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The Need for Sabbath
There is a deep need today to rediscover the
gift of Sabbath. The need declares itself in the most intimate
places of the human heart and in the broadest spheres of social
and economic interchange. It asserts itself even where Sabbath
is only a distant memory, even where the word "Sabbath"
is not known at all. Across barriers of age and culture, the
need speaks, presses, makes itself known.
For some the need for Sabbath emerges as a cry from within.
Exhausted, we yearn over the loss of time to rejoice in those
closest to us, or simply to play, to rest and be still, to delight
in the goodness that we believe yet surrounds us. We yearn,
and in our yearning we ache.
For some the need for Sabbath names itself in quiet grief. Grief
that we are moving faster and faster in our lives, but the only
progress we seem to make is into a greater emptiness. Grief
that the ways we have strained so conscientiously to live are
simply not working. Grief that although we partake abundantly
from the table our culture spreads before us, we come away from
the table still hungry, as hurried and pressed as ever rather
than nourished and renewed.
As a society, we know well the statistics that delineate a
particular form of progress: the ideal economic growth rate is 3% to 5%
per year; adjusting for inflation, United States citizens spend
more than twice as much for material goods and services as they
did fifty years ago; we buy homes almost three times larger
than we did following World War II and fill them with twice
as many things; we work longer hours, more of us hold multiple
jobs, and we now live to the full what some decades ago was
proclaimed as "the gospel of consumerism." 1
Yet these same statistics give rise to questions. For an increasing
number of us the questions themselves articulate the need for
Sabbath. Can the finite resources of the earth sustain the
economic growth our culture demands? Can persons and can families survive
the drivenness of a life that finds its "good news"
in ever more rapid consumption? Are fundamental elements of
justice sacrificed as people work longer and longer hours just
to keep the system going, and as the gap between those who
have the means for leisure and those with no means at all grows wider
by the year? 2
And in the Church, the need to rediscover the gift of Sabbath
sounds through both the best and the most harried realms of
our common life. At best, we desire to know more fully the overwhelming
mystery of God's all-restoring love. We yearn to be still and
see afresh the miracles that surround us. We long for disciplines
of time and practice that will let us simply rejoice in the
One we seek to serve. At worst we find ourselves exhausted from
trying too hard to serve the divine grace we proclaim. Collectively,
we long for a goodness that seems to have fled.
"Days pass and years vanish, and we walk sightless among
miracles," go the words of a Jewish prayer used on the
eve of beginning Sabbath. "Sabbath is a gift, but we are
so reluctant to accept it, that God had to make it a command,"
writes contemporary religious leader Barbara Brown Taylor. 3
In the context of wide and deepening need for Sabbath, both
statements speak an honest word. They also speak a healing word.
Acknowledging the loss inherent in our reluctance to pause
at all, they point our needy spirits to an overwhelming gift offered
by the Living God.
Sabbath comes to us as a many-layered gift. In its manifestation
it shines as a gem of limitless facets, infinite and uncontainable
yet taking particular forms. Divinely fashioned, even its mode
of coming from God is multiple. In the Book of Genesis, God
breathes Sabbath into the very fabric of creation. It takes
form as the seventh full day, the day on which God rested and
rejoiced in the goodness of all that God had made (Genesis 2:1-3).
At Mount Sinai, God speaks Sabbath as a sacred mandate. God's
people are forever to remember the Sabbath. They are to set
aside one full day in seven and keep it holy to the Lord (Exodus
20:8-11). In the gospels, Sabbath repeatedly provides both time
and space for Jesus' witness to the life-transforming power
of Abba. And it is as we enter the multiple dimensions of Sabbath
that we begin to know most fully the immensity of the gift.
Sabbath is for our joy and our rest.
"The Sabbath was made for humankind and not humankind
for the Sabbath," proclaims Jesus just after his disciples
have feasted on the Sabbath day (Mark 2:27). The commandment
to keep Sabbath, according to John Calvin, reflects God's genuine
concern for God's people. Again says Calvin, "Work is
good, but when we work all the time work becomes a curse not a blessing."
4 And
so Sabbath invites us to rest and take joy in what already is, even as God rested
on the seventh day and rejoiced in all the goodness of creation.
Sabbath is for deepened communion with
the Living God. As we unwrap the gift of Sabbath, it yields
to us blessings beyond our much needed rest and joy. In the
spiritual practice of Jews and Christians alike, Sabbath is
a time for us to be shaped within. "On the Sabbath,"
writes Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, "we especially care
for the seed of eternity planted in the soul." 5
John Calvin simply tells us, "On the Sabbath, we cease
our work so God can do God's work in us." 6
Sabbath draws us into the sacred rhythm
God has woven into all of life and all creation. Sabbath
invites us to the three-fold liturgy of rest, redemption and
renewal. With the most intimate of acts, and the broadest, we
celebrate this liturgy. We immerse ourselves in its goodness
when we pause for a brief prayer, or for an instant of stillness,
or for saying "Amen!" to the grace we sense surrounds
us. In such sabbath moments, we mirror the rhythm of Sabbath.
