“Can’t A Guy Get a Break?”
Preached Sunday, July 21, 2024
Before I start, I want to say that I truly make an effort to prioritize Sabbath rest in my life. And we’ll talk about that in the sermon today. But when life gets in the way of Sabbath - I try to have a sense of humor about it. For example, whenever I find myself putting on my clergy collar or getting ready for work on what is supposed to be my day off, I listen to or sing the 2008 song, “Ain’t No Rest for the Wicked” by Cage the Elephant. I am not sure with the age demographic in the room if you’ll have heard it but it goes:
“There ain't no rest for the wicked
Money don't grow on trees
I got bills to pay
I got mouths to feed
There ain't nothing in this world for free
I know I can't slow down
I can't hold back
Though you know, I wish I could
Oh no there ain't no rest for the wicked
Until we close our eyes for good"
I chuckle at the irony of singing “there ain’t no rest for the wicked” while getting ready to do church ministry, and if I am working on my Sabbath, it is often because of my other priorities of care and compassion for others - funerals are a common example of Sabbath exceptions.
And, the fact of the matter is, rest is holy. I wouldn’t like to go as far as to say a life without rest is wicked because a life without rest can be forced upon someone, but there is a kernel of truth in that. Sabbath rest is holy. And a life that revolves around Sabbath rest is a holy one, one that pleases God. Robbing ourselves and others of Sabbath rest is, indeed, a wicked thing.
Sometimes we think of “Sabbath” in Christian circles as something just for clergy but it isn’t just for ministers. We all need rest and we all are commanded to observe the Sabbath. Observing the Sabbath and keeping it holy is one of the ten commandments. And, yet, I often hear it is the commandment that we treat as optional, a suggestion, rather than an edict.
The odds are that you - we - most of us if not all of us in this room - struggle with the concept and observation of Sabbath. And you may therefore find some modicum of comfort in today’s Gospel reading where we see Jesus’s plans for rest waylaid. We see throughout the Gospels that Jesus prioritizes rest - even when it doesn’t exactly work out, like in today’s reading. Sabbath rest and renewing time with God was a pillar in his life. For him Sabbath was not a strict observance but something that enhances our lives, our relationship with God, and our relationships with one another. As he says to the religious leaders: “The Sabbath was made for humankind and not humankind for the Sabbath, so the Son of Man is lord even of the Sabbath.” Sabbath is a gift that God wants for our lives - why don’t we accept it?
Indeed how we observe the Sabbath has changed from the Mosaic Laws found in the Hebrew Bible and that some sects of our Jewish siblings still follow this day - rules about cooking and opening doors and such. Our Christian understanding of Sabbath has diverged from this concept - including the day - our Jewish siblings practice Sabbath rest on Saturday - the seventh day of the week, the day in the Creation story when God rested from the work of Creation. Christians, generally, think of Sabbath as Sunday - the day Jesus was resurrected from the dead.
For Christians who take the commandment of Sabbath seriously, the details of how it is followed isn’t as important as the priority of it being observed at all. That Sabbath is a priority for and in our lives. That we come to the one whose yoke is easy and his burden is light and find rest. That we set the example of what it looks like to rest in God and in doing so, participate in re-wiring the system of our world and culture so that all may find rest in Christ.
In his book, “Sabbath as Resistance,” Christian theologian Walter Brueggemann writes about the commandment of observing Sabbath. The whole premise of this book is that the commandment to observe Sabbath, which comes fourth in the ten commandments, is a bridge commandment. He opens his book with this thesis statement:
“…the fourth commandment on the Sabbath is the ‘crucial bridge’ that connects the Ten Commandments together. The fourth commandment looks back to the first three commandments and the God who rests. At the same time, the Sabbath commandment looks forward to the last six commandments that concern the neighbor; they provide for rest alongside the neighbor. God, self, and all members of the household share in common rest on the seventh day; that social reality provides a commonality and a coherence not only to the community of covenant but to the commands of Sinai as well.”
In order to understand the importance of the commandment of Sabbath as a bridge commandment, we have to understand the context of the book of Exodus that is alluded to in the preamble to the commandments and the first commandment: “And God spoke all these words: ‘I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me.”
