SUNDAY, OCTOBER 19 2025 - WHAT A WEEK!
October 19, 2025
Deborah Laforet
“What a Week!”
Let us pray. May the words from my lips and the meditations of my heart be guided by your
Spirit and be words of wisdom for this day. Amen.
What a week I’ve had! People are always asking what I do besides lead worship on Sunday
mornings. Well, let me give you a list. Tuesday, I met with the Search Committee, who are starting the
work towards finding a pastoral care minister, and in the evening I led an Interfaith event at the
synagogue. I got home at 8:30, just in time for a brief Zoom call with the Regional Congregational
Support Commission about our new partnership with The Hub.
Wednesday, I had an appointment with someone in the morning and then an afternoon meeting
with the five United churches in Oakville exploring amalgamation. Thursday, I was invited to talk about
the future of the United Church Climate Motivators program, I had a meeting to plan a gathering that’s
happening in BC in the spring, and, of course, choir in the evening. Yesterday, I was in Brantford,
discussing the Regional Fatih Formation position, as the person in that role now is retiring.
All of this doesn’t include the multiples emails, texts, phone calls, conversations, worship
planning, and sermon writing. To those people who think I only work on Sundays, I’ll let you do my job
for a week, and you can let me know how ‘only working on Sunday mornings’ works for you.
I’m busy! In fact, talk to most anyone, and they will tell you how busy they are. It’s a part of
our culture to always be on the run, squeezing in appointments, making sure we go to the gym, spend
time with family and friends, support the communities in which we engage, and, oh yeah, make sure you
find some ‘me time’ in there somewhere.
I read a very interesting article by Adam Waytz that was in the Harvard Business Review about
our Culture of Busyness. I’ll share a few of quotes with you.
In my 2019 book, The Power of Human, I recount an anecdote about a man who immigrated to
the United States and soon came to believe that the word “busy” meant “good” because when he asked
people, “How are you doing?” they often responded, “Busy.”
Put simply, busyness has become a status symbol. Research led by the Columbia marketing
professor Silvia Bellezza shows that people perceive others who are busy—and who use products
indicating they’re busy (like a Bluetooth headset for multitasking)—to be important and impressive.
As the sociologist Jonathan Gershuny notes, “Work, not leisure, is now the signifier of dominant
social status.” Or as Gordon Gekko puts it more prosaically in the movie Wall Street, “Lunch is for
wimps.”
Another study that he shares, I found fascinating because I’m always watching people to see
what they do while they’re waiting, whether it be in line, or at a doctor’s office, or just for the crosswalk
to change. They’re often on their phones. He recounts a famous experiment where psychologist Timothy
Wilson and his colleagues found that 67% of men and 25% of women chose to press a button to
electrically shock themselves rather than sit still with their own thoughts in a lab room. Before entering
the room, participants had stated that they would pay money to avoid an electric shock, but once they
were left alone, the inactivity became too much to bear, and people sought to fill the void.
You might think that sounds crazy, but I wonder how many of us would push that button.
Now, I feel blessed to have a full time position in the church, and I’m blessed to work with St.
Paul’s, a progressive, affirming, justice-seeking, and fun community. It’s work that I love, but it’s also a
lot of work, especially through this time of transition we’re experiencing. There are times I am tired,
and even exhausted, and there are times when a vacation couldn’t come soon enough.
All that being said, I am fortunate to work in a church that respects and honours sabbath time. I
work in a church where it is mandatory to give ministers 15 days of continuing education time off and a
month or 23 days of vacation time. And every five years, I am eligible to take a three month paid
sabbatical, a time of rest and renewal, which benefits both me and the congregation, because their
minister comes back rested and energized for the next period of time. (I’m due the end of 2028.)
It’s hard to find places that value times of rest. Most work places tend to work their employees
as hard as possible and squeeze as much time and energy from them as they can, but does this really
make for better workers?
In our bible, we read that the Hebrews were slaves in Egypt. As slaves, they would have been
worked to the bone, with no thought to fair wages and time off. So, it’s interesting to find the value of
Sabbath held up in the first of the Commandments given to the Israelite people. It’s possible, these
people had no idea what leisure time looked like, and wouldn’t have known to value times of rest and
renewal. Their God stressed the importance of honouring Sabbath, and, in fact, mandates a time of rest
every seven days.
Not only is it good for our health, but it’s also a matter of justice. The commandment is
expanded upon throughout the initial books of the bible, where the Israelite law is being formed. Not
only are you to take a day to rest, but you’re also to use that day to remember what it was like in Egypt
and to remember that the Lord your God freed you from slavery, and therefore you are also to give
others a day of rest - your family, your servants, your livestock, and the very earth. All life needs rest
from its work. It is holy. It is sacred. As we hear in our Creation story, even God took a day of rest.
There was a time in Canada when stores were not allowed to be open on Sundays. The Lord's
Day Act was a federal law to regulate and prohibit activities on Sundays in Canada. It was in force from
1907 until 1985, when it was found to be unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of Canada. In 1906, it
probably made sense with a mostly Christian government governing mostly Christian settlers to this
country. By 1985, Christianity was in decline, and Canada was becoming more diverse, with many
Canadians honouring a wide spectrum of religious holidays and sabbath times.
I do wonder though, whether we ‘threw the baby out with the bathwater,’ when we repealed that
law. Now, it seems no time is sacred or holy for anyone. Our fast paced society never sleeps, especially
now that we are connected online with folks around the world. We are getting less sleep than we need.
We never take a day off; we work even when we’re not scheduled to work. Families are running
themselves ragged to get to all their commitments. Have we lost the value of sabbath? We Christians
still hold that Sunday is a day of sabbath, but how do we honour that day?
What might it look like to go offline once a week? What might it look like to live as if stores are
closed once a week? What would it look like to agree as a family that there would be one day during the
week where nothing is scheduled? Now, I know how difficult this would be. We have work demands,
children and youth have school and other activities that have control over their time. You would have to
be very intentional, make sacrifices, and really stand fast, making the rare exception. How do you live
in a society and not be controlled by that society, pushing back as needed, when you know what it offers
isn’t helping you or your loved ones?
I don’t have the answers. I struggle too, and I really feel it when I’m not getting enough rest. All
I can offer today is that beautiful story of creation and a reminder that even God rested, and the
commandment God gave to the people of Israel to honour the Sabbath. I can encourage you to find
blocks of time during the week to rest, to do what you love, to spend time with those you love. And we,
as a community of faith, can offer this space and this time on Sunday mornings, to gather with friends,
to sing and pray together, and to honour our stories of our faith.
May God be our example, may Christ be our teacher, and may the Spirit guide us as we wrestle
with our busy culture and work toward finding those times of Sabbath. May it be so. Amen.
Genesis 1:24-31
(Introduce yourself.)
Today, I will read two scripture passages. First, I will finish our creation story. We have
reached the seventh day, the day God rested. I will follow that by a reading from the Ten
Commandments God gave to Moses for the Hebrew people. It’s the first time we hear the
word, Sabbath.
First, I will read the first four verses of chapter 2, in Genesis.
Thus the heavens and the earth were finished and all their multitude. 2 On the sixth day
God finished the work of creation, and so on the seventh day, God rested on from all the
work that had been done. 3 God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it
God rested from all the work that had been done in creation. 4 These are the generations
of the heavens and the earth when they were created.
Now I will read verses 8 to 11 from the twentieth chapter of Exodus.
8 “Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your
work. 10 But the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any
work—you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the
alien resident in your towns. 11 For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea,
and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath
day and consecrated it.
May the Spirit guide our understanding of this sacred scripture. Amen.