This week at First Church: Sabbath of Sabbaths

Beloved,

I am giddy with joy, and the promise of rest. I am buoyed by your good wishes and your blessings, as I get ready for my 3-month sabbatical of rest and prayer, travel and learning, attention to body and attention to spirit. Time to blow bubbles with the kids after dinner, without the (usually happy, but still!) interruption of evening meetings, time for walks with the spouse or with God, plain old time!

This is my last Sunday before sabbatical starts, one suitable for hanky-waving. I’ll be preaching, from one of Jesus’ “I Am” statements in the gospel of John: “I am the Good Shepherd.” The sermon will be something of a charge to you all: what to do while Molly is away? The short answer: rest yourselves, as you are able. As the Tao puts it: wu wei, or Do Without Doing. Align your spirit’s desires with your body’s activity, and the things you do feel like less work.

Joe Zarro, newly graduated from Harvard Divinity School, is our able liturgist. The blessed Laura Ruth will lead a charge from the sabbatical team and the entire congregation, back to me, parameters for a good sabbatical. We will commune! Breaking bread, taking cup, together. We’ll sing fabulous hymns. We’ll send you off with a keepsake, a small something to remember your faith community by as summer begins to scatter us, something we’ll bring back together in the fall, to symbolize the unique place each of us has in this Body.

If you have a favorite quote, from scripture or elsewhere, bring it along. You’ll be invited at coffee hour to write down words of blessing (your own or those of a more famous person) to glue into a travel journal the family and I will take along on our pilgrimage. We will carry your words with us from place to place, wherever we rest our heads, and think of our people.

Lawd, how I will miss you! Isn’t it good to miss people you love?

this is the day that the Lord has made,
Molly

ps: Sunday evening, 4-7pm, parents get ready for leisure: it’s Parents’ Night Out!