The Sabbath Experiment

By Kara Root

It was 28 months ago that our congregation decided to begin intentionally practicing Sabbath rest as part of our life together. We were nervous but excited, unsure what it all meant but ready to embark on our one-year experiment. We had read Wayne Muller’s Sabbath together, and joined the Sisters of St. Frances for a retreat to learn about Sabbath-keeping. We were choosing to shape our life deliberately around worship, hospitality and Sabbath, and it would mean some big changes.

Our first “practice” Sabbath service had been months in the planning. We were preparing ourselves to stop worshipping every Sunday morning. In the nearly 85 years of our congregation’s existence, such a thing had never been done. But we wanted to see what it would be like to set some Sundays aside as Days of Rest, so we had created a Sabbath service that we would hold on Saturday evening, meant to inaugurate this Day of Rest. On this particular evening we would try it for the first time, then we’d return for dinner Sunday night and talk about what we had experienced.

The service itself was virtually a disaster. We had created an order of worship that loosely followed our Presbyterian order, but embraced silence, and used simple, repetitive music we could sink into. But we did not yet have a musician. And we were uncomfortable with silence. And we didn’t know yet how the “sermon” would function in the service. So we muddled through painfully, and everyone left awkwardly to head home and NOT attend church in the morning.

The next morning was strange. The whole day was strange, and it was wonderful. I felt incognito. We went on a family walk, past a couple of churches with cars filling the parking lot and parishioners tucked inside, the wandering pastor and her family sneaking by. We did what came to us. Read. Napped. Played legos. My 2-year-old daughter and I ended up together in a big bubble bath filled with toys, that became for months after our Sabbath Sunday ritual. The day was a delicious conundrum. It stretched on forever. I cooked lunch instead of throwing pb&j on paper plates.

As evening approached, my anxiety began to build, and I headed back to church for the verdict. How did others feel about the day? Would we move forward with this plan, or would they pull the plug here and now?

When I arrived in the church building, something felt different. I entered the room where people were setting out their pot-luck goodies and noticed others scattered in groupings, talking animatedly, peacefully, joyfully. The feeling in the air stopped me in my tracks. There was a different rhythm to the hubbub. It was restful, serene.

We gathered together and people began to share…

“I knew I couldn’t do laundry, so I opened the paper and there was an article about the butterfly exhibit at the zoo. So I got in the car and drove there. And I spent the morning walking through the butterflies.”

“I called my sister in law, whom I haven’t seen in a year, and she came over for brunch.”

“I sat on the front porch with a cup of coffee and read the whole newspaper, from cover to cover.”

“I walked around the lake, listening to birds and didn’t rush at all.”

I listened, amazed.

We had been talking for months about the gifts of Sabbath, the way God would meet us if we stopped long enough to be met. But here they all were, telling me that it was true after all. Had I really believed it?

In the two years now that we have been practicing Sabbath as a community, we have settled into a rich and nurturing rhythm. First and third Sundays we worship on Sunday mornings in all our Presbyterian glory. Second and Fourth weekends we meet Saturday nights, by candlelight and harp, and sink into Sabbath rest together.

And on Sunday, we spend the day in Sabbath. Here and there, all over the city, individuals and families purposely stopping.

It hasn’t always been easy, and we’ve had our ups and downs in the transition time, but it has become a communal rhythm that grounds us, feeds us and offers respite to our community. It has opened us up to encounter God more candidly throughout our week, un-anchoring worship from Sunday mornings and placing it within our souls and community instead. (e.g. Whenever we have a fifth Sunday, we worship at a county children’s facility, St. Joseph’s Home for Children, sharing/leading their chapel service as our own worship. This has led to deeper connections in our community). Church is something we are, not somewhere we go. Sabbath has taught us that.

Practicing Sabbath in this way has infected our whole communal life. Our session meetings are worshipful, we retreat more as a community, we remind each other to rest, we say “no” more, and “yes” more too. Sabbath is teaching us who we are and reminding us whose we are. And our one-year experiment has become a way of life for our church community.

Kara Root is the pastor of Lake Nokomis Presbyterian Church in Minneapolis. This article was written for the Clayfire worship blog in August of this year.  You can find out more at www.clayfirecurator.org.

 

Tags: featured, kara root

Category: Blog, InPrint