Let us pray:

We have come into your presence, Lord, to celebrate, and to learn to better represent you to the world. Please send your Spirit to guide us. Amen.

I’m sure you all know that Lucille, my wife, and I observe the Sabbath as a day of rest, a holy day of Shalom — peace. The word holy means set aside for a special purpose or withdrawn from common employment and dedicated to God.

Our sermon title, Shabbat Shalom, means Sabbath peace. It describes what we perceive to be God’s plan and desire for us.

We celebrate Shabbat on Saturday of each week, from sundown on Friday until sundown on Saturday. Sabbath is a break from routine, a change of pace. In the midst of our busyness and achieving, God calls us to rest, to lay aside our to-do lists.

Some people will say, “I don’t need a rest. I have lots of energy; I’m a Type A person. Sabbath is for sissies.” God not only commanded a sabbath, but also rested from creation on the very first sabbath.

Sabbath is a break from our expectations and productivity. You don’t need to accomplish anything on the true sabbath. We have become conditioned to believe that unproductive time is wasted time. No, no, no! That is not true.

Sabbath is a time for a break from competition, a break from consumerism.

Shabbat is often ushered in by lighting candles on a menorah. You see two menorahs on the piano. The round one is the one on our coffee table, the candles of which we light on Friday evenings. The other one was given to me by Shirley Matthews, who was a waitress in the “greasy spoon” next to Cass Methodist Church during the years I was associate minister there.

Shirley was half Jewish and half Catholic, altho she practiced neither! Her husband was a Jewish bookie, who died before I knew Shirley. Shirley threw her husband’s cremains into the Detroit River when he died. So when Shirley died, her niece had her cremated, and asked me to come down to the park and say a prayer before they threw her cremains into the River! Before she died, Shirley gave me this menorah as a memento of our long friendship. I treasure it.

The Hebrew word Shalom (???????) is understood to mean peace. But peace is only one small part of the meaning. In Israel, even though they don’t have much in the way of peace these days, they use the word Shalom on a daily basis, to greet people and to bid farewell to people.

Shalom means much more than peace, hello and goodbye. Shalom comes from the root verb meaning to be complete, perfect, full. In modern Hebrew, the obviously related word Shelem means to pay for something. Shulam means to be fully paid.

So in essence, when you speak the word Shalom — you are not only proclaiming peace, but all the meanings of the word. “Shalom: may your day be perfect; may you be happy, healthy and successful.”

The menorah is a symbol of our mission to be “a light unto the nations.” (Isaiah 42:6). Light is not a violent force; we are to establish peace by setting an example, not by using force. This idea is highlighted in the vision in Zechariah 4:1-6. Zechariah sees a menorah, and God explains: “Not by might, nor by power, but by My spirit.”

The lamp stand in synagogues, called the ner tamid (the eternal flame) symbolizes the menorah, and it commemorates the miracle when a day’s worth of oil lasted eight days.

We all need to experience the presence of God. The Hebrew people found Sabbath-time, when daily labors were laid aside, when physical activities were held in abeyance, to be a time to feel God’s presence.

The word “Shabbat” comes from the root Shin-Beit-Tav, meaning to cease, to end, or to rest. So on the Sabbath, we cease our daily labors and rest. The body turns to relaxation, and the mind turns to things spiritual.

Today is Sunday, not Sabbath. Yet I urge you to observe “Sabbath-time” whenever you can set apart some time to experience peace and tranquility, a time to concentrate on life and love.
Sabbath is a time to remember God’s care and leading, and to anticipate God’s continued blessings. Those with amnesia cannot function toward the future. Those preoccupied with nostalgia are not ready for new challenges, new ideas, “Sabbath” time. They shut themselves away from spiritual and intellectual progress, despite the injunction of scripture to “grow in grace and knowledge” (II Peter 3:18), and to “let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think.”
(Romans 12:2)

In Acts, the disciples celebrated God’s presence in the upper room, where they had been with Jesus before. Then Paul reminds the Council that “Since he (Jesus) is the Lord of heaven and earth, he doesn’t live in man-made temples.” (Acts 17:24) Far from mourning the absence of Jesus, who had returned to heaven, they celebrated his presence.
They prayed, and they surely shared memories, and they shared a meal, as we will do this morning, in his presence.

During this season we will shuttle back and forth between Acts and I Peter six times. It may prove somewhat jarring, because the moods of the two accounts are so different. In Acts, the disciples were jubilant, exuberant, triumphant, gung-ho to carry the gospel to the ends of the earth.

In Peter’s letter, we hear the early Christians try to keep up their morale! Despite their not being guilty of anything, they were apparently going thru a “fiery ordeal” of some sort.
In the face of whatever God and the Roman empire gave them, they were to know joy, and share it even in the midst of some “fiery ordeal.”

