Scripture Focus: Leviticus 23.3
3 “ ‘There are six days when you may work, but the seventh day is a day of sabbath rest, a day of sacred assembly. You are not to do any work; wherever you live, it is a sabbath to the Lord. 

From John: Later this week, we will look at the expanded Sabbath applied to years and how it applies to the concept of Jubilee. Today we look back at Rabbi Heschel’s perspective on the weekly Sabbath.

Reflection: A Taste of Eternity
By Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907-1972)

It must always be remembered that the Sabbath is not an occasion for diversion or frivolity; not a day to shoot fireworks or to turn somersaults, but an opportunity to mend our tattered lives; to collect rather than to dissipate time.

He who wants to enter the holiness of the day must first lay down the profanity of clattering commerce, of being yoked to toil. He must go away from the screech of dissonant days, from the nervousness and fury of acquisitiveness and the betrayal in embezzling his own life. He must say farewell to manual work and learn to understand that the world has already been created and will survive without the help of man.

Six days a week we wrestle with the world, wringing profit from the earth; on the Sabbath we especially care for the seed of eternity planted in the soul. The world has our hands, but our soul belongs to Someone Else. Six days a week we seek to dominate the world, on the seventh day we try to dominate the self.

The Sabbath is a day for the sake of life. Man is not a beast of burden, and the Sabbath is not for the purpose of enhancing the efficiency of his work. “Last in creation, first in intention,” the Sabbath is “the end of the creation of heaven and earth.”

The Sabbath is not for the sake of the weekdays; the weekdays are for the sake of Sabbath. It is not an interlude but the climax of living.

Three acts of God denoted the seventh day: He rested, He blessed, and He hallowed the seventh day. To the prohibition of labor is, therefore, added the blessing of delight and the accent of sanctity. Not only the hands of man celebrate the day; the tongue and the soul keep the Sabbath.

Labor is a craft, but perfect rest is an art. It is the result of an accord of body, mind, and imagination. To attain a degree of excellence in art, one must accept its discipline, one must adjure slothfulness. The seventh day is a palace in time which we build. It is made of soul, of joy and reticence. In its atmosphere, a discipline is a reminder of adjacency to eternity.

Divine Hours Prayer: The Request for Presence
For the sake of your Name, lead me and guide me. — Psalm 31.3

– Divine Hours prayers from The Divine Hours: Prayers for Springtime by Phyllis Tickle

Today’s Readings
Leviticus 23 (Listen – 6:31)
Psalms 30– (Listen – 1:32)

Read more about Keeping the Sabbath by Action
Keeping the Sabbath holy, maintaining God’s justice, and establishing righteousness are not passive, actionless, states of spiritual attainment.

Read more about A Restoring Sabbath
Weekly sabbaths teach us that the sabbath doesn’t condemn the week of work, but it blesses it and redeems it.

Scripture Focus: Leviticus 19.2

2 “Speak to the entire assembly of Israel and say to them: ‘Be holy because I, the Lord your God, am holy. 

Reflection: Loving God by Loving Others — Guided Prayer 

By John Tillman

The Ten Commandments have often been summarized (based on Jesus’ answer about the greatest commandment) to mean “Love God and Love Others.” There are echoes of the Ten Commandments throughout the scriptures. In today’s passage the repetition is focused strongly on the “love others” half. How we are to treat others and enact justice is spelled out in many ways.

Many of these commands end with some version of “I am the Lord your God.” This implies that it is on behalf of God that we love others. When we act in God’s name to show love to others, we are also loving God by bringing glory to his name.

Today, we will pray based on the others-focused commands in today’s reading of Leviticus 19.

Loving God by Loving Others

Oh God who gives us harvests, teach us to leave margins for the marginalized.

Let us not be so efficient that we spend every cent in our own interest. (Leviticus 19.9)

For when we collect all the profit to ourselves we are stealing by keeping what you instructed us to leave for the poor. (Leviticus 19.9-10)

When we say, “We can’t afford to help” we are often being deceptive, for the truth is we have spent the portion you intended us to give as aid to others. (Leviticus 19.10-13)

Teach us to honor workers, for you ask us to pray for workers in the vineyard and not to spare expense in paying them. Let us not be stingy, but generous that all will go well with our nation. (Leviticus 19.13)

Teach us to help those in need without partiality or favoritism. Teach us to remove barriers to success and allow all to be treated equitably. (Leviticus 19.14-15)

Teach us not to value our own freedoms over our neighbor’s life and to treat foreigners with the same love we treat our own family. (Leviticus 19.33)

Teach us to root out corruption and dishonesty. 
Let not the poor be defrauded by corrupt business…
Let not the minority be dominated by the majority…
Let not the weak be preyed upon by the powerful…
Help us make the scales of commerce, scales of political representation, and scales of justice fair. (Leviticus 19.36)

In all these things, may we bring glory to God by loving others.

