Recovering Sabbath in Coronatide

Two Sundays ago, I found myself in tears as I was reminded of one of my favorite parts of the Anglican service: the filing down the aisle of people from all ages and walks of life towards the communion table.  Hands outstretched.  Hearts open before the Lord.  For the past several months, we have only been sending one representative from each family to receive the bread, but this change of seeing entire family units make their way forward was so moving for me. Even with six feet between one other, and with masks covering our faces, and with squirming toddlers receiving blessings from a distance, I was reminded how precious it is for each of us to journey towards the table every Sunday.  One foot in front of the other.

As Village was able to safely reinstitute this small (but actually big) element of our worship together as a body, I was given the chance to reflect upon other small (but big) elements of our family’s normal Sundays that have gone missing since COVID arrived.

Before COVID, we had a rhythm—as most of us did/do—that helped our family flow through the week, culminating with Sunday, our Sabbath day.  It was our day of rest, of play, of only eating left-overs so nobody had to cook, and of leaving out ‘Sabbath Bread’ on Saturday evening so that parents could sleep in before church and the children could do breakfast on their own.  Almost all of our family rhythms have drastically shifted since March, and it has taken me until now to stop and examine them.  

I realize that as school is starting back, and as we are starting to be involved safely in activities again, our old rhythms are very much in need of reinstating.  The most important of these rhythms is Sabbath, as both our ending and our beginning point of the week.  It is not only our family’s day of physical rest and enjoyment of each other’s uninterrupted time, but also our filling up with the Body of Christ, and our time of being equipped to go out and ‘do the work (He) have given us to do’.  

This blog is both a confession of how I haven’t taken a true Sabbath in months and haven’t prepared my heart well to enter into worship, and it is also a call for myself and others to re-establish a Sabbath.  I realize how restless I’ve been over these strange few months of ‘half normal summer’, and I am reminded of St. Augustine’s famous quote: “Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in thee.” Of course I’m restless if I haven’t taken a proper day of rest.  A day to truly re-member myself to my maker and to truly rest in his tender presence and peace.

As we’ve started to make some adjustments and began to think through some of our former family liturgies, I wanted to share some simple thoughts on how to start a true Sabbath again.  There are so many good ideas out there and I’ve only listed a few here to get us going. 

-Start on Saturday.

Start on Saturday by mentally and physically preparing yourself and your family for Sabbath.  Make some Sabbath Bread* as I mentioned earlier.  This could be something fancy or a box of Betty Crocker muffin mix.  This is an act of preparation that marks the start of rest on Sunday.  The muffins can be left in a Tupperware on the counter so the kids can enjoy them on their own (they will love the independence!), and if there aren’t kids in your home then it can still serves as a sweet and effortless treat to mark the start of this different and holy day. This might also mean doing chores, running errands, and completing any work needed to do over the weekend on Saturday, even if staying up late to do so, in order that Sunday truly is a day of rest.

-Read the Scripture before the service.  

One nice thing about COVID worship is having the liturgy emailed out to us a day or two before the service.  Print it out and read it alone or as a family on Saturday night or Sunday before church.  Or use Lectio Divina, as Seth+ mentioned in an email, as a way to meditate upon the word as you prepare to spend more time with it on Sunday.  Or ask your children to listen for a word or phrase, as Sharon recommended, from the text as it is read on Sunday.  Or ask yourself or others what words or images mean the most in the passage, and draw a picture to express them.

-Turn off your screen.  Full stop.

I know this one is so very hard to do.  If at all possible, try not to bring your phone to church or leave it turned off in your car. Try to go the whole morning before church, and even the hour or two after, without turning it on.  Worship means offering ourselves to God, and it’s almost impossible to offer our full selves when we are half-connected to our devices.  

-Make two lists.

What makes you feel rested and peaceful? Make a list of these things. Does it involve napping, creating, singing, exercising, reading a novel, or baking?  Make an effort to do these things on Sundays as acts of worship and restoration.  For your second list, keep a note pad out on Sunday and every time you are tempted to order something on Amazon or run over to Home Depot, jot it down so that you can come back to it on another day.  It’s not lost, but the urgency is taken from the task and you have that space back to continue resting and worshiping.

-Prepare the family to enter into worship.  

I know that this is not as easy as it was a few months ago when we would physically enter into the sanctuary and mark the start of our time together.  The baptismal water and the smell of incense really helped stimulate my children’s senses.  We don’t have these elements, but we do have the beauty of nature around us, and we have the chance to join our voices with the song of creation, from the cicada’s buzz to the rooster’s crow.  I highly recommend the children’s book, Glory, as it has beautiful words and illustrations that connect our bodies with all of creation as we each uniquely sing glory to God.  Since it is noisy outside once we arrive at church, possibly having a silent car ride all the way there could be a way of marking the time as holy and helping us prepare to enter in.

As we continue worshipping together outside for the next few months in the gift of the ‘cathedral of trees’, and as our lifestyles continue to be in a bit of flux due to COVID, may we not tarry in our efforts to connect on Sundays and to re-embrace our Sabbaths as days of worship and rest.  In a season marked by so much confusion, noise, unrest, and instability, we need to reclaim this time now more than ever.

*This idea and many others can be found in the book: 24/6, by Matthew Sleeth.