Together on the Journey: A Weekly Blog from Fr. Andrew Sheldon
You may remember the movie Chariots of Fire. The movie features events leading up to and including the 1924 Olympic Games held in Paris, and is a fictional telling of true events and persons from that time. One of the characters is the Scotsman Eric Liddle. Eric was the son of missionaries to China who returned to Britain for his education. As it turns out, he was an exceptional athlete and became one of the favourites to medal at the Olympics, and especially in the 100-metre race. As it turned out, the heats for the race were held on a Sunday and Eric, a devout Christian, refused to run on the grounds of not violating The Sabbath. On the one hand, this may seem a laudable and exemplary act; on the other hand, as I would suggest, it was just plain wrong.
And what do you mean ‘it was just plain wrong’, you may ask. Liddle’s stance was seen to be in service of a Christian agenda in, what was considered to be the case at that time, a Christian country, that honoured a Christian Sabbath. The irony is that there is no such thing as a Christian Sabbath; at least, not a Christian Sabbath burdened with myriad restrictions. This idea, borrowed from the Jewish Sabbath, was not a feature for most of the Church’s history and only became a thing in the austere backdrop of Victorian Britain. For us, Sunday, the day of the Resurrection, is a day of celebration and delight, a feast day not a fast day. And nowhere in Christian scripture and early Christian texts is it offered as a day of graveness and restraint. Indeed, Jesus repeatedly ‘worked’ on the Sabbath and was censured for doing so. His response was to remind his detractors that ‘the Sabbath was made for humans, and not humans for the Sabbath’.
Nonetheless, I would suggest that although sabbath is not a commandment we are bound to, it is a promise we are invited to enjoy. That although we are not compelled to a strict observance of the sabbath; we should be compelled by the idea of a sabbath. And that is the idea of a day of rest, or at least a time of rest. A purposeful pause in the midst of our busy lives to relax our bodies, clear our minds, and reflect on God’s grace as expressed in creation, relationships, or solitude. Indeed, a time to push a child on a swing, to toboggan, to shed some clothes and bask in the sun, to shop for pleasure, to sit alone in silent contemplation on a beach, or in the woods, or in our homes. I am reminded of the words from that old hymn: ‘Drop thy still dews of quietness, till all our strivings cease; take from our souls the strain and stress, and let our ordered lives confess the beauty of thy peace.”
This is true sabbath, and well worth observing.
Which brings me to summer. This is uniquely a time for sabbath. A time for us as a parish to know rest and refreshment. At St George’s on-the-Hill, many people have worked very hard these past ten months in providing governance, programming, liturgies, pastoral care, outreach, service, and hospitality. Now is a time for a parish-wide rest, a parish-wide sabbath. If you are around, please do join us on Sunday. But otherwise, it is my hope that, when it comes to church, this summer will be a chance for you to find some rest and refreshment.
And Eric Liddle? Choosing not to run in the 100-metres, he did run in the 200- and 400-metres, winning a bronze in the former and a gold in the latter. He then returned to China in 1925 and served as a missionary teacher dying in a Japanese internment camp in 1945.
Andrew+