Daily Office - Discovering the Rhythm of Sabbath Pt. 7*

1) Silence, Stillness and Centering before God (2 minutes) 

2) Scripture Reading—Mark 2:23-28

One Sabbath Jesus was going through the grain fields, and as his disciples walked along, they began to pick some heads of grain. The Pharisees said to him, “Look, why are they doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath?”

            He answered, “Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need?” In the days of Abiathar the high priest, he entered the house of God and ate the consecrated bread, which is lawful only for priests to eat. And he also gave some to his companions.”

            Then he said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is LORD even of the Sabbath.”

3) Devotional

Sabbath is not dependent upon our readiness to stop. We do not stop when we are finished. We do not stop when we complete our phone calls, finish our project, get through this stack of messages, or get out this report that is due tomorrow. We stop because it is time to stop. 

Sabbath requires surrender. If we only stop when we are finished with all our work, we will never stop—because our work is never completely done. With every accomplishment there arises a new responsibility. If we refuse rest until we are finished, we will never rest until we die. Sabbath dissolves the artificial urgency of our days, because it liberates us from the need to be finished.

We stop because there are forces larger than we that take care of the universe, and while our efforts are important, necessary, and useful, they are not (nor are we) indispensable. The galaxy will somehow manage without us for this hour, this day, and so we are invited—nay, commanded—to relax, and enjoy our relative unimportance, our humble place at the table in a very large world.

Do not be anxious about tomorrow, Jesus said again and again. Let the work of this day be sufficient.

Sabbath says, be still. Stop. There is no rush to get to the end, because we are never finished.⁶³

—Wayne Mueller

4) Question to Consider

What is your greatest fear in stopping for a 24-hour period each week?

5) Prayer

This idea of Sabbath, LORD, will require a lot of change in the way I am living life. Teach me LORD, how to take the next step with this in a way that fits my unique personality and situation. Help me trust you with all that will remain unfinished and to enjoy my humble place in your very large world. In Jesus’ name, amen 

Conclude with Silence (2 minutes) 


*From "Begin the Journey with the Daily Office" by Pete Scazzero

Daily Office - Discovering the Rhythm of Sabbath Pt. 6*

1) Silence, Stillness and Centering before God (2 minutes) 

2) Scripture Reading—Matthew 13:31-33

            He told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field. Though it is the smallest of all your seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and perch in its branches.”

            He told them still another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into a large amount of flour until it worked all through the dough.”

3) Devotional

            In these two parables describing how the kingdom of God works much like a seed, we hear Jesus calling us to slow down and take a longer view of our lives.

            . . . we can work without stopping, faster and faster, electric lights making artificial day so the whole machine can labor without ceasing. But remember: No living thing lives like this. There are greater rhythms that govern how life grows . . . seasons and sunsets and great movements of seas and stars . . . We are part of the creation story, subject to all its laws and rhythms.

To surrender to the rhythms of seasons and flowerings and dormancies is to savor the secret of life itself.

Many scientists believe we are “hard-wired” like this, to live in rhythmic awareness, to be in and then step out, to be engrossed and then detached, to work and then to rest. It follows then that the commandment to remember the Sabbath is not a burdensome requirement from some law-giving deity—“You ought, you’d better, you must”—but rather a remembrance of a law that is firmly embedded in the fabric of nature. It is a reminder of how things really are, the rhythmic dance to which we unavoidably belong.⁶²

—Wayne Mueller 

4) Question to Consider

How do the rhythms you see in nature (e.g., spring, summer, fall, winter, day, night) speak to you about the kind of rhythms you desire for your own life?

5) Prayer

LORD, I thank you that you are working even when I am sleeping. Teach me to respect the built-in rhythms of life and to live from a place of deep rest in you. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Conclude with Silence (2 minutes)

*From "Begin the Journey with the Daily Office" by Pete Scazzero