This may turn out to be a rather short blog this week. It is one of those weeks where I have started to write several times and could not complete it. I did see something that I would like to discuss with someone in the near future. I am sitting on my deck. It is 7:30 AM Sunday morning and the weather is perfect. I am thinking about how I will spend this day and how I would like to spend this day.

As a kid growing up Sundays were a day of inner conflict between what I so wanted to do and what I was allowed to do. My parents took the “day of rest” thing completely literally and I was filled with envy watching my Catholic friends go to mass in the morning and the lake that afternoon, for example. However, if I did manage to get in a game of basketball or, heaven forbid, watch a TV show at someone else’s house I was filled with guilt and, therefore, the conflict.

I carried a lot of this with me into adulthood until recently. Now, rather late in life, I have taken just as literally that the Sabbath is a symbol of the rest that comes from understanding and appropriating the Lord’s grace. So, sitting on the deck I contemplate mowing the grass after church or changing the rear brakes on the car. But neither of these tasks are what I want to do. The only pleasure in doing them is found in the knowledge that I am free to do them. For me it is still almost worship to exercise that freedom.

Here is what I want my Sundays to be like. I am in a book study that meets once a week on Wednesday night. The material we covered this past week explained that the Jews who lived before the Babylonian Exile regarded Sunday as a day to celebrate God and what He did in creation. I got the feeling that it was like God looked back on what He had created and was so pleased with himself that He wanted everyone to share in that accomplishment. So, the ancient ones did just that. They had big meals where the whole family was present and so was anyone else who happened to need a meal. The day was spent eating and talking with friends mostly about God. The “no-work-on-the-Sabbath” thing was an effect of the celebration not a law unto itself until the time of the Exile and the Pharisees.

It seems to me that we moderns have condensed this whole day of celebrating God into two and a half hours on Sunday morning if you still go to Sunday School. There is the coffee and doughnuts before class or before the service, twenty minutes of “mixing” time, twenty minutes of music and finally the sermon, the entire Jewish celebration in the space of one morning.

Ok, I am dreaming a little here but what if Sunday consisted of a day to eat with family and neighbors. A time to spend the whole day talking about, thinking about God. A day set aside to deepen my relationship with Him to just walk with Him. This is not meant to sound legalistic in any way. I would put aside my usual work only because the fellowship experienced with Him through friends and contemplation was too rich to miss.

Could that actually happen? I have the beginnings of it now. I am going to meet with two of my closest friends for coffee and bagels in about an hour. Unfortunately, that will be interrupted at precisely 10:30 so that we can get to church. Then, I will probably mow the lawn.