Reflections

Dear Parishioners & Friends:

I don’t know if you have seen the film The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (do!) which is about a group of British retirees who have moved to India to cope with their reduced financial circumstances. They are all living in a so called 'luxury' hotel, but when the promise doesn’t quite fit the reality, the young and charming proprietor replies “All will be well in the end, and if all is not well, it is not yet the end!”

It is a bit like the Kingdom that Jesus speaks to his disciples about; the Kingdom is already present with us but is not fully present because of the brokenness and passing nature of our world. We both celebrate that which is and that which is yet to be. The idea of Sabbath can be something like that as well.

When I was young, in my part of rural Ontario, nothing happened except church on Sundays. No farmer went out to till the soil on the Sabbath, and if anyone tried to cut their lawn you can be sure the whole neighbourhood would give its stern stare of rebuke come Monday morning in response. It was perhaps a bit too restrictive, now however, rare is the Sunday in summer that farmers are not in the field. And as most clergy will tell you, people are far too busy on Summer Sundays to come to church.

Business may not be next to godliness, but it gives a pretty good impression of it in much of our culture. And yet we all need a time of rest, a Sabbath. Even God rested in the last day of the week from Creation.

So take some time this summer and enjoy Sabbath, a foretaste of the kingdom which is and which is yet to be.

Keith +