May we love you, Lord, by loving others.

Divine Hours Prayer: The Refrain for the Morning Lessons
My eyes are upon the faithful in the land, that they may dwell with me. — Psalm 101.6

– Divine Hours prayers from The Divine Hours: Prayers for Springtime by Phyllis Tickle

Today’s Readings
Leviticus 19 (Listen – 4:39)
Psalms 23-24– (Listen – 2:03)

Read more about Joy and Justice
Some eschatology, or “theology of last things,” forsakes our responsibility to work and be concerned for the Earth of today.

Read more about Keeping The Greatest Commandments
Jesus tells us…the two guideposts on which hang the entire law—Love God and love others.

Scripture Focus: Leviticus 18.3-5, 24-28
3 You must not do as they do in Egypt, where you used to live, and you must not do as they do in the land of Canaan, where I am bringing you. Do not follow their practices. 4 You must obey my laws and be careful to follow my decrees. I am the Lord your God. 5 Keep my decrees and laws, for the person who obeys them will live by them. I am the Lord. 

24 “ ‘Do not defile yourselves in any of these ways, because this is how the nations that I am going to drive out before you became defiled. 25 Even the land was defiled; so I punished it for its sin, and the land vomited out its inhabitants. 26 But you must keep my decrees and my laws. The native-born and the foreigners residing among you must not do any of these detestable things, 27 for all these things were done by the people who lived in the land before you, and the land became defiled. 28 And if you defile the land, it will vomit you out as it vomited out the nations that were before you. 

Reflection: Beyond Consent
By John Tillman

In an old stand-up comedy routine that was a favorite of ours in college, a comic (whose name I can’t remember) told a story about a sign in a hospital containing an injunction against having sex in the delivery room of the obstetrics ward. 

When you think about things you might want to ban in a delivery room, that’s not one that jumps immediately to mind. “No smoking” probably. “No foul language” maybe. But no one would make a sign like that for no reason. The comic quipped, “Somebody had to do that.” 

Many of the sexual prohibitions listed in Leviticus and other forbidden practices were also things that no one would ban for no reason. The Egyptians were doing it. The Cannanites were doing it. Even brutal Ammonites were doing it. But God was clear that his people were not to follow along.

These common practices were uncommonly dangerous and damaging. The nations that practiced these things were enslaving women, sacrificing children, destroying their God-given bodies and families, yet they sneered at the prohibitions. Immersed in their culture, they couldn’t see the damage.

Our culture is no different. We think we are so sensitive and self-aware, but we are numb and calloused to the damage of the non-existent sexual ethic of our culture. When the only sexual ethic that exists is “consent” a lot of evil, manipulation, deception, and abuse gets a free pass. 

The very first step of abuse is to groom victims until they consent to abuse. Our culture has groomed many of us to accept the idea that the “freedom” of unlimited sexual experiences is harmless to us and others. We often believe this despite the evidence of rising mental health issues among the most sexually promiscuous members of the population.

Today we view sexuality as the ultimate freedom, the ultimate expression of our identity. Any hint of restriction or restraint, no matter how commonsense, is viewed as unnecessary at best and a form of self-hatred at worst.

Every person, regardless of sexual behavior or sexual feelings, is an image-bearer of God and is called by God to live in purity. This means living in ways that do not damage ourselves or others. 

May each of us submit every part of our identities, including our sexuality, to God’s calling in our lives.

Divine Hours Prayer: The Call to Prayer
The Lord is near to those who call upon him, to all who call upon him faithfully.
He fulfills the desire of those who fear him; he hears their cry and helps them.
The Lord preserves all those who love him; but he destroys all the wicked. — Psalm 145.19-21


– Divine Hours prayers from The Divine Hours: Prayers for Springtime by Phyllis Tickle

Today’s Readings
Leviticus 18 (Listen – 3:46)
Psalms 22 (Listen – 3:49)

Read more about It’s In The Bible
Polygamy was never in the Bible because God approved of it. It was there because the culture approved of it.

Read more about Resisting Cultural Pressure
Culture wants us to think we are primarily identified by our race or sexuality or gender or political party.