Summertime is here. The Spring has seen weather ranging from hot to cold, rainy and dry. The days are lengthening, and the calendar pages keep turning. Summer brings its own rhythm. Schools are closed. Pools are open. It is time for vacation, time to ease up and relax; time to sleep in and chill out.
Vacation means different things to each person. For some, it is travel. That has been limited the past few years, so many people are hoping to go somewhere different. Let’s go down the road or over the sea. Let’s see something new.
For others, it is a hammock in the backyard. It may be facing the weeds in the garden or delving into a novel. Swim lessons and soccer camps fill the days. Your ideal break may be cooking on the grill or basking in the sun.
Summertime is about living. It is about having time, time for yourself, time for those you love, time to do what is important. So that is the beginning. What is important to you? What makes you who you are? The answers to those questions will tell you how to make yourself new, how to renew yourself. Another word for that is re-creation, or recreation. Vacation is about renewal.
My family visits Mount Carmel Bible Camp in Minnesota every summer. Their mission is to be “a place of rest, renewal and recreation where people experience Jesus”. In many ways, that sentiment encapsulates summer and time away.
The church takes on a different rhythm as well. Worship continues to happen, but classes and programs may take a break. Meetings for business may be deferred. But it is not just a time waiting for things to kick off in the Fall. It is not a holding pattern until life gets busier.
Worship, even in the summer, provides an opportunity for renewal. We come to church not to escape from the world, but to enter into relationship with it more fully. Ideally, our worship asks the same questions about priorities that we do about vacations. What matters most to us as Christians? What makes us who we are? How do we live in a way that gives joy and fulfillment?
The readings for the Sundays after Pentecost (summertime Sundays) have traditionally focused on the nature of faith and the Christian life. That may seem formidable for a relaxed time, but it is exactly what summer is about: living.
One of the Church’s tasks carried out in worship and faith formation is to ready the saints for ministry. Just as vacation sends us back to our daily tasks reenergized, so worship sends us out to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the prisoner, and speak God’s Word in love.
— Reflections appears regularly on the religion page. The column features a variety of local writers, coordinated through the Monroe Area Clergy Group. John Tabaka is pastor of Grace Lutheran Church, Monroe.
