Sacramental Living

When I was a kid, there was one cartoon that I had to watch every day after getting home from school: “He-man and the Masters of the Universe.” He-man was awesome. He was invincible; but so was his counterpart She-ra. I think I always believed they were married, but I don’t know if that was the case or not. She would’ve made the ultimate wife for He-man though. She could do anything he could do yet, she let him take the lead. I think of She-ra when I read this week’s OT Lectionary text.

The Old Testament lesson from the Lectionary this week is the closing ode in Proverbs (31.10-31). The nagging question elicited from the text is, “How does she do it?” This woman gets up before dawn and works tirelessly, relentlessly till after dark. She performs a litany of tasks (many that I would certainly not engage in by choice): she sews garments, she goes to the grocery store — not the one in the neighborhood, but the really nice one 75 miles away in the city, she cooks breakfast, she makes out a schedule for her servants, she is a shrewd realtor, she plants vineyards to make choice wine, she helps the poor and needy, she quilts, she has a shop at the local fairgrounds … and she does all this while wearing the latest fashions.

For her miraculous ability to do all this she is praised extensively by her husband and children. Now, before I suggest to my wife that she read this passage and consider how she might “improve” the praise that is heaped on her, I have to wonder at the nature of the praise. This woman is esteemed only because of all that she does for others. She is a workaholic that never enjoys the results of her own efforts and, more strikingly, never seems to experience Sabbath. She reminds me of those in families or churches who are the workhorses … they can do all the work and no one needs to equip the saints for ministry because they are doing all the ministry! Yet, when does she practice Sabbath, when does she engage in worship? Never. And how sad for such a practice is the “beginning of Wisdom.”

So what am I to guide my parishoners (and my wife) in doing? Where is the balance that the whole book of Proverbs seems to advocate? The words of Jesus from this week’s Gospel lesson ring in my ear: “Do you want to be great in God’s reality? Then be a servant to all!” (Mark 9.34). How can we marry that concept with a balanced approach that includes worship as a lifestyle?

The answer may lie at the heart of why we are serving all. Is it to glean praise for our efforts? Or is it a sacramental activity that endeavors to love the Lord with all our all as we worship him through service to others? When I speak a kind word to the nameless cashier at the store, or when I buy a sandwich for the faceless old man who stops me on the street to beg a dollar, am I looking for praise from them (or worse, from my parishioners or family)? Or am I concerned in seeing Christ in the nameless and the faceless and worshipping him through service?

There are basic needs shared by Christians and non-believers alike.

Some of these are: the need to be loved and to fellowship with other persons who express genuineness in relationship; the need to feel a part of something bigger than ourselves; the need to learn new things that excite and mystify us; and the need to be with people of the same age on a journey.

It seems that in our 21^st-century, fast-paced world, Sunday morning worship tends to be a “fill-up”? in the spiritual tank rather than an overflow of preceding week-long worship. Our ancestors in the Nazarene tradition would find this an odd and disconcerting fact. They lived simpler lives which we simply can’t live even by deliberate and sustained effort in our post-industrial, technology age to be sure. But they considered Sunday a day of both celebration and Sabbath. It was a day to thank God for the worship they had experienced in their day-to-day lives the preceding week, while also finding time to love each other in tangible ways and thereby thank God for rest, refreshment, and renewal.

Could it be that we in the contemporary church are so focused on the whole local church Body gathering in one place at least three times a week, that we contribute to robbing a family’s valuable time, thereby leaving no room for thanksgiving, rest, and renewal? Sunday is the one day that many folks have free from their occupational jobs. And Wednesday nights are too hectic to do something unless it is very worthwhile, because it sits in the middle of the week with the flurry of work schedules, school schedules, social schedules and the like. Rather than becoming a partner with modern culture in robbing time and energy, could we be counter-cultural and provide something completely different? Could we provide something that would cause individuals and families to want to gather in a variety of ways and venues for the purposes nourishment and sharing the spiritual journey? If we endeavored to change our paradigm and our thinking, what might it look like?