On Sundays we put on Sunday clothes and go to church. On Mondays, we drive past without a glance.
On Sundays we listen to readings from the Bible, to a sermon drawing attention to the relevance of God's Word to our own life. On Mondays, our Bible stays closed and we read something else.
On Sundays we pray for peace. On Mondays, we watch unmoved as our televisions bring us news of wars, of failed negotiations, of suffering and disaster. That, we tell ourselves, is the way of the world.
On Sundays we share that peace with our neighbour. On Mondays, the children, women and men we meet in the street, at work, in the shops are little more than figures who help us or who get in our way.
On Sundays we are courteous to our fellow worshippers. On Mondays, we return to criticising, to gossiping, to passing judgement on the people around us.
On Sundays we remember the poor. On Mondays, we get on with the business of earning enough for ourselves to keep up with our neighbours.
On Sundays we recall how Jesus "humbled himself, taking the form of a servant." On Mondays, we return to the rat-race and compete with each other for status and importance.
On Sundays we praise God for creation. On Mondays, we go back to polluting our environment just as we always have done.
If we don't see ourselves in this description, at least partly, we may be on the path to sainthood. Or we may just be deceiving ourselves. We may even be hypocrites, claiming to do one thing and actually doing another.
One charge the world levels against us Christians is that we fail to practise what we preach. It is a charge that members of other religions seem to escape - do they preach an easier message, or are they just so much better than we are? Paul told the Philippians to "rejoice in the Lord" (Phil. 3:1 and 4:4), to "know Christ" (Phil. 3:8), and to "have no anxiety about anything" (Phil. 4:6). Not just on Sundays, but through the whole week. Jesus, whose "yoke is easy, whose burden is light" (Mt 11:30), summarized our duty as to love God with our whole being, and to love our neighbour as ourselves. Is that so difficult?
The image of a yoke provides a clue. We are not like oxen or pack animals, being driven on some heavenly business, but we are on a journey, we are "on the way". We are not there yet, and on the way, we can all too easily make mistakes. But if we turn around from our mistakes, God will pick us up and set us back on the way, where we can rejoice at the goal ahead.
If this is a Sundays-only way, it will take ages to reach our goal. 25 February sees the start of Lent. Just as Jesus got away from the affairs of the world and retreated to be alone with God, perhaps we too can use this time to practise "what we do on Sundays" on other days, too. Not just Mondays (or Wednesdays, or Fridays), but through the whole week.
HD