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Thoughts on Sabbath

Tonight we are talking about Sabbath at Graduate Christian Fellowship. As preparation, I glanced through MaryAnn McKibben Dana’s book, Sabbath in the Suburbs. I read the book a number of years ago when I first became a parent and found it deeply encouraging. While I love the idea of Sabbath as being restful and contemplative, the reality is that it’s hard to stop from the pressures and realities of the rest of life (and when you do stop, doing nothing or binging feel like the best activities). And practising Sabbath can be hard, whether you are a parent of a small child or a single person. Dana’s book felt like a gift, a recognition that some things are worth trying to (continue to) do, even if/when we can’t do them at the level we think (or feel pressured) to do.

The following are a number of quotes from the book to provide encouragement and fodder for thought, in the hopes that they help you imagine practising Sabbath in your life:

  • Sabbath as a “day of giving up trying to change things;” a day of “not trying to improve oneself: no progress” (15), a day when we have all the time in the world, to be fully present;
  • it is ” a disruption in the liturgy, a break in the rhythm” (28)
  • a day of wonder and delight (even with food); a day “free of obligation and ‘should'” (33)
  • Sabbath hacks:
    • work/errands are sometimes necessary, but doing it differently: slowly and intentionally, unhurried, contemplatively;
    • “find the one most important thing that must be done and to put parentheses around it in order to protect the rest of the day.” (98)
    • “another approach to Sabbath – to go about one’s day as usual, even if that includes work or errands, but to fast from one thing.” (85)
  • It can help to create a list of possible Sabbath activities, including trying something new or novel; such as “pursuing an unfamiliar or nonroutine task” (75)
  • “the Jewish Sabbath emphasizes bringing one’s best self to God… but maybe we also show respect for the Holy in our lives when we bring our real selves, not our clean and made-up ones.” (107) a day to be our authentic selves, without the mask or being ‘on’
  • “Sabbath feels like a dance between the impulse for togetherness and the needs of the individual.” (110) This challenge is different but just as true for those who are single.
  • a day to “help me remember that I’m not God… help me not to be consumed by good work.” (115)
  • “on one day, we should do our utmost to let go of the annoyance and anger – even anger at things we’re justified in being angry at.” (122)
  • a pre-Sabbath prayer: “what has been done has been done, what has not been done has not been done; let it be.” (128) from New Zealand prayer book
  • a day “to make time our friend, not our enemy” (42) of “trying to make time my friend again – a real friend, not the friend I only call when I need something.” (135)
  • “letting one thing go each day is a way of acknowledging that perfection will always be beyond me. It also helps me find a little bit of Sabbath each day.”(135)

Some reflections from Dana on her experience:

  • Dana: “Sabbath seems designed to make life as inconvenient as possible…. Sometimes, I can see a holy purpose iin the inconvenience. Other times, I’m just annoyed.” (83)
  • Dana had thought Sabbath would provide rest so that she could do more, but Sabbath isn’t so we can pack the rest of our week; “Sabbath is making me want to do even less the rest of the time.” (91)
  • “There isn’t ever enough time. Even when we strip away all the inessentials – even when we focus only on the things that are good and nourishing and important for ourselves, our families, and the world – there is still not enough time. But our hope is not in there being enough time but in there being enough grace to muddle through the scarcities or our days.” (150)

Tish Harrison Warren also provides a helpful perspective on Sabbath at The Well

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Using the First Nations Version Bible: Learning from indigenous voices

As we start our gatherings, we “acknowledge the history, spirituality, culture, and ancestral stewardship of the land on which we regularly meet by the Huron-Wendat, Haudenosaunee and Anishinabek Nations, and the Mississaugas of the New Credit First Nation.” We continue our land acknowledgement with words that one of our emerging leaders helped us adopt several years ago: “we commit ourselves to seeking to live out the Good Way, which encompasses both love and humility as we bravely journey towards the justice which Jesus proclaimed with his words, life, death and resurrection.”

Our land acknowledgement recognizes our complex histories of the land on which we live and gather and reminds us of our desire to learn from other cultures. One way we as a community have chosen to more actively learn from Indigenous wisdom is through using the First Nations Version of the Bible, which is an Indigenous translation of the Bible. Using a different translation of the biblical text can be helpful for hearing the text in a new way; furthermore, the use of cultural norms and words that are different from what many of are used to can challenge our assumptions about what the text means.