The book of Exodus has followed the slavery and oppression of the Israelites in Egypt, in the land of Pharaoh. And then God, through Moses, guided them out of slavery, out of Pharaoh's grasp, through the Red Sea, and delivered into the hands of God. It is then that Moses goes up the Mount and receives the Torah, the Law, from God.
Right from the start, God defines God’s self as the God who led them out of Egypt and then says they are to have no other gods before God’s self. We don’t think of Pharaoh in this way today - but to the ancient Egyptians and to the Israelites - Pharaoh was a god. He was seen as divine and had immense power and control over the Israelites - he forced them into slavery at the whims of the Pharaoh, pushing them to produce for the wealth and gain of Pharaoh and of Egypt, and gave them no allowance for rest.
Right off the bat the God of the Israelites, our God, is telling God’s people - I am not like the god of Egypt. I am not like Pharaoh. I am above Pharaoh. My ways are different from Pharaoh's. We then are given the second and third commandments about idols and misusing God’s name. The first three commandments are then primarily about our relationship with God. In the Gospels, Jesus sums up and the commandments, law, and prophets as “Love God and love neighbor as self.” So the first three commandments can be seen as primarily being about loving God. Then we come to the bridge commandment, the Sabbath commandment: “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.” In this commandment we see a shift, a pivot, a bridge being built. For the next 6 commandments are all about how we treat, how we love, our neighbors, our fellow human beings. Sabbath, however, is about both love of God and love of neighbor. It connects the first three commandments to the last six and is absolutely vital for this connecting work.
When we observe Sabbath, in light of it being the bridging commandment, we are recognizing that God is our God and not Pharaoh. We are recognizing that the world we live in is God’s, not Pharaoh's, and we will follow God’s way which includes Sabbath rest. Pharaoh's way is the way of slavery. It is the way of using humans as tools and things rather than beloved children of God. Pharaoh’s way is the way of a system built on production and wealth and the anxiety and pressure to produce wealth. It is the way of mammon - the word used for wealth when Jesus says, “No one can serve two masters, for a slave will either hate the one and love the other or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.” While we no longer have a literal Pharaoh that we view as divine in our world, the kingdom of Pharaoh and all that Pharaoh represented is still going strong in our world. That is the constant desire to produce enough. To make enough. To have enough. At any and all cost.
Brueggemann says, “Rest as did the creator God! And while you rest - be sure that your neighbors rest alongside you. Indeed, sponsor a system of rest that contradicts the system of anxiety of Pharaoh, because you are no longer subject to Pharaoh's anxiety system.”
Now here’s the hard question: How come we still live like we are slaves in Egypt under the system of Pharaoh? At least when it comes to the systems of anxiety, production, and lack of rest that drives our lives? Why do we live under this system for ourselves and allow our neighbors to live under it as well?
Which brings to me a sin that we don’t often name for what it is, a sin, and contrary to God’s desires for us: The Protestant Work Ethic. The term was coined in 1904 by an economist, Max Weber, as he talked about the correlation between Calvinism and Capitalism. The Protestant Work Ethic has largely defined our American capitalistic culture for at least the last 100 years if not much more. The basic premise is that how hard you work is a reflection of how much you are worth, how good you are, if you are “saved.”
The Protestant Work Ethic tells us our value comes from what we produce. And not produce as in Fruit of the Spirit but produce in terms of economical gain, of blood, sweat, and tears poured into the cog of the economy, how much we grind, how much and how well we run the rat race. This can be applicable in any profession and stage of life. How many hours we work, how many meetings we have, how much we earn, how far we advance, what our supervisors or evaluations say about us… And that also all translates to the house we live in, the cars we drive, how many children we have and how they behave, how many and how luxurious of vacations we can take, whether we can afford the fancy lattes, etc., etc.. It can even relate to our lives in the church: is the church producing attendance and offering numbers that are up to par?
The Protestant Work Ethic though is just another term for the culture or system of Pharaoh that God commands us to not follow. It is a system that robs us of God as our God with no other Gods before God. We cannot serve both God and Pharaoh. We cannot serve both God and the endless drive to produce without rest.
And so allow me to ask: what would it look like for you, for you specifically, to make Sabbath rest a priority in your life? What would it look like to center yourself in our God who desires to make us lie down in green pastures besides still water? What would it look like to center yourself in Jesus whose burden is easy and whose yoke is light? Practically - what could taking the commandment for Sabbath seriously look like for you?
