Pop Quiz. Without cheating, take one minute and write down as many of the Ten Commandments as you can recall. Now, open your Bible to Exodus 20 and see how you fared. While I think most people can remember the ones involving murder, stealing, and infidelity, my hunch is that “keeping the Sabbath holy”, among others, might not be as quick to recall.
Times have changed. When I was a kid growing up in a small town in Kansas, Sundays were very sleepy. Churches, restaurants, and a few gas stations were about the only things open. Most everything else stayed closed on Sunday. Student sports were never scheduled on Sunday. Everybody knew why, too: it was a day set apart for church, family, and rest. Slowly and surely, things changed. By the time I was in Middle School, stores were open. Student sports started to creep into Sundays in the 1990’s. Now, Sunday is just another day. Churchgoers are decreasing in number every year, and are a definite minority in the United States.
I think this is a problem. Not just for the Church, but for the population in general.
First and foremost, keeping the Sabbath was and is a Jewish thing. As far as scholars can tell, no other culture or religion instituted this ordinance before the Jews. They practiced rest on the seventh day of the week because that’s what they understood God did in the creation story. Six days of creating, one day of restful re-creating. At times, the Jewish people practiced this command so literally that it cost them their freedom – enemies figured out that they all took Saturdays off, which presented an excellent opportunity for attack. Attack they did; victory was theirs – no Jews dared fight back and break the command. Eventually, fleeing for one’s life was allowed on the Sabbath. By the times Jesus hit the radar, the rabbis had created a long list of things you could and could not do on the Sabbath. Many of the rules were ridiculous, and Jesus broke them, much to the chagrin of the religious leaders of his day.
Our relationship with rest (let alone Sabbath) in our Western culture is a paradox. We know we need it, but there is pressure, I think, to avoid it. I think our culture rewards people who forego rest for more work. We don’t like to hear that we need 7-8 hours of sleep. We are sure we can make it on less. But if you work out, you know that lack of rest leads to disaster. Our muscles need time to recuperate. If we keep pushing ourselves, we will eventually find ourselves injured and unable to perform even simple exercises. We know our bodies need rest. But do we realize that rest impacts our entire state of being?
Studies have shown that meditation makes a significant difference in our ability to handle stress by stimulating our body’s parasympathetic response. This affects our chemical and metabolic functions. Just 15 minutes a day of sitting and deep breathing can make a big difference. Lots happens when we stop and do nothing. We notice things we hadn’t before. We hear things, feel things, think things. There is a world-famous ten day course of silence you can try in India (and now other parts of the world). For ten days you cannot speak. You follow the direction of the leaders. The first day is focused on sitting in silence, focusing on your breathing. More specifically, contemplating your nostrils – which one you favor more, etc. Ten days. Michael Finkel gave this a try. After ten days, his initial reaction was that is was an awful experience. Upon further reflection, however, he notes it as one of the most profound experiences of his life.
Is this what the Sabbath was all about? Were the Jews perpetuating this command because the simple non-act of rest affected their parasympathetic response? Is this why we need to re-incorporate this command today?
Taking a day to simply rest is a great idea, period. Everybody needs it. Deny it and you will pay a hefty price. But Sabbath is not simply about rest; it is about re-creating. And to do that requires the input of the Creator.
The writer of Hebrews gives us a beautiful interpretation of what Sabbath-keeping is really all about. In Hebrews 4, the writer talks about entering God’s rest, which has as its prerequisite obedience to God. Israel had failed at this, and missed out on the rest. But to those who follow, the rest is available. The “rest” is current-alluding-to-future. It is now, but is a foretaste of the future. We experience God now, which is just a hint of our experience to come after life in this realm is over. Experiencing God needs to be fostered. It needs to be intentional. For ancient and contemporary Jews, coming together for worship and teaching was a critical component of keeping the Sabbath. It was more than a day off. It was time set aside for God to speak into their lives. It set them apart as God’s people.
So, Sabbath is not just about the absence of work. It is not just about resting, be it on a hike or on the golf course or on a recliner. Sabbath keeping takes it to the next level by integrating communal worship and teaching about the Way of God. Neglect that, and you may benefit from the R&R, but you will not be any more like the Jesus who leads you to life abundant.
Are you thinking about murdering anybody this week? Stealing form anyone? Committing adultery? Probably not. Hopefully not! How about neglecting the Sabbath? God included it in his Top Ten list. It is that significant. Israel learned the hard way that neglecting the Sabbath leads to generational apathy toward the Way of God which leads to vulnerability as a people and as a nation. It led to their demise. When we do not foster our relationship with God, we cannot expect to experience a life impacted by the presence of God.
The Church in Western culture is a frog in the kettle. If you drop a frog in a kettle of boiling water, it will immediately jump out. If you put a frog in temperate water and very slowly heat the water, it will just sit there until it boils to death. It doesn’t know it’s dying. When we personally neglect the keeping of the Sabbath, and then consequently model that choice for those we influence the most (our children and culture), we set ourselves up for trouble. When we crowd our lives with so many commitments that we can’t make Sunday (in our case) a day of rest, we are in trouble. But when we neglect to come together to reconnect with God and be reminded and stretched to think more deeply about God, we may be in bigger trouble. We don’t grow closer to God. We therefore become less effective as agents of God’s Kingdom in the world. Fewer people are introduced to the life-transforming Good News of Jesus. Less life happens in spite of longer living.
Learn from our history. Consider why the Sabbath made the Top Ten. Choose wisely how you will spend your days.
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