Sabbath

Several weeks ago my nephew insisted that his mother buy me a diary for 2009.  We’re not sure why – nobody could quite work out what was in his mind.  Perhaps he thought I was so busy that he needed to make an appointment in my diary so he could see me every week.  (He is only 4!)

When I was a child, my mother would ask each year for the next year’s week-to-a-view diary as a Christmas present, in order to record the mundane as well as interesting facts in our lives.  Those diaries have solved many a family argument about when exactly we did things.  The week ran from Sunday to Saturday and she liked it that way.  But it became increasingly difficult to find diaries where the week began on Sundays.  The week now runs from Monday to Sunday – and that’s official, I jest not.  International standard ISO-8601 now decrees that Monday shall be the first day of the week.  I wonder which is the first day of your week?  When is your Sabbath?

The reading we had from Exodus is part of the one where God gives the Ten Commandments to Moses.  From it we learn that

• God made Sabbath holy – he consecrated it – he set it apart.
• God rested on the day he ordained.  ‘Sabbath’ comes from a Hebrew word meaning pause, cease, be still.
• God told the Israelites not to do any work at Sabbath – and not to force anyone else to work either, even extending that to the animals.  Interestingly, he even extended this to foreigners – not an exclusive command just to his chosen people.  The undertones here are of the equality and justice of God’s kingdom for all people.
• In choosing the seventh day, God set out a pattern or rhythm.  Later on, when God provided manna for the Israelites, we see its provision following the same pattern – there is manna for six days, but on the sixth day enough is provided for 2 days so that no collecting need be done on the seventh.  The importance of seven in the pattern continues in Leviticus (Chapter 25) when God declares that in the seventh year, the land must have a Sabbath rest – and after seven times seven years there is to be a year of jubilee, when liberty is proclaimed for all the earth.

All this taken together sets out a basis for the wholeness and well-being of society.

Jesus was a Jew and his family would have observed Sabbath.  But by Jesus time, the Pharisees had devised 1521 things you weren’t allowed to do on the Sabbath, including rescuing a drowning man.  As far as we can ascertain from the Gospel reading, these also included harvesting a handful of grain or curing a man with a withered hand.  Jesus makes it clear that the Pharisees are very much missing the point of Sabbath.  He draws attention to the need to feed the hungry, supply the needy, to do good and to save life – and I can hear him being quite scathing towards the Pharisees.  Sabbath was not meant to tie people up in knots – it was there for the benefit of people, giving opportunities for goodness, refreshment and wholeness.

For Jews, as we know, Saturday was, and is, the Sabbath.  Some of the first Christians adopted the first day of the week, Sunday, the day of the resurrection, as their Sabbath.  This was a symbol of Christian distinctiveness; it emphasises that Sabbath (like salvation) is the free gift of God, not something that has to be earned by a week’s work.  Restrictive Jewish Sabbath observance wasn’t a part of the early Church’s life, except possibly for Jewish Christians who brought Sabbath customs with them to their new faith.  By the 3rd century the Emperor Constantine had formally declared Sunday a day of rest.

Much later, in the 16th and 17th centuries we find branches of the Protestant Church in the West giving authority to Scripture above all else and it seems to be there that restrictive Sabbath practices began to re-establish themselves.  No doubt Victorian industrialists and landowners contributed to this hypocrisy, devoutly observing the Sabbath on Sundays while many of them exploited their workers for the rest of the week.  The Victorian labourer, I imagine, was just glad to get a work-free day, after six days of working 14-hours a day or more in the factories, mines or fields, probably for 52 weeks of the year. The flavour of the Puritan Sabbath of Oliver Cromwell’s time continued to haunt Sundays in Britain well into the 20th century. 

So, what can Sabbath mean for us in the 21st century, a world where Sunday has changed beyond measure since the Victorian era, let alone the times of the first Christians or the Israelites?  For now, there is no going back even to the Sundays of our childhoods.  We live in a world where more apparent choices and freedoms actually make more demands on us.  We live in the midst of a secular society where Sunday practices have largely been abandoned.

It is true that God does not change, nor does what he ordained from the beginning of creation, for all people.  But we change as we grow in faith and understanding of God’s purposes.  And the world into which we are called to bear witness to that faith also changes in a way which I think makes it more difficult to recognise God.  So it is timely to reflect on our understanding of Sabbath, what it means for us, and what it might mean for our neighbours who haven’t yet accepted Jesus.