For me, I try and frame Sabbath rest as having one day off every week that honors God. AND, one day off a week to be human. My God honoring time can look like worshiping, praying, napping, gardening, spending time in loving community…and when I’m at my best, putting down my phone and its relentless stream of notifications and information. My day to be human is about errands and appointments and all that is required of me to function as a basic human and member of society.
Christian author Rob Bell framed Sabbath like this:
“Sabbath is taking a day a week to remind myself that I did not make the world and that it will continue to exist without my efforts.
Sabbath is a day when my work is done, even if it isn’t.
Sabbath is a day when my job is to enjoy. Period.
Sabbath is a day when I am fully available to myself and those I love most.
Sabbath is a day when I remember that when God made the world, he saw that it was good.
Sabbath is a day when I produce nothing.
Sabbath is a day when at the end I say, ‘I didn’t do anything today,’ and I don’t add, ‘And I feel so guilty.’
Sabbath is a day when my phone is turned off, I don’t check my email, and you can’t get a hold of me.”
I’ve heard it phrased this way as well - Sabbath is a day where you ask yourself - what would I enjoy doing or not doing today? And what could I do - or not do - that would center me in God who is Lord of the Sabbath? Where does our enjoyment and centering God meet? That is a day of Sabbath rest.
Now here’s my disclaimer or warning to you - when we first start practicing Sabbath…it does not feel good. We often think, “Oh I’m so tired, I’m so overworked, I’m so busy” that we must think OF COURSE a day of rest will feel good, like a tantalizing treat for our overworked selves. But the reality is, it feels good to be needed. It feels good to do and to produce. We get endorphins when we check items off of our to-do lists. When those phone notifications go off, our brains are flooded with hormones - someone needs me. Someone wants me. I can help.
We are so embedded in the culture of Pharaoh, in the culture of Productivity, that we need to detox from it. And detoxing doesn’t feel good at first. We may feel restless and listless as we have to force ourselves to rest, centering ourselves in God - and rest centered in God is different from the vegetative state we can enter when binge watching a favorite show. We have to actively engage our minds and our souls to turn toward God rather than turn toward productivity.
And if we stick with it, eventually we will find enjoyment in Sabbath rest. We will realize that rest and Sabbath is not a reward for the hard work well done, Sabbath is rest for the work we have ahead of us. It’s a small mental shift but a meaningful one. If we only rest when we feel we deserve it, when we feel the work is done, then we will never truly rest. But if we rest because we know we need rest and we know we need to be centered in God for the compassionate, caring, loving work God calls us to do… that’s different.
We rest so that we can love God and love neighbor more fully. We rest so that we can have compassion.
In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus’s plans for rest don’t go exactly as planned - something that I can certainly relate to and assures me that Jesus was human and the world he lived in, while different in some ways, is still the same world we experience here today… Even though Jesus’s plans for rest don’t go exactly as planned - Jesus still had compassion for the crowds who needed him. He was able to love his neighbor. For as much as he was human, Jesus was also Lord of the Sabbath. And as the bridging commandment, Sabbath is just as much about love of God as it is about love of neighbor. Jesus prioritized rest and renewal, spread throughout his whole ministry, so that he could serve with compassion and love. I trust that even if Jesus didn’t catch a break in this passage, he continued to make rest a priority. He continued to pray and center himself in love. Sabbath was just part of the rhythm of his life.
My invitation to all of us today is for us to center Sabbath as a priority in our lives, to make it a part of the rhythms of our lives, to view it as the highly important bridging commandment it is. Let us hear the voice of God inviting us to lie down in green pastures and besides still waters, let us heed that voice and through Sabbath rest, find better love of God and love of neighbor.
May it be so. Amen.
For Christians who take the commandment of Sabbath seriously, the details of how it is followed isn’t as important as the priority of it being observed at all. That Sabbath is a priority for and in our lives. That we come to the one whose yoke is easy and his burden is light and find rest. That we set the example of what it looks like to rest in God and in doing so, participate in re-wiring the system of our world and culture so that all may find rest in Christ.
