James L. Travis, III - "The Rhythm of Life" (June 1, 1997)

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-	The gospel lesson is from Saint Mark.	0:11
	And it came about that he was passing through	0:18
	the grain fields on the Sabbath,	0:21
	and his disciples began to make their way	0:24
	while picking the heads of grain,	0:27
	and the Pharisees were saying to him,	0:31
	"See here, why are they doing what is not lawful	0:34
	"on the Sabbath?"	0:37
	And he said to them, "Have you never read what David did	0:40
	"when he was in need and became hungry?	0:45
	"He and his companions. How he entered the house of God	0:48
	"in the time of Abiathar the High Priest	0:52
	"and ate the consecrated bread, which is not lawful	0:55
	"for anyone to eat, except the priest.	0:59
	"And he gave it also to those who were with him."	1:01
	And he was saying to them, "The Sabbath was made	1:06
	for humankind, not humankind for the Sabbath."	1:09
	Consequently, the son of man is Lord even of the Sabbath.	1:16
	And he entered again into a Synagogue	1:22
	and a man was there with a withered hand,	1:25
	and they were watching him to see if he would heal him	1:28
	on the Sabbath in order that they might accuse him.	1:31
	And he said to the man with the withered hand,	1:36
	"Rise and come forward."	1:39
	And he said to them, "Is it lawful on the Sabbath	1:42
	"to do good? Or to do harm? To save a life or to kill?"	1:46
	But they kept silent.	1:53
	And after looking around at them with anger,	1:55
	grieved at the hardness of their heart,	2:00
	he said to the man, "Stretch out your hand."	2:03
	And he stretched it out, and his hand was restored.	2:06
	And the Pharisees went out and immediately	2:11
	began taking council with the Herodians against him	2:14
	as to how they might destroy him.	2:18
	This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.	2:23
	I rarely divulge in a sermon how that sermon came to be,	2:37
	that is, how it took shape and developed.	2:42
	Can be kind of weird sometimes.	2:45
	But I want to do that briefly today	2:48
	since it just might be of interest.	2:50
	Perhaps curiously coincidental to the secularist,	2:53
	or perhaps reassuringly spirit-led to the believer.	2:56
	At any rate, this is how the sermon emerged.	3:01
	Before knowing that I would be preaching here today,	3:04
	I read an essay in the January Christian Century	3:08
	on keeping Sabbath.	3:10
	It captured my attention, and remained provocatively	3:14
	embedded in my awareness.	3:17
	Some weeks later after agreeing to preach,	3:20
	I looked up the gospel lesson in the lectionary,	3:22
	read the Markan text that I just read,	3:25
	began to ponder the meaning of the Sabbath,	3:28
	then remembered the article in the Christian Century,	3:32
	went back to that.	3:34
	I came up with the title "The Rhythm of Life",	3:36
	thinking in terms of that basic pattern of work and rest,	3:40
	of creation and re-creation, of God the creator	3:44
	and of us the created.	3:48
	I even sent my sermon title into the office here,	3:51
	and some of the substance of the sermon began to form	3:55
	in my reading and thinking.	3:58
	Then, this past Tuesday, after returning to my office	4:00
	after been gone for about 10 days, I became aware that	4:06
	this was designated on the Duke Campus as	4:09
	Employee Appreciation Sunday.	4:12
	The beginning of employee week.	4:14
	I don't know how I missed this, but I had.	4:16
	My initial thought was gosh, I can't work this in	4:19
	without it being contrived and forced,	4:22
	so I've either got to ignore this special occasion	4:24
	in the Duke Community or change my sermon.	4:28
	But then came a second thought,	4:33
	more like a growing awareness.	4:34
	Wait a minute, this emphasis on employee appreciation,	4:38
	at least in some respect,	4:42
	is in keeping with what Sabbath is about.	4:45
	It is about the goodness of work,	4:50
	the potential tyranny of institutions,	4:52
	the value of the human person,	4:55
	deliverance from the oppression of joyless	4:58
	and unappreciated work.	5:00
	The need for rest and re-creation to balance the demands	5:03
	of work and worry.	5:06
	Sounded like a fit.	5:10
	So here is the rhythm of life	5:12
	on Employee Appreciation Sunday.	5:16
	When I was a child, Sunday was not a pleasant time.	5:22
	It was not a fun day.	5:26
	I was not allowed to do many of the things	5:29