You may notice that I have not referred often as I have been speaking to ‘the Sabbath”; limiting our thinking about Sabbath to a single day restricts our understanding of the idea of Sabbath.
 
In the present we describe ourselves as time-poor, despite the opportunities that 24 hours a day, 7 days a week give us. Many of us would say we don’t have time for Sabbath.  We need to adopt a new approach to Sabbath, the developing of Sabbath attitudes.

Sabbath attitudes – developing attitudes that are at one with God’s purposes for Sabbath – thanksgiving, appreciation, enjoyment, liberation.

Then we can expect new opportunities to experience Sabbath.  These might be

Sabbath moments – taking the opportunity to be still, to receive, to appreciate, to enjoy – whenever we get the chance – in the traffic queue or while washing the dishes.

Sabbath seasons – extended resting/stopping/waiting periods such as holidays, career breaks, sabbaticals, illness, even redundancy, challenge us to enjoy what we have – waiting with God for a season. 

Sabbath days – preferably regular, where we can acknowledge God’s presence, rest, enjoy, receive, share and celebrate - but not necessarily on Sundays.  The Christian Church will maintain it’s distinctiveness by marking Sunday as a special day.  But we acknowledge here that there have always been those who are obliged to work on Sundays (members of the emergency services, nurses, vicars, for instance) and that this is true now for even more.  We also recognise that by making Sunday God’s day, there is every danger that we will restrict God to Sundays, rather as if we are making an appointment for Him in our diaries – hardly a Sabbath attitude – or that we will give the impression that God is only available for worship on Sundays.  

So what are Sabbath attitudes and how might we help others to experience Sabbath?

Receiving – Sabbath is a gift, not a duty; a delight, not a burdensome series of rules or another activity to be fitted in.  So for some it might be accepting that some of the things we do already, or would like to do more often, are allowed and shouldn’t induce guilt – encouraging our children, spending time with families and friends – sharing with others in making music or art – exercising our bodies – all of these provide rest and refreshment which is more than just the cessation of work.  How might we provide for others to receive this refreshment?  Whether it’s offering to baby-sit so that parents can enjoy time together on their own, donating money so that a disadvantaged family can have a holiday or accompanying a friend to an exercise class – all these sorts of things encourage others to experience Sabbath.

Stillness – It’s time to get off the “doing” treadmill where we think that non-productive time is time wasted.  We need to start viewing work as just a part of the pattern of work, rest and recreation that God has devised.  We have a culture where some can find no meaningful work while others never seem to stop working.  We need to place more value on the contribution made by all people, whether they are in paid employment or not.  We need to espouse freedom and liberation from the exploitation of working practices.  While Britain has, thankfully, moved on from the Victorian era, many workers are still contractually obliged to work on Sundays or to be on call at all times; how can we help preserve their rights to creative leisure and worship?  Globally, the inequity of working practices and the rewards of labour is vast.  How do we prevent this thwarting of God’s Kingdom values of justice and equality?

Rhythm – the patterns God set out in creation, the days and the seasons, the rhythms of work, rest and play, are life enriching. The pattern of seven days in a week has endured throughout recorded time, despite the very best efforts of French Revolutionaries to introduce the ten-day (metric) week. (It didn’t catch on.)   We still see rich colours of autumn and feel the cold of winter, despite climate change.  But instead of marvelling at the changing seasons, we complain that they mess up our routines.  We expect to be able to do anything at any time and to have everything we want straight away.  We’ve lost the art of waiting; waiting on God, waiting with God, waiting for God to fulfil his purposes.  Can we stop for a moment this week to marvel at some aspect of the winter?  Is there a situation where we need to enjoy the wait instead of striving for the end result?

Holy – Sabbath belongs to God.  God delights to give us the gift of Sabbath.  God loves to see his children play.  He longs for us to live out his kingdom values.  Most of all, He delights when we spend time in his presence. Not doing, just being.

God has given Sabbath for all people, yet I believe that only those who know him can fully benefit from the wholeness Sabbath brings.  So I pray that in the following weeks you will experience Sabbath anew and come more fully to experience all that God has for those who will rest in Him.  Amen.