In his book, “Sabbath as Resistance,” Christian theologian Walter Brueggemann writes about the commandment of observing Sabbath. The whole premise of this book is that the commandment to observe Sabbath, which comes fourth in the ten commandments, is a bridge commandment. He opens his book with this thesis statement:
“…the fourth commandment on the Sabbath is the ‘crucial bridge’ that connects the Ten Commandments together. The fourth commandment looks back to the first three commandments and the God who rests. At the same time, the Sabbath commandment looks forward to the last six commandments that concern the neighbor; they provide for rest alongside the neighbor. God, self, and all members of the household share in common rest on the seventh day; that social reality provides a commonality and a coherence not only to the community of covenant but to the commands of Sinai as well.”
In order to understand the importance of the commandment of Sabbath as a bridge commandment, we have to understand the context of the book of Exodus that is alluded to in the preamble to the commandments and the first commandment: “And God spoke all these words: ‘I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me.”
The book of Exodus has followed the slavery and oppression of the Israelites in Egypt, in the land of Pharaoh. And then God, through Moses, guided them out of slavery, out of Pharaoh's grasp, through the Red Sea, and delivered into the hands of God. It is then that Moses goes up the Mount and receives the Torah, the Law, from God.
Right from the start, God defines God’s self as the God who led them out of Egypt and then says they are to have no other gods before God’s self. We don’t think of Pharaoh in this way today - but to the ancient Egyptians and to the Israelites - Pharaoh was a god. He was seen as divine and had immense power and control over the Israelites - he forced them into slavery at the whims of the Pharaoh, pushing them to produce for the wealth and gain of Pharaoh and of Egypt, and gave them no allowance for rest.
Right off the bat the God of the Israelites, our God, is telling God’s people - I am not like the god of Egypt. I am not like Pharaoh. I am above Pharaoh. My ways are different from Pharaoh's. We then are given the second and third commandments about idols and misusing God’s name. The first three commandments are then primarily about our relationship with God. In the Gospels, Jesus sums up and the commandments, law, and prophets as “Love God and love neighbor as self.” So the first three commandments can be seen as primarily being about loving God. Then we come to the bridge commandment, the Sabbath commandment: “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.” In this commandment we see a shift, a pivot, a bridge being built. For the next 6 commandments are all about how we treat, how we love, our neighbors, our fellow human beings. Sabbath, however, is about both love of God and love of neighbor. It connects the first three commandments to the last six and is absolutely vital for this connecting work.
When we observe Sabbath, in light of it being the bridging commandment, we are recognizing that God is our God and not Pharaoh. We are recognizing that the world we live in is God’s, not Pharaoh's, and we will follow God’s way which includes Sabbath rest. Pharaoh's way is the way of slavery. It is the way of using humans as tools and things rather than beloved children of God. Pharaoh’s way is the way of a system built on production and wealth and the anxiety and pressure to produce wealth. It is the way of mammon - the word used for wealth when Jesus says, “No one can serve two masters, for a slave will either hate the one and love the other or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.” While we no longer have a literal Pharaoh that we view as divine in our world, the kingdom of Pharaoh and all that Pharaoh represented is still going strong in our world. That is the constant desire to produce enough. To make enough. To have enough. At any and all cost.
Brueggemann says, “Rest as did the creator God! And while you rest - be sure that your neighbors rest alongside you. Indeed, sponsor a system of rest that contradicts the system of anxiety of Pharaoh, because you are no longer subject to Pharaoh's anxiety system.”
Now here’s the hard question: How come we still live like we are slaves in Egypt under the system of Pharaoh? At least when it comes to the systems of anxiety, production, and lack of rest that drives our lives? Why do we live under this system for ourselves and allow our neighbors to live under it as well?
Which brings to me a sin that we don’t often name for what it is, a sin, and contrary to God’s desires for us: The Protestant Work Ethic. The term was coined in 1904 by an economist, Max Weber, as he talked about the correlation between Calvinism and Capitalism. The Protestant Work Ethic has largely defined our American capitalistic culture for at least the last 100 years if not much more. The basic premise is that how hard you work is a reflection of how much you are worth, how good you are, if you are “saved.”