	that brought me delight.	5:31
	I could not go swimming in the ponds in the summer.	5:33
	I could not go hunting on the farm in the fall.	5:36
	I could not play baseball, I could not go to movies,	5:38
	and if we had owned a television set, I'm sure I would	5:42
	have only been allowed to watch religious programs	5:44
	on Sunday.	5:47
	You get the picture.	5:48
	Plus, I had to go to church.	5:49
	Had to get my weekly bath on Saturday night in preparation	5:52
	for dressing up in my Sunday clothes the next morning,	5:55
	riding into town to the First Baptist Church.	5:57
	I had to go to church not once, but twice.	6:00
	Not only to Sunday School and Baptist Training Union,	6:04
	but to two, long preaching services.	6:06
	Not a fun day at all, for a child.	6:10
	When I grew older, things got worse.	6:13
	Understanding and responding to a particularly painful	6:16
	adolescent identity crisis in the only language really	6:21
	that I had in my faith culture,	6:27
	I was converted as a way to find salvation.	6:30
	And wouldn't you know it, within a year I concluded	6:36
	that I was being called by God to preach.	6:38
	Now Sunday would not only have the restrictions	6:42
	of a holy day of obligation,	6:44
	but I would also have to preach twice every Sunday.	6:46
	It didn't help that I had a nervous stomach.	6:49
	For the first year of a student pastor at Wayland College,	6:52
	every Sunday on the way to this little rural Baptist church,	6:54
	I threw up.	6:59
	I was called to preach though, and by God	7:01
	I was going to do it.	7:03
	So imagine my surprise when my wife and I went to seminary	7:05
	and the first Sunday there, saw all those seminary students	7:08
	and their families sitting around outside the apartments	7:12
	not going to church.	7:16
	Surprise, it was more like culture shock.	7:18
	What did they know that I didn't know?	7:21
	Were they really all heathens just masquerading	7:24
	as ministerial students?	7:27
	What a dilemma with which to wrestle.	7:29
	Now that has been almost 40 years ago,	7:31
	and the dilemma remains.	7:33
	Sharpened in some respects, less relentless in others,	7:36
	but still a concern.	7:41
	What does it, should it, mean to remember the Sabbath day,	7:44
	the Lord's day, to keep it holy?	7:49
	As I noted earlier, the gospel lesson for today focuses	7:53
	on a similar struggle.	7:56
	How those early Christians understood the requirements	7:58
	of keeping Sabbath, and how Jesus responded	8:01
	to Sabbath keeping in his ministry.	8:04
	The Markan text includes two stories	8:08
	which have been placed in sequence,	8:10
	the first of which probably was a pronouncement story	8:12
	regarding the place of the Sabbath in the early church.	8:17
	Remember that the first Christians for the most part	8:22
	were also Jews, and continued to observe the Jewish laws	8:24
	and participate in the Jewish rituals.	8:28
	New Testament scholars believe that the early Christians	8:32
	began to consider Sunday, the first day of the week,	8:35
	the day on which the empty tomb was discovered,	8:38
	to be special, and the occasion for recalling and reliving	8:41
	the hope of the resurrection.	8:47
	But this probably happened, at least initially,	8:49
	at the end of the day after work was completed.	8:51
	The Jewish Sabbath, Shabbat, was still observed.	8:57
	At some point it became a cause for concern	9:03
	how the early Christians would live out their new faith	9:05
	and also be true to the faith of their fathers	9:08
	and their mothers.	9:11
	This first story about the disciples plucking grain	9:13
	on the Sabbath included the basic truth that sometimes	9:16
	human need may supersede the Sabbath regulations.	9:21
	However, the authority over the Sabbath is that of Christ.	9:27
	It is not up to each individual to decide what he or she	9:30
	wants to do on the Sabbath.	9:34
	Jesus did not abolish Sabbath regulations,	9:37
	he put them in the proper perspective.	9:40
	The classic statement "The Sabbath was made for humankind,	9:43
	"and not humankind for the Sabbath."	9:47
	was followed immediately by the pronouncement	9:49
	that it is the son of man who has authority	9:51
	over the Sabbath.	9:54
	Here, Jesus as on other occasions would have been seen	9:56
	as fulfilling the law, rather than destroying it.	10:00
	Now the second story,	10:05
	much more sinister in it's development,	10:07
