Summer is at hand, which means everything from long sunny days to taking on long-deferred projects to vacation and travel to finding alternate arrangements for our kids. It starts out feeling like a great expanse of time with the potential to be enjoyed or at least used wisely. But with each passing day, there is a little bit less left, and a little bit more opportunity for the anxious and self-critical among us to feel that we haven't enjoyed or used it well enough.

Worship this summer starts out with a comforting word from Deuteronomy to us. It's about the Sabbath. Human beings, God says, were not made to work constantly but were made to enjoy the world and enjoy the rest that restores life itself. While life can seem like a constant struggle to get ahead or at least stay even--and that is a reality of life in our society, certainly--the Scriptures tell us that God has something more and different in store. This is even true in the harder stories that follow in June. We hear about Adam and Eve hiding from God in the Garden of Eden because they ate the fruit of the forbidden tree because they've given up what they could have had as a gift, forever, in exchange for taking something less for themselves. And of course we hear about how God works to mend that damage that humans create in themselves and in the world, by promising a restoration of Israel as a beacon and shelter to the nations (June 17), by sending a messenger before God's own coming (June 24), and in the words and miracles of Jesus recounted in Mark's Gospel. 

When you're in worship this season, you have the chance to step out of both the work and leisure of daily life and be brought into the presence of God, and to live for a little while in God's time. That's a gift and a blessing, too. See you in church! 

Rev. Ben Dueholm, Pastor of Worship and Education