I often find it hard to stop and stay still. As I prepare to step back while I heal from my dental surgery on Thursday this week, Many of you have advised me to “Stop, allow your body to heal, and come back stronger.”
On Tuesday morning, I was reading Mark 2, which is about what you do on a day of rest. Timely or what?
In many countries today, the Sabbath rest has all but disappeared. Sadly, Sunday is rarely set aside any longer for a day of worship and rest with family and friends. Therefore, the Pharisees' hypercritical condemnation of the disciples is hard to relate to. The deeper spiritual issue seems to be the hyper “nitpicky” approach the Pharisees took. They were not so concerned about honouring God on the Sabbath as they were interested in being judgmental and condemning. And though it may be rare today to find people overly scrupulous and nitpicky about the Sabbath rest, it’s often easy to find ourselves becoming nitpicky about many other things in life.
Consider your family and those who are closest to you. Are there things they do and habits they have formed that leave you constantly criticising them? Sometimes, we criticise others for actions contrary to God's laws. At different times, we criticise others because of some exaggeration of fact on our part. Though it is crucial to speak charitably against violations of the law of God, we must be careful not to set ourselves up as the judge and jury of others, especially when our criticism is based on a distortion of the truth or an exaggeration of something minor. In other words, we must be careful not to become nitpicky ourselves.
Bishop Rosemarie visited Nutfield this week with Bishop Phoebe Roaf (Tennessee, USA); they were warmly welcomed by our Churchwardens Jo and Maureen. The Bishop of Croydon encouraged us to worship the Lord together and to carry on building the church in number and determination. She was so joyful; she was dancing beside me, which had a great vibe. The children gave gifts to both bishops to express their thanks. I am very encouraged that we are strengthening our resolve to love the Lord our God in word and deed in each of our parishes. Bishop Phoebe gave us her blessing at the end of the service. It was a fantastic day of sabbath rest and worship.
Every blessing
Father Paul.