Becoming a Sabbath People

Becoming a Sabbath People

When we become a Sabbath people, we give one of the most compelling witnesses to the world that we worship a God who desires our collective joy and good. We give concrete experience to an authentic faith that is working to deflate the anxious and destructive pride that supposes we have to “do it all” by ourselves and through our own effort.

~From Living the Sabbath by Norman Wirzba

Jesus said, “Come to me, all you who are struggling hard and carrying heavy loads, and I will give you rest. Put on my yoke, and learn from me. I’m gentle and humble. And you will find rest for yourselves. My yoke is easy to bear, and my burden is light."

~Matthew 11:28-30 CEB

Remember the story about the children of Israel being set free from their slavery in Egypt? Talk about struggling hard! Talk about carrying heavy loads! 

Yes, that is exactly what life was like under the Pharaoh in Egypt: Never a day off. Never a reduction to the production schedules. No rest for the slaves. No rest for the guards. Even the king of Egypt took no rest, so worried he was about running out even when he had so much. Most of the bricks made by the slaves went towards building more and bigger storehouses for grain. And yet Pharaoh was forever anxious. It was a compulsion, really. More grain—the measure of wealth back then—more beyond anything the king could have ever needed so that he could show the world his wealth and demonstrate his power. His desire for more created a restlessness that made Sabbath impossible for himself or anyone else under his rule.

Now, picture yourself in the desert—where water is scarce and food worth its weight in gold. And picture the atmosphere of anxiety and hoarding where you’d spent your whole life. And now God sends flaky white bread—manna—and there is always enough and just enough. When you get greedy and gather more than you need and try to stockpile it, it gets all moldy and full of worms. Except on the day before the Sabbath day, because there wouldn’t be any on the ground that day. But there was always enough and just enough.

And you and the whole community would learn the lesson of enough—what a contrast to Pharaoh’s insatiable desire for more, more, more.  In the middle of the desert, it takes faith—trust in God—to gather only what’s needed. And it takes discipline to be obedient, to gather twice as much as needed on Fridays, trusting that it won’t get gross and full of worms.

The King of Egypt was an “endlessly anxious presence” (Sabbath as Resistance: Saying No to the Culture of Now by WalterBrueggemann. Westminster John Knox Press, 2014).  The Pharaoh’s constant and overwhelming desire for more grain, more wealth, more power, more control caused everything—the entire nation—to be permeated with a restless anxiety that had no end. The Anxious Presence pollutes everything.

But the people of Israel, in the manna and in the Ten Commandments, discovered an end to this anxiety, an end to multi-tasking, an end to coercion, an end to striving for control. The Sabbath Day—such an easy yoke and such a light burden compared to the burdens of bricks and the yoke of slavery in Egypt.

Jesus said, “Humankind was not created to serve the Sabbath—no, the Sabbath was created to serve, to benefit humankind.” The Sabbath was made for you because you were made for God.

So the fourth commandment is really, really good news!  Remember the Sabbath—keep it special.  Never forsake the habit of meeting together. Never brag about your “freedom” to disregard covenant we have made with each other and God to faithfully gather together. Friends in Christ, this is not burdensome but a release of burdens. In worship, anxiety is trumped by faith; blurry spiritual vision fades like a mist and the things that truly matter are brought back into focus; restlessness is replaced with restfulness.

Remember the Sabbath—not out of duty, not out of guilt, not out of fear—but rather, in gratitude to the God who has set you free from the non-stop Pharaoh-like anxieties we so often succumb to. From this day forward, let Sunday be your special day, your holy day for saying "no" to all the little "gods" in your life and "yes" to the one true God who created the heavens and the earth in six days and then stopped working… and rested… and was refreshed. “Come unto me,” says Jesus, “and I will give you rest.”

Note, this is an excerpt from a recent sermon appearing in our Summer 2014 church newsletter.