As we have been using this version of the Bible at our gatherings these past few years, many people have commented on how the translation uses descriptions for names, such as Creator Sets Free (Jesus), Bitter Tears (Mary), Father of Many Nations (Abraham) and House of Bread (Bethlehem). Such descriptions may feel distracting at times but most of us have found them helpful, as they provide us with extra information for understanding the biblical text, including the meaning of the words in the original language.

Using the First Nations Version of the text is a simple and concrete way of acting out our desire to learn from Indigenous voices. We are hopeful that the Holy Spirit will work in and through this translation to allow many to grow in appreciation of the Bible and how we can learn from other cultures.

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Always be prepared to have an answer (1 Peter 3:15)

This past week we looked at 1 Peter 3 at GCF. The following was the email text send out to GCF folks ahead of time (which was adapted from a Wine Before Breakfast email sent out in summer 2021).

I grew up in a tradition where having the right answer mattered. It was important not to let others live in ignorance if we had the answers or knew they were doing something wrong, even if they didn’t like what we had to say. I thought this was what Christians ought to do, a way to share the truth we had with others. 

It took me a long time to realize that this was a poor interpretation of the text. 1 Peter 3:15 highlights that we are not to go around telling people the right answer(s), but instead to wait until we are asked. This implies living in such a way that people will want to ask about our love and humility and why we repay evil with blessing (1 Peter 3:8-9). Assuming that people will be impressed by how we live, we are to be prepared to give people an answer. The text commands us to be prepared to give an answer, not to give an answer. It is as if the preparation is what matters most, as if the answer is more for us than for others.

The answer that we are to prepare is not the ‘this is how you ought to live your life’ kind of answer, but the sort of answer that shares what has happened in our lives so that we have hope. And then, just in case we’ve started leaning towards responding to others with an “I know how to fix your life so it will be better” answer, the text reminds us to give our answers with gentleness and respect.

Having the text challenge our assumptions is one of the things I love most about studying the Bible, especially in community. When I lead a study, I hope that we will all be challenged and am thankful that the Spirit can use the insights and experiences of all those present to challenge us, including myself. 

Not surprisingly, the study this week reminder that the word answer (or defense, depending on your translation of the Greek, “apologia“) is necessarily a response to other’s curiosity or questions. It makes me wonder how I can live such a life that people might ask me about the hope I have, or how to give answers to ordinary questions that bear witness to how I sense the Spirit working in my life, even as this might make me uncomfortable.

– Brenda Kronemeijer-Heyink, Chaplain

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Striving to be a safer space

As a ministry we desire to create spaces where young adults and others connected to the university feel welcome. We especially want to be a safer space to those who might feel less welcome in more traditional church or Christian spaces, such as those who ask uncomfortable questions or who have experienced trauma or other negative experiences related to church.

As part of that desire to be a safer space, we’re working on providing descriptions on our website for what people can expect if they attend gatherings, the opportunity to meet with a chaplain ahead of time, and through having and ensuring we follow our safe campus policy. In our conversations, we encourage and welcome a diverse range of opinions and we also are intentional about (graciously) challenging people to pay attention to how their language might comes across as racist or ableist, as being dismissive of the complexity of the Bible and Christianity, and/or as being exclusive of or causing distress to others.

We do this recognizing

  1. That creating safer spaces where people are held accountable is part of proclaiming the gospel, where all people and their experiences are valued. Melissa Kuipers, a Christian Reformed campus minister at Mohawk College in Hamilton, explains this well: Your Inconvenient Safe Church Policy Helps Spread the Gospel.
  2. That healing from trauma is a hard and often long journey. As Amanda Benckhuysen addresses why we can’t just get over trauma: “I think a large part of the answer is that we weren’t made for this. We weren’t made for a world in which we are violated and harmed. We weren’t made for a world of brokenness and sin. As such, we should never hope to get good at getting over oppression and violence and abuse and injustice. To simply “get over” the wrongs done to us is to acclimate to the brokenness and evil of the world and lull ourselves into believing this is OK. The hurt we feel when we are violated or mistreated, then, is not an indication of what’s wrong with us, but an indication of what’s wrong with the world. And this realization should inspire in all of us a deeper longing for Christ and Christ’s kingdom.” (The Journey to Healing After Abuse)

It is our hope that we might learn from the wisdom of people like Benckhuysen and Kuipers and so be safer spaces where people are able to lament injustice as well as imagine and long for God’s kingdom.

