Keeping Sabbath?

Have you ever wondered what Jesus did all week? One commentator suggested, somewhat tongue in cheek, that maybe he rested all week and then began his work on the Sabbath because there are so many stories about Jesus upsetting the religious by doing things on the Sabbath. It does seem to be a reoccurring theme. (Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost. Proper 16 (21) Jeremiah 1:4-10; Psalm 71:1-6; Hebrews 12:18-29; and Luke 13:10-17.)

You may like to read what I wrote three years ago focusing on Plucking up and Planting!

To Pluck and to Plant

The way the gospel writer put things in this week’s story of course it was right, proper and the only thing any sensible compassionate person could do – to heal the woman who had suffered so long – wasn’t it? Well yes but the religious authorities have a point – there were six other perfectly good days dedicated to work and she could have come back then – Jesus could have made an appointment! Ridiculous?

But what about when it is us that we are talking about and our struggle to keep the Sabbath holy and to work as we ought for justice and mercy? Of all the things that can be said about Sabbath and its importance there are three points I would want to make.

Firstly, that true worship is to live in such a way that we celebrate, recognise, and help to realise the reign of God breaking into our world. In other words to work for peace, justice and mercy in our world – whatever day of the week it is. To desire the things of God, to live our lives in keeping with, and to help create the conditions of heaven, here and now.

This understanding of worship has been part of the tradition for ever. A reoccurring theme in the Hebrew Scriptures was that the whole community would be judged by how the widow, orphan and the alien were treated. Jesus is not introducing a novel idea, rather he is making visible and crystal clear the outworking of the faith of God’s chosen people.

Secondly, there is a balance to be found in our lives between work and Sabbath. Jesus’ teaching this week breaks down the rule bound distinctions between work and worship and rest based on what day of the week it is but he does not reject the notion of Sabbath itself. So, how in contemporary society are we to understand Sabbath?

Maybe most simply as a time of rest and re-creation. Traditionally that day was the same day in which we publically worshipped together – Saturday or Sunday depending on one’s custom. And whilst that remains the pattern and custom for many, Jesus’ teaching this morning does suggest that we are not limited to the particular day. For many of us Sunday is not a day of rest, it is a work day, albeit a very holy day. So if we are not limited to, or protected, in having the one common day of Sabbath, then we are pointed toward principles.

Maybe the notion of holy leisure is the clearest description. The notion of rest is very important. A time of more than just “not working” but of intentional not doing things that one normally does in order to rest, to recuperate, to recover. Sabbath is good for us. Sabbath is also hard for some of us as resisting using our time sensibly and for catching up is a bit difficult for some personality types and some stages of life. Not doing is very hard for some people.

Sabbath is also about re-creation, making new, which is where the leisure part comes in. Sabbath is for joy and pleasure. We need to be emptied of what tires us, and filled with what renews us.

Which brings me to the third thought I want to share. Sabbath has been given to us by God not just because God is a kind boss and wants us to enjoy ourselves and have an occasional “day off”. Sabbath is for the good of our souls and for the kindling and deepening of our relationship with the divine.

Sometimes that has been understood in the disciplines of increased prayers and serious study of scripture and spiritual books of the Sabbath. And such practices can deepen our experience of Sabbath and feed our relationship with God. This was the religious experts’ criticism of Jesus’ actions – that the Sabbath was for our relationship with God and not others.

Increased prayer and study can be good for us. But sometimes more talking prayers and more intellectual study in fact only reinforces what we already know, think, and think we know. Sometimes what our relationship with ourselves and our divine Beloved most needs is silence or play – the uncluttered encounter that we cannot script or force, the encounter in which our wills are not in charge – for even our will to be good and holy can be an impediment.

It is because we are not in charge of such encounters that we sometimes fear or avoid “doing nothing with God” for who knows what waits for us in such moments. Maybe only silence, maybe uncomfortable truths about what we want, and maybe even inconvenient whispers of what the divine imagines for us. So maybe dedicated prayer and study is for the other six days and Sabbath is for singing or silence, dancing or stillness, for making ourselves available for a private rendezvous with the divine. And out of such unscripted unforced encounter may come the surprise of joy, old grief, new hope, perfect stillness, profound boredom, desire, restlessness, great rest, novel solutions and new sources of strength.

And then we are to bring the fledging gift of Sabbath into the tender discipline of the rest of our week so that the reign of God might indeed break into the world as we know it. It is not Sabbath or work it is Sabbath and work. And the divine is in both!

Even so, come Lord Jesus Christ, come heal us and entice us to play and rejoice.

This is my work informed by everything I have heard, read and experienced. I am indebted to the wisdom of others.