setting our minds on the kingdom: ramblings on sickness, sabbath and serenity

For me, one of the up sides of being a little sick with a cold or flu is the enforced solitude it creates if I am paying attention. There is little joy in these times if we are deeply distressed. But inside a mild illness, there can be blessing, if we are both tender and patient enough to embrace it. In my later years, I have tried to honor these times like they were an unexpected snow day - saturated in silence - or even an unanticipated retreat. Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel once wrote that observing Sabbath not only heals our bodies and souls, but teaches us to trust God's care throughout the week. If we honor the Sabbath and keep it holy by setting aside a full day to let God be God, then just maybe we can trust God beyond Sabbath, too: 

To gain control of the world of space is certainly one of our tasks. The danger begins when in gaining power in the realm of space we forfeit all aspirations in the realm of time. There is a realm of time where the goal is not to have but to be, not to own but to give, not to control but to share, not to subdue but to be in accord. Life goes wrong when the control of space, the acquisition of things of space, becomes our sole concern.” Gallantly, ceaselessly, quietly, (we) must fight for inner liberty” to remain independent of the enslavement of the material world. Inner liberty depends upon being exempt from domination of things as well as from domination of people. There are many who have acquired a high degree of political and social liberty, but only very few are not enslaved to things. This is our constant problem—how to live with people and remain free, how to live with things and remain independent.

There have been too many times in my past when I refused to listen to my body's invitation to rest. Truth be told, I was just too full of myself to honor such a call. Too anxious and insecure, too. After all, I was PASTOR, and pastors are NEEDED, right? Needed to run a meeting? Well, sometimes, but not always. Needed to celebrate and lead the liturgy? Often but others can help out just fine, too. Needed to share compassion and wisdom? Not too well when I'm sick and hurting. But I listened more to my insecurities and anxieties in those days than God's grace. 

The Sabbath is a metaphor for paradise and a testimony to God’s presence; in our prayers, we anticipate a messianic era that will be a Sabbath, and each Shabbat prepares us for that experience: “Unless one learns how to relish the taste of Sabbath … one will be unable to enjoy the taste of eternity in the world to come.” It was on the seventh day that God gave the world a soul, and “[the world’s] survival depends upon the holiness of the seventh day.” The task... becomes how to convert time into eternity, how to fill our time with spirit: “Six days a week we wrestle with the world, wringing profit from the earth; on the Sabbath we especially care for the seed of eternity planted in the soul. The world has our hands, but our soul belongs to Someone Else.”

Please know I am not equating sickness with Sabbath. Rather, I'm suggesting that if we haven't entered into a deep commitment to keeping the Sabbath holy, we won't be able to live into its peace in all the other times beyond Sabbath. In our work. In our love. In our family. In our politics. In our economics. And yes even in our flesh. Like many professional men, beyond planned vacations, I often needed a sickness to knock me on my butt so that I would rest. Not so much any more, but for decades. Two quotes from St. Paul and St. Henri come to mind. It isn't accidental that the Apostle Paul made this appeal to those eager to live into the way of Jesus:

I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and mature.

Yes, even our bodies. Or especially our bodies. We follow the Word of God - the blue print of the Holy in creation to use Fr. Richard Rohr's paraphrase - who has become flesh: the essence of the sacred incarnated in humanity as well as all of creation. My morning prayer book for Wednesday put it like this: "Grant me the grace to face all that shall happen this day as part of Your special plan for me. Let me fill my pockets with the hidden gifts concealed within my work, my family and my life. May I reject no single one of them because of failing to see the word or event - the pleasure of pain - as holding Your holy meaning." (Fr. Ed Hays, Prayers for the Domestic Church.) When I get sick like I have been for the past three days I must slow down. I am too tired to do much of anything even if I want to. So sipping hot tea and reading fills my day. So, too with long day time naps. And God knows a strong maple and bourbon hot toddy each evening offers its own blessing, yes? I understand that given our dog eat dog economy and woefully inadequate health insurance practices that not everyone can afford to let their illness become an unplanned mini-retreat. At the same time, however, I wonder if some of us couldn't push the envelope on rest a bit from time to time as part of our presentation of our bodies to God as a holy, living sacrifice? Or loving our neighbor as our self?

