Jerome H. (Kip) Colegrove.
The point of keeping the Sabbath—setting aside one day in seven to do no work in the usual sense of making a living—is to pay attention to God and so be transformed in a Godly direction.
Part of that is rest and refreshment. Part of it is worship and fellowship among believers. Part of it is bearing witness to the world about what we believe.
But the part we don’t so easily see is the part where the plain fact of Sabbath-keeping is in itself a kind of prayer. In the Jewish religious tradition this is clearer. Doing what God has commanded changes you, transforms you. Isaiah says it loudly in today’s Old Tesatament reading: keeping the Sabbath turns you into a rebuilder. Let’s hear it again [Isaiah 58:12-14a, NRSV]:
Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt;
you shall raise up the foundations of many generations;
you shall be called the repairer of the breach,
the restorer of streets to live in.
If you refrain from trampling the sabbath,
from pursuing your own interests on my holy day;
if you call the sabbath a delight
and the holy day of the LORD honorable;
if you honor it, not going your own ways,
serving your own interests, or pursuing your own affairs;
then you shall take delight in the LORD,
and I will make you ride upon the heights of the earth[.]
What are we supposed to be rebuilding? Surely more than a few streets and a hole in some city wall! You bet; this is high poetry. To “ride upon the heights of the earth” is to triumph over all that opposes or ignores God. This fits with the great sweep of salvation in the Bible, which tells us of God’s intention to save, rescue, rebuild not just individual people but the whole show, in the end. And each of us is called in Christ to play a part. God’s rebuilders rebuild the whole universe. Of course, we live, move and have our being in just a corner of the universe, but this corner, which God gave us to manage, has been spoiled by rebellion against God, and (following St. Paul’s analysis) this has affected the universe as a whole. We are responsible for that. God proposes to work with us—or let us work with him (it comes to the same thing)—in repairing the catastrophe.
God has given those who seek his face a day out of every week in which to find him by paying serious attention to his call to holiness. Prayer, study (especially of Holy Scripture) and godly conversation are especially important on this day. Part of our prayer can be sitting quietly, trustfully waiting on the Holy Spirit, the same Spirit that brought a sick woman to Jesus on the Sabbath to be healed. A person becoming whole on the Sabbath glorifies God profoundly, and the legalists of Jesus’ time—who thought you shouldn’t heal on the Sabbath because that would be doing work and work is forbidden on that day—those legalists were ashamed of themselves when Jesus reminded them that to rescue living things from suffering on the Sabbath was always considered a holy deed. That’s from today’s reading from the Gospel of Luke. (Luke 13:10-17)
God is rescuing his creation from suffering. Keeping Sabbath—being renewed by the discipline of a holy day that anchors our week—is part of God’s rescue operation. Keeping Sabbath is not an antique curiosity. It is not small potatoes. It is abundant life.
To declare a day for peace and quiet in God. To declare a day for God to strengthen and renew us by intentional fellowship with him and our fellow believers. To declare before the world that this day has been set aside to honor the new heaven and new earth that God has promised through Jesus Christ—that is keeping Sabbath.
So here we are. May our hearts be still. May we know the presence of the living God. May we find strength in our hearts, minds and hands to repair the breach, to be builders every day for God’s kingdom. May we find better and better ways to use Sabbath time to find and be found by God. Jesus calls us to meet him in Sabbath time; by his grace, may we keep it holy.
Our Saviour Episcopal Church
Rev. Jerome H. Colegrove "Kip"
870 E. State Street
Salem, Ohio 44460
oursaviour@sbcglobal.net
(330) 332-5701
Join us for Sunday service at 11:00 a.m.
