Signs of the kingdom - hand the keys of the world back to God

Today Rabbi Guedj explained some basic aspects of the Jewish faith, talking to the group of young people who have this week started the inter-religious seminar at the Bossey Ecumenical Institute. Talking about the idea behind sabbath he said it was about handing the keys of the world back to the God, about human beings for one day a week not trying to change the world. This resonated with me. Some Calvinist churches are amongst the strictist observers of the Christian day of rest - there's even a Reformed Church in the Netherlands who have a special message on their website saying that it too has a Sabbath and will be back to consult on Monday. This is not the tradition I grew up with but when I return to the country of my birth these days I am still a little shocked by the 24/7 culture and the roads packed with traffic every day.
So today, handing the keys back to God was my sign of the kingdom, it made me think of a short phrase I think by Barth: "Es wird Regiert" - God is governing or the world is governed. There is no need for continual striving to achieve.

Meanwhile the other kingdom signs bloggers are all still writing and Georgina has just started her kingdom journal here (think of her as she takes her year two resits); Regina is journaling here; Phil is journaling here;Judy is journaling here; Viv is journaling here; Allan is journaling here; and beyond New Zealand Eleanor is journaling here; Dan is journaling here; Steve's outline can be found: introduction here, instructions here and here