Cut to the other quote from St. Henri Nouwen, the wounded healer who knew as much and maybe more about anxiety than any one currently writing. His take on Jesus' invitation to "seek ye first the kingdom of God" rings true when it comes to Sabbath, rest, honoring our flesh and living lives not conformed to the addictions of this world.  

The words of Jesus "Set your hearts on God's kingdom first... and all other things will be given you as well" summarize best the way we are called to live our lives. With our hearts set on God's kingdom. That kingdom is not some faraway land that we hope to reach, nor is it life after death or an ideal state of affairs. No. God's Kingdom is, first of all, the active presence of God's Spirit within us, offering us the freedom we truly desire... so the main question becomes: how do we set our hearts on the Kingdom first when our hearts are preoccupied with so many things? Somehow a radical change of heart is required, a change that allows us to experience the reality of our existence from God's place.

Certainly the vigorous, intentional and humble practice of keeping Sabbath is a part of "setting our hearts" on God's kingdom. Heschel wrote: The Sabbath is the most precious present mankind has received from the treasure house of God. All week we think: The spirit is too far away, and we succumb to spiritual absenteeism, or at best we pray: Send us a little of Thy spirit. On the Sabbath the spirit stands and pleads: Accept all excellence from me …”  Keeping the Sabbath holy is an embodied prayer - one we can share with those we love - and build celebration and holiness into our everyday, ordinary lives. 

The other practice that is essential to "setting our minds on the kingdom of God" is regular quiet prayer. Silence and contemplation on a regular basis. Not only does this disconnect us from our obsessions and striving, but over time it leads us beside the still waters of God's peace that restores our soul. It is an inward conversion from anxiety to rest. A living encounter with the heart of holiness within our human experience. In St. Luke's gospel, Jesus puts it like this when asked by some of the teachers of his time: "When the kingdom of God was coming, and he answered, “The kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed; nor can we say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There it is!’ For, in fact, the kingdom of God is within you.” (Luke 17: 20-21)

Two insights arise in this passage for me. First, the text tells us that there will be no unique and observable moments in history when the kingdom arrives. It will not be an event. Or a one time occurrence. Scholars are clear that the word Jesus uses here is paratérésis - παρατήρησις, εως, ἡ - meaning a sign that can be observed. Witnessed. Seen. Rather, the coming of God's kingdom takes place within each heart: the kingdom arrives entos - ἐντός - inside of us. Within us. Sometimes this word is translated as "among us" or "in the midst of us" and that evokes a slightly different inside. Namely, that wherever two or three are gathered together in God's love then Christ - and God's kingdom - is in our midst. And that resonates, too. The key point is that Jesus emphasized the importance of regular contemplation. Silence. Meditation and relinquishment as the path to trust. Any true justice or compassion we might attempt in the world is predicated upon an inner communion with God. 

Please don't make the dualistic mistake of hearing an either/or here. This is NOT about choosing prayer over social justice or the heresy of quietude over being engaged with the wounds of the world. Not at all.  Fr. Richard Rohr recently wrote that only after we have "set our hearts on the kingdom of God" and tasted the peace that passes all understand, are we able to live and love and heal in the world beyond striving and anxiety. He put it like this early this week:

Until grace achieves that victory in our minds and hearts, we cannot comprehend most of Jesus’ and Paul’s teachings. Before conversion, we tend to think of God as “out there.” After transformation, we don’t look out at reality as if it is hidden in the distance. We look out from reality! Our life is participating in God’s Life. We are living in Christ. As Paul tells the Colossians, “your life is hidden with Christ in God” (3:3). Paul is obsessed by this idea. It undergirds everything he writes. Paul is the great announcer of what is happening everywhere all the time much more than he is the architect of a new religion.

All this week I have had to cancel my outward commitments in order to let my body rest and heal. I am slowly getting better and my congestion could have been much worse. I still stink at resting in God's holy silence. Nevertheless, this quiet time has been renewing, restful and a real blessing for me  So be gentle with yourselves, my friends, please be gentle.