	again focuses on the Sabbath and the proper behavior	10:10
	by proper Jew.	10:13
	In this narrative, Jesus senses the hostility,	10:16
	the opposition, and he responds to them with a query.	10:19
	Which would be more appropriate behavior,	10:24
	to do good or to do harm, to save a life or to kill?	10:26
	Now, there's no response from his adversaries.	10:32
	The only possible answer within the framework of Judaism	10:35
	would be to do good and to save a life.	10:39
	But this cut crossed the grain of those	10:43
	who in their own blindness opposed Jesus.	10:46
	These persons to whom the man with the crippled hand	10:51
	was only an incidental part of this scenario.	10:55
	To Jesus, the deliverance of this crippled human was central	11:00
	without regard for regulations which might prohibit	11:04
	such healing and liberation.	11:07
	The truth is, it is unlikely that the Jews of Jesus' day,	11:10
	at least most of them, were such legalist	11:14
	that they would not have supported this healing.	11:18
	However, his opponents looked for any grounds	11:21
	on which to bring accusation against him.	11:24
	And even in the middle of this controversy,	11:27
	and when his life was on the line,	11:30
	Jesus found the Sabbath to be both the occasion	11:33
	and the foundation for the release from bondage	11:37
	of this crippled man.	11:43
	Release from bondage to that which had malformed	11:46
	and oppressed his life.	11:49
	So our New Testament lesson centers	11:51
	on these two major themes around keeping Sabbath.	11:53
	Jesus placing human need above the institution	11:57
	of the Sabbath and Jesus' deliverance of the crippled man	12:00
	from the bondage of his affliction.	12:03
	Now Dorothy C. Bass, who authored that essay	12:07
	to which I also referred back in the January issue	12:10
	of the Christian Sentry, found similar twin themes	12:13
	in this Sabbath commandment.	12:17
	She, however, traces their roots to their two passages	12:20
	in the Hebrew bible.	12:25
	The Exodus commandment to remember the Sabbath day	12:27
	is grounded in the story of creation.	12:30
	The human pattern of six days of work and one of rest	12:34
	follows God's pattern as creator.	12:38
	God's people are to rest on one day because God did.	12:41
	In both work and rest, human beings are made	12:45
	in the image of God.	12:49
	And in Deuteronomy, the commandment to observe	12:51
	the Sabbath day is tied to the experience	12:54
	of a people newly released from bondage.	12:57
	Slaves cannot take a day off.	13:02
	Free people can.	13:05
	And when they stop work every seventh day,	13:06
	the people will remember that the lord brought them	13:09
	out of slavery,	13:12
	and they will see to it that no one within	13:13
	their own dominion, not even the animals,	13:16
	will work without respite.	13:19
	Sabbath rest is a recurring testimony	13:22
	against the drudgery of slavery.	13:25
	So together, these two renderings of	13:27
	the Sabbath commandment in the Old Testament	13:30
	summarize the most fundamental stories and beliefs	13:33
	of the Hebrew scriptures.	13:36
	Creation and exodus, humanity and God's image,	13:38
	and a people liberated from captivity.	13:42
	Now Dorothy Bass proposes that in this modern world,	13:47
	where we live in an economy and a society	13:50
	that are demanding too much from people,	13:53
	where so many solutions are offered	13:57
	which only add to our overextension and our frustration,	13:59
	there may just be some hopeful possibility	14:04
	in Sabbath keeping.	14:08
	She writes this, "Whether we know the term Sabbath or not,	14:10
	"we the harried citizens of later modernity	14:15
	"yearn for this reality.	14:19
	"We need Sabbath even though we doubt	14:21
	"that we have time for it."	14:24
	Doctor Bass does not naively assume that any of us,	14:28
	Jews or Christians, may revert back to the practices	14:31
	of a much more simple life and schedule.	14:36
	For example, here at Duke, there is much work to be done	14:39
	on Saturdays and Sundays, and sometimes Jews and Christians	14:43
	may be faced with working on their Sabbath days.	14:46
	So it may require creative and innovative approaches	14:50
	to find our Sabbaths, by which to achieve a rhythm	14:54
	which puts us in harmony with God's world.	14:59
	She is also aware of such stories as mine,	15:03