And from the early movements of biblical faith, the Living God
has called us to ever wider patterns of sabbath living. The
earth itself need the rhythm of rest, redemption and renewal,
so every seventh year the land is to lie fallow and receive
the gift of sabbatical life (Leviticus 25). On the widest scale
of all, the Sabbath is a graced foretaste of the eternal rest,
redemption and renewal all creation shall know when Christ comes
in glory. Sabbath draws us toward both the minute and the infinite.
When we give ourselves to Sabbath, it becomes time that interprets
all our times.
Sabbath is profoundly prophetic.
From its beginning, Sabbath has declared that the Living God
is the one source and aim of all our life. "Sabbath keeping,"
said Calvin, "is a way of living out our belief that we
are not our own; that we belong to God." 7
Not possessions. Not the striving after them. Not dominance
over other human beings. In the biblical teachings, the sacred
rhythm of rest, redemption and renewal calls for release from
debt and the complete redistribution of resources every fiftieth
year in the Year of Jubilee (Leviticus 25). In virtually every
age, and surely in our own, to live in the world as belonging
to God is to follow a discomforting and prophetic path.
Sabbath is for our life in community.
Although the blessings of Sabbath are often richly personal,
the gift of Sabbath is not a private gift, nor has it ever been
presented as such. At Mount Sinai, Sabbath came to the entire
community. It was for all ages, all stations in life. No one
stood outside the call to rest in the presence of God. In Judaism,
for better than two millennia the observance of Sabbath has
bound together a widely scattered people. In Christianity, the
Sabbath, or Lord's Day, is both communal and Christ-focused.
It summons the followers of Jesus to enter together into the
presence of the One whose grace is sufficient for all our human
need (Hebrews 4).
Steadily, persistently, the layers of Sabbath beckon. It is
likely we shall never enter all of them in a single moment.
Yet as we see the depth of need around us, and as we sense the
vastness of the gift, a simple question arises for us just as
it has through the ages: How can we now more fully live the
gift we have been given?
To live the gift of Sabbath is, of course, to receive it openly
and with gratitude. It is to savor Sabbath's freshness. It is
to walk in Sabbath's ways, even when those ways set us apart
from the culture that surrounds us.
And clearly, from the earliest of traditions, to live the gift
of Sabbath is to hallow time. In the fourth commandment, the
foundational emphasis is neither on work nor on the prohibition
of work, but on keeping time holy: "Remember the Sabbath
day, and keep it holy." (Exodus 20:8)
In the Deuteronomy tradition, to live the gift of Sabbath is
to take a day of rest from labor, because God delivered us from
the oppression of hard taskmasters in Egypt. "Remember
that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your
God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched
arm; therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the sabbath
day." (Deuteronomy 5:15)"
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Answers emerge. They emerge in part from new
Sabbath life that already stirs among us. They emerge in part
as wholly fresh beckonings that at once enliven and convict
our spirits. None of the answers is yet complete. Like Sabbath
itself, though, they come as a grace. We would do well to hear
and accept with joy the strong invitation they speak. It is
invitation to . . .
Restore, at all levels of our common life, the practice
of keeping every seventh day as the Lord's Day, a Sabbath holy
to God. In our present context, this will not be easy.
It is also a task we can no longer ignore.
Celebrate the places where Sabbath life already grows.
Children's books that tell anew of God and of rest and of joy;
rich ethnic traditions that flow from centuries of devotion;
the simple and sometimes struggling efforts of persons to carve
out time to rejoice in God and one another; renewed attention
to the Year of Jubilee and to allowing Sabbath for the land
- all these point the way to the recovery of Sabbath. They mark
the fresh stirrings of Sabbath in our midst. As we honor them
we shall honor and receive afresh the gift.
Share deeply in mutual support and dialogue. Single
parents, young families, persons living alone, older couples
have different patterns and diverse needs in developing Sabbath
life. Yet even if our hallowing of time must be alone, we need
the support of the community to do it. And as we share with
one another our various ways of spending time with God, our
common vision of Sabbath will grow both full and clear.
Live prophetically. If we live Sabbath's rhythm
of rest, then we must dare claim that rest for all people, including
the poor, including ourselves. And we must dare tend our environment
as a treasure for the ages. To do this in our materially driven
culture is to walk the way of the prophets.
Examine and amend the spirit draining patterns of our
corporate life. At all levels of our denomination, persons
struggle with exhaustion. What patterns of drivenness do we
need to let go of in our congregations? Presbyteries? Synods?
General Assembly? What forms of true spiritual rest do we need
to embrace?
Come again and again to the table where we are truly fed.
The table of the present age dazzles but clearly it does not
feed. The table of Sabbath is far simpler. Its nourishment is
deep. It is the table of the One who says, "Take. Eat.
This is my body. This is my blood. This is for you." In
coming regularly to the table of our Lord, in searching out
the times for this and in living the discipline of it, we shall
together enter the ever-widening mystery of grace that breathes
through all of the Sabbath invitation.
In recovering Sabbath, we are in many ways
as little children, beginners, explorers. Yet the gift is before
us. The need burns within us. The ways of fresh iving start
to emerge. And if we continue to grow in the ways we are beckoned,
we may, by God's grace, join the company of those who through
the ages have proclaimed with their very lives what it is "to
glorify God and to enjoy God forever." 8
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