Sometimes words fail. Word spinners leave us dizzy and dazed, deaf to the Truth that alone sets us free. Deeds fail, too. We are all tired from our efforts to do something. We have not stopped, some of us. We are afraid to stop, even though we are here and not there, because we know how easily we could allow this crisis to slip from our minds and lose sympathy. We need the Word who is also the Deed, the One God who creates and saves and restores.

In the meantime, we have been giving and working and praying. We are doing well, and we are doing good. We know it’s only a drop in the ocean, but we have learned that a drop in the ocean counts. There is no dike to put our finger in. But we can stand in the breach until the breach is repaired. The outpouring of mercy from the church and community has been marvelous. The same is true of people and churches and charities all over the country. I could go on and on all morning telling extraordinary stories of grace. But we must not become weary in well doing.

The economy of God is working. What the Bible calls koinonia and we call fellowship, partnership, or community is showing itself beautifully. Our former pastoral resident, Jay Hogewood, is providentially pastor of the University Baptist Church in Baton Rouge. Who knew when he went there a year ago that they would become our relief partners on site in such a terrible, terrible time? They have people and we have provisions. We are joined in prayer and care.

The president of the New Orleans-neighboring Jefferson Parish was bemoaning the tragedies after the tragedy: Mother Nature has come and gone—now human nature is here; and human nature is causing more problems.

Sadly true. We have seen some things that make us wince. Frustration over delayed rescue and relief response by the government. Looters who have gone beyond just trying to find food and supplies for their families. Violence in the streets, much of which grows from desperation and futility. But human nature is also proving heroic. Courageous and generous souls abound in times like these. The stories are good and bad both, just as you would expect in any crisis. Character is revealed in crisis more than it is shaped by it. People show who they are by what they do.

Which is why our text from Leviticus is so important. Be holy, even as I am holy, says the Lord. What does it mean to be holy as the Lord God is holy? The word means to be set apart. We usually think of holiness as moral purity. Someone who is holy does nothing impure or untoward. But the biblical concept is much deeper than that. Holiness means to have a character that is set apart from the mass of humanity—different from the norm. It means to be prepared to do what is right because you have already been formed right. Holy people behave in a crisis the right way because they have already been trained in the way of right. It’s what they do, because it’s who they are.

And so the question comes, how does that happen? Well, right after a brief word about honoring father and mother, Moses tells the congregation that they must keep the sabbaths as God has commanded. And here is the point of contact for us today. This is a key ingredient in spiritual fitness. Last week we addressed upward exercise; next week, outward exercise; and today, inward exercise.

Sabbath-keeping brings needed rest for the soul, which builds endurance. Any distance runner will tell you that days off are as important as long runs for being physically fit. You must have a rhythm to your workouts that includes down time. You have to catch your breath, so to speak. Sabbath-keeping is breath-catching time. Even God did not work without rest. When God created the world, God worked six days straight and then took a day off. Truth be told, God didn’t even work 24/6 before the seventh. If you remember the Genesis story, at the end of every workday of making things, God stepped back and looked upon the progress and said, It is good. Mini-sabbaths every day! Stopping and stepping back are as necessary to spiritual fitness as starting again and stepping up.

We live in an “always on” society. I am bad about this myself. It’s not heart-healthy, I tell you. Broadband and cell phones and pagers allow us to communicate instantly at any time of day or night. Silence and contemplation are casualties. We go running with our radio headsets on. We carry our iPods on the plane. We are never alone with our own thoughts, never mindful of our own souls, never aware of our own breath. We need a breather. And sabbath-keeping provides for just that. It allows us time to meditate and pray.  It’s God-ordered stress relief.

When we do this, we not only catch our own breath; we catch God’s breath. God is able to fill us with the divine spirit when we take time to exhale the world and inhale God. The word for Spirit in the Hebrew is ruach, which means “wind” or “breath.” Just as God once breathed into a new creation the breath of life, so God can put God’s self into us even now.

Let’s do that now. Close your eyes. Deep breath! Now, mind your breath. Listen for it. Catch it. Breathe deep the breath of God.

We need that. If the Christian life is to be more than just living life of your own accord, trying to do what Jesus would do under your own steam, you will fail. You must draw upon the power of Jesus to do what Jesus would do. The Christian life is participation in the very life of God. And that means receiving as well as giving—hard as that is for us to do. Many of us have a problem with that. We want to do for others, but we do not know the grace of letting others do for us. “The Servant Song”is a beautiful new hymn in our hymnal that we sing at almost all our ordination services. One verse has this line: Sister, let me be your servant,/Let me be as Christ to you; Pray that I may have the grace to/let you be my servant, too.

We are two weeks deep now into this series of sermons that follow the Shema of Israel, which Jesus affirmed in his own ministry. We said the first part of it together earlier and read the expanded New Testament version after it. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might, and your neighbor as yourself.

The repetition of this in Israel’s sabbath worship is crucial. It is said as many as three times in the liturgy. The point has to be drilled home that God is God, that God is God alone, that God deserves our whole devotion. This is the second thing that sabbath-keeping practices provide. Needed rest, but also needed reflection. We catch the breath of God, and we become mindful of the mind of God.

Which is why Israel came to see that loving God inevitably required loving your neighbor, too. Thus the neighbor tag on the end of the traditional Shema. The way the Bible puts it is interesting, though. You must love your neighbor as yourself. Which assumes you love yourself and would take care of yourself in a way that you would have to ask the question, If I were my neighbor, how would I want me to be treated?

When do you reflect upon questions like that? If you wait until you are in the heat of the moment, you may not act in the way you would with some reflection. Sabbath-keeping, with its attention to rest and reflection, gives you the ability to step back and ask about the most important things of life. Who are you? What are your values? What really matters in life?

A few of us went to conduct a prayer service the other night for evacuees from New Orleans. One man and his family had lost everything … for the second time. He was completely wiped out by Hurricane Mitch when it struck his home in Honduras in 1998. And now he and his wife and three children are starting over again. He knows they can do it, but they were all there to remind themselves that they have God and each other, and that things are less important.

We need that reminder, too. Let’s do that now. Close your eyes. Deep breath! Now ask yourself: What am I living for? If I had lost everything to Katrina, how would I be spiritually? Is my life well grounded in the grace of God, or are my roots too shallow? Breathe deep the breath of God.

If you want a solid self, sabbath practices of rest and reflection are key. They teach us ahead of time what is important. They help us sustain and renew our values. But along with rest and reflection is recreation. Sabbath-keeping involves play. Now, it may seem incredibly trite to talk about play at such a time as this. With people trying desperately just to survive, we think we must be dead serious. The problem is that too much seriousness can be deadly.

Many of us grew up being forbidden to play on Sunday. It was meant to be the Lord’s Day, a day to pray, not to play. But playing on the Lord’s Day is just the antidote to our self-centeredness. Especially if that play is holy play, play that is good for nothing, play that brings people together rather than separates them. The old saying is: Families that pray together, stay together. But it could be just as true that Families that play together stay together. When families play together, they are not passing each other on their way to doing more important things. They are passing the ball to each other. They are relaxing with each other. They are celebrating the fact that they are human beings and not just human doings. This glorifies God and renews creation. It is life-giving for you and others.

Let’s do that now. Close your eyes. Deep breath! Imagine God renewing creation after the storm. Lighten up and let God bear the burden with you. Feel the delight of God and join it. Breathe deep the breath of God.

Good. Now, back to work. A world in need needs you. Now, at least, it may get the best you, instead of getting the best of you.