	where Sunday was anything but a joyful occasion	15:07
	for recreation and delight in God's gifts.	15:10
	One must look beyond this negative, dreary legacy	15:14
	to find the rich delights and the transforming joys	15:19
	in embracing God's good creation.	15:22
	Doctor Bass also knows that we will be challenged	15:26
	to resist the pressures of the world of work and commerce	15:30
	The idolatrous belief that unless we make	15:34
	and spend more money, publish more research,	15:37
	conquer more diseases, attract more and brighter students,	15:40
	then we are of lesser worth and value.	15:44
	Finally, she reminds us that Sabbath keeping	15:48
	is not about taking a day off, but about being recalled	15:51
	to our knowledge of and gratitude for God's activity	15:54
	in creating this world, in giving liberty to captives,	15:59
	and overcoming the power of death.	16:03
	So on this note, let us focus today on this special occasion	16:07
	of Employee Appreciation Sunday.	16:11
	And I would suggest that this biblical frame of reference,	16:15
	this theological understanding of Sabbath,	16:18
	can provide a valid foundation	16:21
	for Duke's declaration of employee week.	16:23
	That is, this expression of appreciation to 19,000 employees	16:27
	doesn't just have to be a gimmick,	16:32
	a manipulative ploy to divert employee's attention	16:35
	from all the problems in this university.	16:39
	I know, I've heard it said something like this every year.	16:42
	Yeah, they think they can throw a few hot dogs on the grill,	16:46
	provide some games and entertainment for our kids,	16:49
	and even declare Sunday in Duke Chapel a special day	16:51
	for employees, but that won't change a thing.	16:54
	It's all eyewash.	16:57
	Well, it doesn't have to be.	17:00
	The profound truths of Sabbath can address and apply	17:04
	to the employees and administrators all	17:08
	who work in this place.	17:11
	In my ten years at Duke, I have had the opportunity	17:13
	to listen to employees in every structure	17:16
	of this university.	17:19
	I have heard them express fear of losing their jobs,	17:20
	of not having work, and this against the backdrop	17:23
	of the good old days of secure positions	17:27
	and relatively stable departments and programs.	17:29
	I have heard employees fret and express concern	17:33
	because of having to work too hard with fewer staff	17:37
	to cover more responsibility.	17:41
	I have listened to employees whose identity is so tied up	17:43
	with their work that they can see little else.	17:47
	Family, friends, even themselves.	17:49
	I have heard employees speak of their work as meaningless,	17:53
	a hollow activity to which they return day after day	17:57
	with no vision of any different or better prospects.	17:59
	And I have heard our administrators agonize	18:04
	because they are often caught between the plight	18:07
	of individual employees and the survival of the institution.	18:09
	But in spite of all of the pain and despair,	18:14
	the cynicism and the fear,	18:17
	there is much in this place of work,	18:20
	this place of caring and learning and growing and healing	18:22
	for which to be grateful.	18:26
	Listen to this sentence from an open letter	18:28
	from President Keohane, "Employee Appreciation Week	18:30
	"is a time to pay tribute to the hard work and dedication	18:34
	"exhibited day in and day out	18:38
	"by the more than 19,000 men and women who work at Duke."	18:40
	We can believe that.	18:46
	And so on this Sabbath day, this Lord's day,	18:47
	it is fitting to pray, thank you God for all the good work	18:50
	of these your people in this place.	18:55
	I began with a story from 50 years ago of what Sundays	18:59
	then were like for me, kind of funny now,	19:03
	but yet a painful recollection of a religious culture	19:06
	so rigid that it cast a humorless pall over much of life.	19:09
	Let me conclude now with a story from a week ago,	19:14
	a story in which I was reminded of some of the things	19:17
	I may have missed in that early religious culture.	19:21
	A week ago, my wife and I visited the aquarium	19:25
	at Monterey, California.	19:28
	It was a delightful and fascinating experience.	19:30
	Our emotions ranged from awe to excitement,	19:33
	from a sense of dread, to waves of wonder.	19:36
	It was great.	19:40
	And one of the lingering memories of that underwater world	19:42
