Tuesday, March 29, 2022
Rest as obedience pt 2
An excerpt from Leviticus 25:1-19 (NRSV)
Then you shall have the trumpet sounded loud; on the tenth day of the seventh month - on the day of atonement - you shall have the trumpet sounded in all your land.And you shall hallow the fiftienth year and you shall proclaim liberty through the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you.
Reflection from The Rev. Jenny Hulen,
St. Simon’s Episcopal Church:
We work so hard. Sometimes we rest, but our rest can be tainted with guilt or feeling “non-productive” which is anathema in our 21st century, capitalist meritocracy. And yet here, in the middle of a long explanation of what God requires of God’s covenant people, is this command to rest. It’s not just a thirty-minute break from your phone. This is a good, long year of rest.The kind that can actually soak down into your soul. Not only is the command to rest ourselves, but all creation is called into the year of Jubilee. Debts are canceled, land taken in payment is returned to the familial owner, slaves are freed, and everybody and everything simply waits, dependent on God’s good provision rather than our own labors.
Self-examination and repentance are gifts that help us find our true North and restore our relationships. Where are you too busy? Where do you perhaps think you can’t stop or slow down because it’s “all” up to you? There is no historical record that the Year of the Jubilee was ever actually celebrated (and the likelihood is strong that it won’t be). But the invitation to stillness, rest, and non-production is one we can still embrace as faithful children of God. Rest and put down your burden, Beloved. God has got this.
Hilton Head, South Carolina. Photograph by Marilyn Knilans,
St. Gregory’s Epsicopal Church.
For further study and prayer, the readings assigned for today are:
Psalm 53; Leviticus 25:1-19; Revelation 19:9-10
MUSIC
“The Trumpet Shall Sound”
from Handel’s Messiah,
sung by Dashon Burton
The trumpet shall sound,
and the dead shall be raised!