Many years ago, a young man named Ben enrolled in college.  He was a gifted natural speaker and decided to study communications and hone his art of public speaking. It wasn’t surprising that he was successful, both in elocution and his ability to persuasively convey truth. But this young man was worried that his moral center was weak, that he might use his God given talent to convince others for the wrong purposes. Ben felt this most intensely when he felt a growing temptation for worldly pleasures. It was a typical college environment in a big city. Around him were friends struggling with the same vices, making poor moral decisions and suffering the consequences.

 

We all know how these stories often turn out. A failed year of education, a child brought home or sent to a different school. But with maturity far beyond his years, Ben withdrew from school and took a sabbatical from formal education. Instead of his parents having to call him home after flunking out, Ben removed himself from his peers and their exploration of the fast side of life.

 

Despite a family of considerable means, Ben chose to live simply with a long time friend of the family and a group of men in a rural environment, outside of the influence of the fast paced city. He found in this community, men who were sympathetic to his quest to understand himself spiritually. One would have to imagine that within this communal environment, Ben would have found himself, clarified his beliefs and claimed his call in life. For some reason, this sabbatical from college wasn’t enough. He needed even more than this sabbatical. He needed time out which he took by disappearing.

 

I don’t know what his parents thought of this time out. I don’t know if they knew were he was for the three year period of self-reflection. Timothy Leary called his friends to “Turn on, tune in and drop out.” Ben’s order was just the opposite. He dropped out in order to tune in and turn on. No psychedelics were used. Ben separated himself from time, literally stepped out of time to contemplate on God, to tune in and turn on to a life of service. He spent three years living as a hermit in a cave. When he emerged from his hermitage, Ben, better known as Benedict of Nursia, had created a set of rules for living which he used for founding the Benedictine order of monks.  This sixth century college drop-out is considered the father of modern monasticism.[1]

The Rule of St. Benedict is still followed by many monks and nuns today. There are 73 simple rules, half of which address how to live a spiritual life and half of which address the running of a monastery. I have searched diligently these pages for information about email management, text messages, web sites and cell phone use and there is nothing to be found. The priestly world that St. Benedict imagined is very different.

 

At the heart of the Rule of St. Benedict is something that we all need. Benedict believed that for human beings to flourish, we needed balance of “Body, Mind and Spirit.” This principle is woven through the entire Rule. The classic example of balancing body, mind and spirit is a three-legged stool. If one leg is too short, the stool will be wobbly, maybe even unsafe. If one leg is missing, it will crash to the floor.

 

Benedict would say that this is like you and me. We have an amazing capacity to work, to be physical, productive human beings and we have a tremendous capacity to think, to learn, to imagine things. But we aren’t just brains on legs. We also have an emotional, spiritual leg, to continue the metaphor, a part of us that loves and experiences love, that longs for connection with God and seeks meaning in our daily experiences and relationships. When life is in perfect balance, the stool sits firmly on the ground. But from the beginning of time, it has been our human nature to short one or two of the legs.

 

God understood this weakness in human beings. So God modeled a way to have balance. When the Creator finished the work of creation, God rested. God stepped aside from the work of giving form to the void, of creating the heavens and the earth, of making every living being. God took time out from thinking about creation and spiritually reconnected with a day of rest. “So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all the work that he had done in creation.” (Genesis 2:3) St. Benedict would say that God understood the three legged stool.

 

It is well known in US American society that we too are to rest weekly. This of course comes from the fourth commandment “Remember the Sabbath day, and keep it holy.  Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work.” (Exodus 20: 8-10a) This was the rhythm of life of God’s people and once was the rhythm in our country. Even though Sunday is no longer considered a sacred day where no work takes place, for us to have balance, we need Sabbath time.

 

What isn’t well known is God’s belief that one day a week wouldn’t be enough. Every seven years, God wanted us to have a year of rest, a sabbatical year. Each year was a time for rest, celebration and spiritual renewal. Throughout the Torah are a number of commandments about sabbatical years.  Six years the fields and vineyards could be cultivated but the land and workers were to rest in the seventh year.  This ordinance is found in the book of Exodus as well as Leviticus which was read earlier in worship. There are also instructions about the release of Hebrew bondservants, the remission of debts and the renewal of the covenant which happen during a sabbatical year. This sabbatical year cycle was so widely kept that you can find reference to it in many Jewish writings such as the Talmud and references in the writing of historians like Josephus and Tacitus. Scholars know that the sabbatical year was a basic fact of Jewish life. The sabbatical year laws were as well understood as the commandment to “Remember the Sabbath and keep it Holy.”[2]

