Sabbath (6 21 07)

This post is from June of 2007, but like today's piece, it's also about Sabbath so I thought I'd post it here.

A blessed first day of summer to you!

After the solstice, our days start getting shorter and we begin the long journey toward the dark days of December, when winter officially begins and the light begins to come again. On a day like today, though, those cold, dark New England nights that start at 4:30 pm seem impossibly distant. But for now, it’s summer, and our paces slow and we rest and play.

Play is important—just look at any baby, and you can see that their play is the way they learn. Isaiah can reach for a toy, now—something he couldn’t have done three weeks ago, when his little hands just groped wildly in the air. And play is important for us, to unhinge from anxiety and stress and recover ourselves. Rest is important, too, maybe even more so. It’s not slacking, or laziness, but part of our calling as spiritual beings. The New Zealand prayer book translates psalm 127 like this: “It is but lost labor that we haste to rise up early, and so late take rest, and eat the bread of anxiety. For those beloved of God are given gifts even while they sleep.”

Gifts from God, even as you sleep!

But our Christian tradition has lost sight of the importance of Sabbath. We are so intent in our culture on being productive, on having something to show for ourselves. “Empty hands are the devil’s playground,” our grandmothers taught us. But it’s only with empty hands that we can accept what God has to give us.

We “eat the bread of anxiety;” the psalm cites it as an intentional act. We get caught up and forget that we choose the way we live our lives. Even in our “time off,” we go shopping, we consume things we don’t need. We want, at the end of the day, to say that we did something. But what would it be like if you just didn’t do anything? If you put aside all the things that people expect of you, that you expect from yourself, all those needs and random wants? What if you came before God with empty hands and a silent mind and just prayed for them to be filled with God’s quiet and love?

Important, too, is how your Sabbath impacts those around you. The meaning of Sabbath is rigorously outlined in the Old Testament for the Jews to follow—Sabbath is part of the law. But the implications of Sabbath aren’t just for the Jews. They are commanded not to work, not just for themselves but so that their slaves and their animals also don’t work. Sabbath extends outward from one person through to the community. “Six days you shall do your work, but on the seventh day you shall rest, so that your ox and your donkey may have relief, and your homeborn slave and the resident alien may be refreshed.” (Exodus 23: 12) Of course, we are reading now in Galatians about how Christ came to take us out from under the law. How much more readily does God receive our rest when it’s given freely, rather than commanded? Take a moment and give God the gift of your rest, and see how your receive God’s grace in return.