“Stewardship And Sabbath”

SCRIPTURE

You care for the land and water it; you enrich it abundantly. The streams of God are filled with water to provide the people with grain, for so you have ordained it. You drench its furrows and level its ridges; you soften it with showers and bless its crops. You crown the year with your bounty, and your carts overflow with abundance. - Psalm 65:9-11

REFLECTION

God always seems to know what to do. We, however, are often a different story.

Yet Psalm 65 makes it clear that when God nurtures and tends to creation, when God enriches it abundantly, abundance thusly follows.

This lovely image from verses 9-11 are a compass for us to follow. Whether it is literally for the stewardship of our planet, for each other, for ourselves, and our own well-being, we should pay attention and enrich things abundantly. That doesn’t mean gluttony, but rather giving things what they need in order to blossom and grow into their fullness of being.

Do we do that as well and as often as we should? Do we take the time to slow down and care for what is around us and within us? Stewardship and Sabbath, I would suggest, go hand-in-hand and are the foundations for building a world that is capable of an abundant harvest.

If we genuinely care for one another and ourselves as we should, then we must both pour our energies into the care and affirmation of the world around us as well as taking the time to step back from that intensive work and give ourselves time for renewal and restoration. It is a constant dance of pouring out and refilling our energy. Only pouring out will exhaust and deplete us. Only keeping our energies for ourselves is a direct contradiction to loving our neighbors. If we are to make the meaning of Psalm 65 manifest, we must do both in order to maintain proper balance.

So enrich your world abundantly. Drench its furrows and level its ridges. Soften your world with showers and bless its crops. Then take a well-deserved rest and appreciate the harvest. The work of enrichment will surely come around again.

PRAYER

God of Work and Rest, grant us the wisdom to both nurture the world and nurture our own well-being so we might always be ready for the work we are called to do.

Amen.

Peace,

Shawn