Celebration

“Celebration is at the heart of the way of Christ. He entered the world on a high note of jubilation: “I bring you good news of a great joy,” cried the angel, “which shall come to all the people” (). He left the world bequeathing his joy to the disciples: “These things I have spoken to you that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full” ().”

Foster, Richard J.. Celebration of Discipline: The Path To Spiritual Growth (p. 190). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

Jubilee

Leviticus 25 ESV

The Lord spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai, saying, “Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, When you come into the land that I give you, the land shall keep a Sabbath to the Lord. For six years you shall sow your field, and for six years you shall prune your vineyard and gather in its fruits, but in the seventh year there shall be a Sabbath of solemn rest for the land, a Sabbath to the Lord. You shall not sow your field or prune your vineyard. You shall not reap what grows of itself in your harvest, or gather the grapes of your undressed vine. It shall be a year of solemn rest for the land. The Sabbath of the land shall provide food for you, for yourself and for your male and female slaves and for your hired worker and the sojourner who lives with you, and for your cattle and for the wild animals that are in your land: all its yield shall be for food. “You shall count seven weeks of years, seven times seven years, so that the time of the seven weeks of years shall give you forty-nine years. Then you shall sound the loud trumpet on the tenth day of the seventh month. On the Day of Atonement you shall sound the trumpet throughout all your land. And you shall consecrate the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you, when each of you shall return to his property and each of you shall return to his clan. That fiftieth year shall be a jubilee for you; in it you shall neither sow nor reap what grows of itself nor gather the grapes from the undressed vines. For it is a jubilee. It shall be holy to you. You may eat the produce of the field. “In this year of jubilee each of you shall return to his property. And if you make a sale to your neighbor or buy from your neighbor, you shall not wrong one another. You shall pay your neighbor according to the number of years after the jubilee, and he shall sell to you according to the number of years for crops. If the years are many, you shall increase the price, and if the years are few, you shall reduce the price, for it is the number of the crops that he is selling to you. You shall not wrong one another, but you shall fear your God, for I am the Lord your God. “Therefore you shall do my statutes and keep my rules and perform them, and then you will dwell in the land securely. The land will yield its fruit, and you will eat your fill and dwell in it securely. And if you say, ‘What shall we eat in the seventh year, if we may not sow or gather in our crop?’ I will command my blessing on you in the sixth year, so that it will produce a crop sufficient for three years. When you sow in the eighth year, you will be eating some of the old crop; you shall eat the old until the ninth year, when its crop arrives. “The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine. For you are strangers and sojourners with me. And in all the country you possess, you shall allow a redemption of the land. “If your brother becomes poor and sells part of his property, then his nearest redeemer shall come and redeem what his brother has sold. If a man has no one to redeem it and then himself becomes prosperous and finds sufficient means to redeem it, let him calculate the years since he sold it and pay back the balance to the man to whom he sold it, and then return to his property. But if he does not have sufficient means to recover it, then what he sold shall remain in the hand of the buyer until the year of jubilee. In the jubilee it shall be released, and he shall return to his property. “If a man sells a dwelling house in a walled city, he may redeem it within a year of its sale. For a full year he shall have the right of redemption. If it is not redeemed within a full year, then the house in the walled city shall belong in perpetuity to the buyer, throughout his generations; it shall not be released in the jubilee. But the houses of the villages that have no wall around them shall be classified with the fields of the land. They may be redeemed, and they shall be released in the jubilee. As for the cities of the Levites, the Levites may redeem at any time the houses in the cities they possess. And if one of the Levites exercises his right of redemption, then the house that was sold in a city they possess shall be released in the jubilee. For the houses in the cities of the Levites are their possession among the people of Israel. But the fields of pastureland belonging to their cities may not be sold, for that is their possession forever. “If your brother becomes poor and cannot maintain himself with you, you shall support him as though he were a stranger and a sojourner, and he shall live with you. Take no interest from him or profit, but fear your God, that your brother may live beside you. You shall not lend him your money at interest, nor give him your food for profit. I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt to give you the land of Canaan, and to be your God. “If your brother becomes poor beside you and sells himself to you, you shall not make him serve as a slave: he shall be with you as a hired worker and as a sojourner. He shall serve with you until the year of the jubilee. Then he shall go out from you, he and his children with him, and go back to his own clan and return to the possession of his fathers. For they are my servants, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt; they shall not be sold as slaves. You shall not rule over him ruthlessly but shall fear your God. As for your male and female slaves whom you may have: you may buy male and female slaves from among the nations that are around you. You may also buy from among the strangers who sojourn with you and their clans that are with you, who have been born in your land, and they may be your property. You may bequeath them to your sons after you to inherit as a possession forever. You may make slaves of them, but over your brothers the people of Israel you shall not rule, one over another ruthlessly. “If a stranger or sojourner with you becomes rich, and your brother beside him becomes poor and sells himself to the stranger or sojourner with you or to a member of the stranger’s clan, then after he is sold he may be redeemed. One of his brothers may redeem him, or his uncle or his cousin may redeem him, or a close relative from his clan may redeem him. Or if he grows rich he may redeem himself. He shall calculate with his buyer from the year when he sold himself to him until the year of jubilee, and the price of his sale shall vary with the number of years. The time he was with his owner shall be rated as the time of a hired worker. If there are still many years left, he shall pay proportionately for his redemption some of his sale price. If there remain but a few years until the year of jubilee, he shall calculate and pay for his redemption in proportion to his years of service. He shall treat him as a worker hired year by year. He shall not rule ruthlessly over him in your sight. And if he is not redeemed by these means, then he and his children with him shall be released in the year of jubilee. For it is to me that the people of Israel are servants. They are my servants whom I brought out of the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.