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Glimpsing Hope

It’s that time of year again when we tell the stories of how God is working in and through the ministry. We share stories of hope, as a way of encouraging ourselves and others about how God uses our efforts and our presence on campus and in people’s lives. We also try to acknowledge what has been hard and where we are still waiting. At a recent gathering of regional Christian Reformed campus ministers, people’s sharing about the challenges of this season were especially encouraging. It is helpful to hear that we are not the only group that is discerning how best to reach out to a student population that is exhausted and overwhelmed, looking for community and struggling to connect and commit. It is good, in the middle of those struggles, to both hear and tell of glimpses of hope found in good conversations where there has been a sense of God’s presence: conversations that sometimes happen only once but sometimes continue over time, conversations where learn more of God’s grace and open themselves more fully to the Spirit.

The following story from Richard Mouw is one of those stories that resonated with me as a campus minister: it is a story of being God’s presence to those around us and a story of hope, even as the story feels unfinished, or at least without the clear ‘happy’ ending many of us long for.

Mouw describes a letter he once received from a recent graduate of Fuller:

[She had lost her faith] in her senior year at the evangelical college she attended. It wasn’t the fault of anyone at that school. She had received a good education there and had made many friends. And now also at Fuller—she had learned much, but with the same result—still no recovering of faith.

She had not shared her loss of faith with any family or friends, and she was now thinking about how best to do that. Writing to me was for her a first step. During her senior year of college, having realized that she no longer believed, she decided “to give Fuller a chance” at helping to restore her faith. Nor did she regret that decision. While her faith had not returned, she wrote, “Fuller gave it a good shot!” And then she said something that brought a gasp from me, followed by many tears. She wanted to thank me especially, she said, because, in a philosophy class that I taught, she came close to believing again. “It was in a lecture on Nietzsche. You laid out the issue of a living God versus a dead God, and for a moment—a moment!—I felt like I could believe again. But the feeling went away. But thank you for giving it a try!”

I still shed tears over her words to me. I often pray for her. I think much about what I, or the school that I served as president, should have done differently.”

Mouw continues by reflecting on what it might look like to make space for people asking questions and for people to be honest about how and what they believe. I pray that campus ministries and the wider church might provide that kind of space.

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How do people find us?

The following anecdote from early on in the semester, a variation of which was sent via email to some supporters, helps address the question of how people find the Graduate Christian Fellowship:

  • One person I had met the previous week when I was tabling at the Graduate Student Orientation for the campus chaplains association. They had asked about whether I knew of any Christian groups for graduate students, and so I invited them to come and check us out, to see if we’d be a good fit (and if not, I’d help them find something else). They came slightly nervous and discovered a community that enjoyed being with each other and thinking through things together.
  • Another came to us because they’d been connected to a CRC campus ministry at a different university as an undergrad. They reached out to us, met with a staff member, and then came last night. Hopefully the connection started will lead to their participating in the ministry, whether through attending GCF or knowing that we’re available to them for pastoral care and/or conversations as they continue to explore Christian ethics related to their field. 
  • Another came to us last night because they had heard of GCF from someone who attended a few years ago and had found this a meaningful community.
  • Another came to us (along with a friend who is attending a local seminary) because they’d googled us and was delighted to hear that there was a Christian grad group on campus. They didn’t say much, but appreciated that we had gluten-free options for dinner (we also make sure there’s vegetarian options!). 
  • Another came to us because they’d heard good things about us from the folks at Knox Presbyterian Church, where they’ve begun to feel at home. They had been looking for spiritual direction and encouragement, so that will hopefully lead to further conversation. 

The list helps show all the ways that God brings people to us. Our prayer is that we might help all those who are looking to find a community that cares about them and where they might come to know God more deeply.

Brenda Kronemeijer-Heyink