	was the awesome awareness of the magnitude and complexity	19:46
	of the ocean.	19:50
	From the top story of that building,	19:52
	we could look out over the bay and see only	19:55
	the ragged tips of the kelp forest,	19:58
	a few gentle waves, and the occasional boat.	20:02
	What the aquarium helped us to realize and appreciate	20:06
	was the vast world of food chains and rhythmic motion,	20:10
	ranging from the microscopic plankton	20:14
	to the enormous blue whale.	20:18
	And the demonstration of the kelp forest inside	20:21
	was an incredible display of great strands	20:25
	of this nutrient-rich and rapidly growing plant	20:29
	upon which so much of the ocean life depends.	20:33
	But on the surface, you could only see the ragged tips	20:37
	aimlessly floating about.	20:41
	The wondrous rhythm of the ocean and its life forms	20:43
	reminded me that there is yet another rhythm in life	20:47
	even more wondrous.	20:51
	The rhythm of creation and redemption symbolized in	20:53
	and reenacted by the regular return of the Sabbath.	20:57
	God's gift to God's people,	21:02
	and it's often not easy to see.	21:06
	What I failed to see as a child,	21:09
	chafing under the unreasonable, what seemed unreasonable,	21:11
	restrictions on Sunday behavior was that embedded	21:15
	in those rigid restrictions were essential truths	21:19
	of creation and redemption.	21:22
	We are not the source of this world.	21:25
	While we do need to be productive, work must never rule us.	21:28
	Our spirits and our bodies need rest and re-creation.	21:33
	We are part of God's good creation.	21:38
	In institutions, even the Sabbath are made for us,	21:41
	not us for them.	21:46
	So, on this Employee Appreciation Sunday,	21:48
	let us not overlook these opportunities which may be ours,	21:52
	whether we work here or elsewhere,	21:56
	to be grateful for our work.	21:59
	to renew delight in our work,	22:02
	to recommit to our work,	22:05
	to set limits on our work so that it does not rule us,	22:07
	to accept expressions of appreciation from our employer,	22:11
	to work for justice for those who are not as fortunate	22:16
	in their work,	22:19
	to affirm once again that we belong to God, not to Duke,	22:21
	and to let that awareness of to whom we belong	22:28
	impact on our work at Duke or wherever	22:33
	in faithful service to and in genuine solicitation	22:37
	for all whose lives we touch in our work.	22:42
	Our work, according to president Keohane's list,	22:47
	as archivists, accountants, campus police,	22:51
	food service workers, ground crews, housekeepers,	22:55
	lab technicians, library catalogers, maintenance workers,	22:59
	medical center nurses and house staff, secretaries,	23:03
	and all others.	23:07
	Remember the Sabbath day.	23:10
	It may just hold for us the rhythm of life.	23:13
	In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.	23:18
	Amen.	23:21

Item Info

Title:

James L. Travis, III - "The Rhythm of Life" (June 1, 1997)

Description:

Sermon start time: 02:37. Sermon end time: 23:22.
The Sabbath provides an essential rhythm of life for the people of God, rooted in both creation and the exodus account, reminding us that, through both work and rest, we bear the image of God, and reminding us, when we rest, of God's liberating activity. Yet, the Sabbath was made for us, not us for the Sabbath. Thus, we must not allow such regulations and institutions keep us from doing good. (Abstract created by Duke Divinity School staff.)
Key quotation: “There is yet another rhythm in life even more wondrous, the rhythm of creation and redemption symbolized in and reenacted by the regular return of the Sabbath, God’s gift to God’s people, and it’s often not easy to see.”

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https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4b27q589

Date:

June 1, 1997

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Travis, James L., III

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Duke University. Chapel

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UA.17.01.0003 CS-0857
ref9864_6bd
uachapelsermaud
duke:321149
dcrau001502
ark:/87924/r4b27q589
99bead40-5020-4fe9-aab2-641b14cfcfb6

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James L. Travis, III - "The Rhythm of Life" (June 1, 1997)

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