What might Jubilee look like today for us?

LEviticus 25

Strength

Nehemiah 8:10 ESV

Then he said to them, “Go your way. Eat the fat and drink sweet wine and send portions to anyone who has nothing ready, for this day is holy to our Lord. And do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.”

Joy is what helps us keep going with the other disciplines.

What is it about joy that makes us stronger?

Fruit/evidence of the Spirit

Galatians 5:22 ESV

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,

Galatians

Joy comes from spiritual discipline.

Joy comes from obedience - from allowing God to shape us.

Luke 11:27–28 ESV

As he said these things, a woman in the crowd raised her voice and said to him, “Blessed is the womb that bore you, and the breasts at which you nursed!” But he said, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it!”

When have you felt joy as a result of obedience or discipline?

Genuine Celebration

Philippians 4:4–7 ESV

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Philippians 4:4 ESV

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice.

Matthew 6:25 ESV

“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?

“It is important to avoid the kind of celebrations that really celebrate nothing.”

Foster, Richard J.. Celebration of Discipline: The Path To Spiritual Growth (p. 193). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

Foster, Richard J.. Celebration of Discipline: The Path To Spiritual Growth (p. 194). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition. d J.. Celebration of Discipline: The Path To Spiritual Growth (p. 193). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

What might be examples of celebration that celebrate nothing? (The example Foster uses is making angry kids pray thanksgiving for a meal they hate.)

“Scripture commands us to live in a spirit of thanksgiving in the midst of all situations; it does not command us to celebrate the presence of evil.”

Foster, Richard J.. Celebration of Discipline: The Path To Spiritual Growth (p. 194). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

What is the difference between “thanksgiving in the midst of all situations” and “celebrating the presence of evil”?

Look back to Jubilee: a mandated reliance on God.

“The decision to set the mind on the higher things of life is an act of the will. That is why celebration is a Discipline. It is not something that falls on our heads. It is the result of a consciously chosen way of thinking and living. When we choose this way, the healing and redemption in Christ will break into the inner recesses of our lives and relationships, and the inevitable result will be joy.”

Foster, Richard J.. Celebration of Discipline: The Path To Spiritual Growth (p. 195). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

The benefits of celebration

Keeps us from taking ourselves too seriously.

Helps keep us from letting the world get us down.

Gives us perspective, especially regarding our own importance.

Makes us less uptight and judgmental.

Leads to more celebration!

Can you think of other benefits of celebration?

Practicing celebration

singing, dancing, shouting

we should follow the example of little children.

Even when it’s hard: when we found out about Levi 10 years ago.

One of the best celebrations I had recently was a singalong at Melba’s piano. A close second was learning Palestinian folk dance after dinner one night in Bethlehem.

Laughter

One of the best parts of the Jesus trail was a stretch of a mile or so during which we told stupid jokes.

Laugh at ourselves too!

Imagination: both make and enjoy art and poetry and novels and hilarious sitcoms.

We don’t make our church buildings beautiful because God cares where we worship. We don’t do it to show off. We do it because it’s a form of celebration. We decorate for Christmas and Easter and Pentecost!

Play games together! Board games, card games, video games, whatever.

Festivals/local community.

Arts festival

Marathon

All the million of community festivals Sewickley has. :)

Take back holidays

Halloween can be a community celebration

Don’t let Christmas be commercial

Start new observances/holidays

Can you think of other forms of celebration?

Wrapping up the study

“We have come to the end of this study, but only to the beginning of our journey. We have seen how meditation heightens our spiritual sensitivity which, in turn, leads us into prayer. Very soon we discover that prayer involves fasting as an accompanying means. Informed by these three Disciplines, we can effectively move into study which gives us discernment about ourselves and the world in which we live. Through simplicity we live with others in integrity. Solitude allows us to be genuinely present to people when we are with them. Through submission we live with others without manipulation, and through service we are a blessing to them. Confession frees us from ourselves and releases us to worship. Worship opens the door to guidance. All the Disciplines freely exercised bring forth the doxology of celebration.”

Foster, Richard J.. Celebration of Discipline: The Path To Spiritual Growth (p. 201). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

What is one important thing you have learned from this study?

Foster, Richard J.. Celebration of Discipline: The Path To Spiritual Growth (p. 201). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

Group discussion

What spiritual practice do you feel is the hardest?

Which comes most naturally to you?

What things do you normally do as a part of your routine that we haven’t talked about in this study? How might you begin to see those things as disciplines? What other examples can you think of, after reading the ones below?

Dishes = service

Exercise = solitude or celebration, depending on how you look at it

Reading the news = prayer

What is the one discipline you are going to work to incorporate more into your routine this summer?

Related Media

Related Sermons