Listen to Peter: “Dear friends, don’t be surprised at the fiery trials you are going through, as if something strange were happening to you. Instead, be very glad, because these trials will make you partners with Christ in his suffering, and afterward you will have the wonderful joy of sharing his glory when it is displayed to all the world.” (I Peter 4:12)

Sabbath gives us an opportunity to share in the glory of Christ. We do that by celebrating life as Jesus did. He did not keep the Sabbath as a legal requirement. In fact, he was constantly at odds with the Pharisees regarding his Sabbath observance.

My point this morning is that Sabbath time is more a mind-set than a period of time. And that mind-set is an attitude of shalom — peace of mind, love of life and of serving others in the name of Jesus. Our annual World Peace Sabbath for Reconciliation, at Christ Church Cranbrook in Bloomfiield Hills, is that mind-set put into action.

This is “Interfaith Weekend.” Last week we celebrated “Cover the Uninsured Week,” lobbying for health coverage for the millions of poor Americans who have no access to healthcare.

Incidentally, you noticed that the Detroit mayor’s love affair was plastered all over the front page of the papers. Compare that with the report of the president’s veto of S-Chips, which would have provided health coverage for many poor children. It was a small item on the bottom of the page! I guess that tells us where our priorities are! The public would rather wallow in the gutter of juicy gossip than learn about the moral issue of health for our children!

One of the most thrilling stories of shalom is the story of Francis of Assisi and Al-Malik Al-Kamil. Francis held to radical nonviolence, even as his church carried out the brutal Crusades.
He undertook a personal mission to cross the battle lines to meet with the Muslim sultan Al-Malik Al-Kamil, who welcomed him and asked him to stay for a week of conversation. They parted as friends.

What an example of interfaith shalom! Neither converted the other, but both gained the respect of the other, and learned from the other. O Lord, please give us the grace to do the same!

I must tell you, dear saints, that as a lifelong Seventh-day Adventist, and as an enthusiastic member of the United Church of Christ, I am ecstatic to be so involved in interfaith ministry.

I’m sure you remember that on the day after 9/11 I got a call from Muslim leader Victor Begg, to meet at the Ramada Inn in Southfield. We had no agenda, just to meet with about 20 Jews, Christians and Muslims, to get to know each other. That was the beginning of Interfaith Partners.

I can tell you that I have spent many pleasant hours of “Shabbat Shalom” with Jewish rabbis, Muslim imams, Christian ministers and laypeople of all denominations and faiths.

Another example of interfaith life is the story of Roger Williams, who founded Rhode Island in 1636 as a democracy, ruled by majority, but with the guarantee of religious freedom. He was a Baptist, later became a “seeker.” Jews, Quakers and Baptists found shelter in Rhode Island, where church and state remained separate.

So on this Interfaith Weekend I am riding high! I have never tried to tell my Jewish, Muslim, Native American, Sikh, Hindu, Baha’i and Buddhist friends that they must convert to Christianity. I wish they would, just as I wish you would all become Sabbath-observers, vegetarians and pacifists. But God did not call me to be a judge, just a preacher!

I’m sure you remember that Jesus watched a rich Jew, who boasted that he was a faithful commandment-keeper, walk away from him when he told the man to sell his possessions and give the money to the poor. The beautiful part of that story is that Mark records that “Jesus, looking at him, loved him . . .” (Mark 10:21) Even as he was rejected by this prospective disciple, Jesus loved him.

That is what I feel called to do, to love you. Yes, teach you, preach to you, marry and bury you, visit you when you are hospitalized, but most of all, love you . . . not judge you.
We are the family of St. Paul’s. It is natural that I feel more passionate about serving you, than about serving those who are not part of our community. But at the same time, I remember that Jesus ministered to those who were not even of his faith.

Yes, he told a Gentile woman, “I was sent only to help the people of Israel.” (Matthew 15:24) But, you also remember that he healed that Gentile woman’s daughter! We don’t know why he played games with her first, but we know he granted her wish.

I am sure, if Jesus were here today, he would minister primarily to his own people, Christians. But I am just as sure he would also minister in the interfaith community. And Jesus is my model. I want to do what he did, what I am sure he would do if he were here today. And I want to minister as close to his method as I can.

At our Bible study, each Wednesday night, we read and talked about prayer. Our Gospel today is a prayer Jesus prayed right after a long discourse in which he warned the disciples of the suffering they would endure, again promised the Holy Spirit . . . And a little later in the chapter is our UCC logo quote, “that they may all be one.”

When homing pigeons are set loose far from home, they rise higher and higher in a great circle; then they set out in the direction of home.

Just so, prayer releases God’s power to direct us toward “home.”
In my childhood, we welcomed and closed the Sabbath with prayer. To be sure, Shabbat Shalom makes time for prayer, conversation with God. That “prayer peace” or “peaceful prayer” is my prayer for you today.

Let us pray...