 

As a result, the Hebrew people came to think about life in seven year cycles rather than the way we think and talk of decades. At the end each of these seven year cycles was a sabbatical and then, at the end of seven sabbaticals was a special Jubilee year. This too is widely written about in ancient literature, even to the point of admiration by other societies. Jubilee years had all of the components of a sabbatical year plus additional requirements to release slaves and return purchased land to its original owners. But a sabbatical year and in particular a jubilee year wasn’t just a year to do nothing. It was a year to find the balance, what Benedict would say the three essentials needed to a whole human being, “body, mind and spirit.” This was typically found in spiritual service and volunteer work. During one of the Jubilees, Solomon built the Temple. Think of the logic of this. All of the slaves are released; the vineyard works and farmers are resting. Everyone was on sabbatical. There is this huge volunteer labor force that can connect spiritually by building the temple. Scripture reveals that after the Temple was built, subsequent sabbatical years were used to restore the Temple.[3]

 

Just think about how much work we could get done if every seven years, you got a sabbatical to connect spiritually. If the timing worked out right, we could build the north campus like an old fashioned barn raising. The property and grounds committee would love it.

 

Alas, something happened in our modern culture. Sabbatical years for an entire community didn’t even make it into the first century. In modern time, sabbatical leaves for research have been common in academic communities. Slowly but surely, they are making their way beyond colleges and university.  Richard Eynon is the current president of the Indiana State Bar Association. In March of this year, he wrote about his own sabbatical and encouraged his peers to consider a sabbatical to research, travel and rest. “It may seem radical, but I encourage you to consider and try it….You will see life from a different perspective…A sabbatical permits your untapped subconscious to come out and play.”[4]

St. Benedict would call that the balance of mind, body, spirit and it is what I hope to find in the next few months--a better balance to my three-legged stool.  This is what Lilly Endowment is trying to do when it funds sabbaticals which they call Clergy Renewal Grants.  They see these sabbaticals “not (as) vacations, but times for intentional exploration and reflection, for drinking again from God's life-giving waters, for regaining the enthusiasm and creativity for ministry.”[5] It is a time to regain balance of body, mind and spirit.

 

Clergy sabbaticals began about the time my career began. At that time, the average tenure of a senior minister was seven years. As sabbaticals began to be offered, there has been a clear correlation with the tenure of a pastor and time for renewal. Long-term pastorates are important to congregational success. One of the reasons that I have been your pastor for 23 years is the gift of sabbaticals.

 

I’ll admit something about me and about ministers in general. We are just as guilty as you are in getting out of balance. Our three legged stools wobble just as often and occasionally crash to the ground.

 

Each time I’ve taken a sabbatical, I’ve recognized this and tried to focus on getting the legs even. In my first sabbatical, I spent much of the time resting in Guatemala and Costa Rica. In my study there is a picture of a wonderful experience. You took up a special offering for children at Mi Tia and wired it to me. Their pantry was empty. We purchased beans and rice for them to be fed for a month. In my second sabbatical, I focused on feeding my mind. I studied at the School of Philanthropy taking formal coursework to better understand volunteering and giving. I worked hard academically. In planning the next few months, I realize that my first two sabbaticals were likely out of balance too. There is a tendency for us to do this. We overcompensate.

 

So this time my hope is to consciously live this three-fold way of St. Benedict. I hope every day includes time for physical work or exercise, mental work of study, reading and discussion about multi-site practices and time set aside for God in prayer and meditation. Preachers need to “Be still before the Lord, and wait patiently for him.” (Psalm 37:7a) Our spirituality is so verbal, so geared toward weekly sermons, sometimes we just need to shut-up and listen. Taking away the pulpit for fourteen weeks forces the issue.

 

So, with calendar set aside and email put on hold, I want to figure out how to sit on a solid stool that I can better care for myself and family and better serve you and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.  This is best accomplished when you are out of time. Not busy and out of time. That’s when it get’s out of balance. But out of time, when you intentionally step out of the time that you know, day in and day out and week after week, month after month. For this out of time experience called a sabbatical, I am grateful.

 

In this last moment together for a few weeks, let me ask you. Which of the three elements in your life need attention? Join me this summer in giving it attention. Who knows? We might not even recognize each other when my out of time is out of time.            

 

             

           

 

 

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