A Sabbatical Sunday Morning

I remember a number of years ago.  It was a late September Sunday morning.  Natalie and I would be leaving later that afternoon to attend our synod's annual Fall Ministry Retreat. We decided to take that morning as one of our allotted continuing education Sundays.  It was 9:30 a.m. The sun was shining.  Jonah and Maddie were pretty young -- still in elementary school.  They were playing in the living room while Natalie and I sat at our big round antique dining table, drinking our morning coffee.  We still had a subscription to a newspaper, so we were sharing the different sections while we sipped our coffee.

 

Our backyard on this beautiful Sunday morning

It didn't take too long for us to look at each other as we relaxed with our reading, coffee, and the kids playing in the background with the warm morning sun bathing them, and agree, "No wonder people don't go to church on Sunday mornings!"

 

It's Memorial Day Weekend.  I woke up about 8:00 o'clock.  Maddie wanted me to drop her off at Our Saviour's Irvine Park summer worship service.  (Today begins our 33rd year of worshipping at the park.  If you are in town, check it out!) I told Maddie, "It's starting right now.  You'll be late." By the time she was ready and we got down there, it was a pretty safe bet that they were going to be done with worship pretty soon.  We decided to go for breakfast somewhere instead.

 

We ended up checking out that new coffee shop across Bridge St. from Lucy's Deli.  I don't know the name of it.  It was good, though.  The experience made me think of that Sunday morning years ago.  "No wonder people don't go to church on Sunday mornings!"

 

A colleague posted on his Facebook feed this morning 1 Corinthians 11:29-32: 

²⁹For all who eat and drink without discerning the body, eat and drink judgment against themselves. ³⁰For this reason many of you are weak and ill, and some have died. ³¹But if we judged ourselves, we would not be judged. ³²But when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with the world.

 I'm not sure why, but as I contemplate this morning I am drawn to how Paul segues from this passage into his hymn to the Body of Christ and how we are called to build up that body, not by separating ourselves from it, but by bringing the best of ourselves into it.  

²⁰As it is, there are many members, yet one body. ²¹The eye cannot say to the hand, "I have no need of you," nor again the head to the feet, "I have no need of you." ²²On the contrary, the members of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, ²³and those members of the body that we think less honorable we clothe with greater honor, and our less respectable members are treated with greater respect; ²⁴whereas our more respectable members do not need this. But God has so arranged the body, giving the greater honor to the inferior member, ²⁵that there may be no dissension within the body, but the members may have the same care for one another. ²⁶If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it. (1 Corinthians 12:20-26)

 I must admit that the opportunity to relax alone with my family on a Sunday morning is rewarding. Very pleasant even. But I miss those treats on the picnic table following worship at the park.  I enjoy the conversations with the others that gather as the Body, and who share in communion together.

Is this what Paul is talking about?  So often we use his words as judgement against those who we think need to believe rightly in Christ in order to not be judged. And right belief is of course defined as, "believe like I do."  Couldn't it also simply mean that we are called to acknowledge that, "The eye cannot say to the hand, 'I have not need of you.'?" That while it is okay to enjoy that beautiful Sunday morning now and again, partaking of a gathered community that sees its purpose as something more than the sum of its parts for the sake of the world and each other, is also rewarding? Very pleasant even?