The Protestant Work Ethic tells us our value comes from what we produce. And not produce as in Fruit of the Spirit but produce in terms of economical gain, of blood, sweat, and tears poured into the cog of the economy, how much we grind, how much and how well we run the rat race. This can be applicable in any profession and stage of life. How many hours we work, how many meetings we have, how much we earn, how far we advance, what our supervisors or evaluations say about us… And that also all translates to the house we live in, the cars we drive, how many children we have and how they behave, how many and how luxurious of vacations we can take, whether we can afford the fancy lattes, etc., etc.. It can even relate to our lives in the church: is the church producing attendance and offering numbers that are up to par?
The Protestant Work Ethic though is just another term for the culture or system of Pharaoh that God commands us to not follow. It is a system that robs us of God as our God with no other Gods before God. We cannot serve both God and Pharaoh. We cannot serve both God and the endless drive to produce without rest.
And so allow me to ask: what would it look like for you, for you specifically, to make Sabbath rest a priority in your life? What would it look like to center yourself in our God who desires to make us lie down in green pastures besides still water? What would it look like to center yourself in Jesus whose burden is easy and whose yoke is light? Practically - what could taking the commandment for Sabbath seriously look like for you?
For me, I try and frame Sabbath rest as having one day off every week that honors God. AND, one day off a week to be human. My God honoring time can look like worshiping, praying, napping, gardening, spending time in loving community…and when I’m at my best, putting down my phone and its relentless stream of notifications and information. My day to be human is about errands and appointments and all that is required of me to function as a basic human and member of society.
Christian author Rob Bell framed Sabbath like this:
“Sabbath is taking a day a week to remind myself that I did not make the world and that it will continue to exist without my efforts.
Sabbath is a day when my work is done, even if it isn’t.
Sabbath is a day when my job is to enjoy. Period.
Sabbath is a day when I am fully available to myself and those I love most.
Sabbath is a day when I remember that when God made the world, he saw that it was good.
Sabbath is a day when I produce nothing.
Sabbath is a day when at the end I say, ‘I didn’t do anything today,’ and I don’t add, ‘And I feel so guilty.’
Sabbath is a day when my phone is turned off, I don’t check my email, and you can’t get a hold of me.”
I’ve heard it phrased this way as well - Sabbath is a day where you ask yourself - what would I enjoy doing or not doing today? And what could I do - or not do - that would center me in God who is Lord of the Sabbath? Where does our enjoyment and centering God meet? That is a day of Sabbath rest.
Now here’s my disclaimer or warning to you - when we first start practicing Sabbath…it does not feel good. We often think, “Oh I’m so tired, I’m so overworked, I’m so busy” that we must think OF COURSE a day of rest will feel good, like a tantalizing treat for our overworked selves. But the reality is, it feels good to be needed. It feels good to do and to produce. We get endorphins when we check items off of our to-do lists. When those phone notifications go off, our brains are flooded with hormones - someone needs me. Someone wants me. I can help.
We are so embedded in the culture of Pharaoh, in the culture of Productivity, that we need to detox from it. And detoxing doesn’t feel good at first. We may feel restless and listless as we have to force ourselves to rest, centering ourselves in God - and rest centered in God is different from the vegetative state we can enter when binge watching a favorite show. We have to actively engage our minds and our souls to turn toward God rather than turn toward productivity.
And if we stick with it, eventually we will find enjoyment in Sabbath rest. We will realize that rest and Sabbath is not a reward for the hard work well done, Sabbath is rest for the work we have ahead of us. It’s a small mental shift but a meaningful one. If we only rest when we feel we deserve it, when we feel the work is done, then we will never truly rest. But if we rest because we know we need rest and we know we need to be centered in God for the compassionate, caring, loving work God calls us to do… that’s different.
We rest so that we can love God and love neighbor more fully. We rest so that we can have compassion.
In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus’s plans for rest don’t go exactly as planned - something that I can certainly relate to and assures me that Jesus was human and the world he lived in, while different in some ways, is still the same world we experience here today… Even though Jesus’s plans for rest don’t go exactly as planned - Jesus still had compassion for the crowds who needed him. He was able to love his neighbor. For as much as he was human, Jesus was also Lord of the Sabbath. And as the bridging commandment, Sabbath is just as much about love of God as it is about love of neighbor. Jesus prioritized rest and renewal, spread throughout his whole ministry, so that he could serve with compassion and love. I trust that even if Jesus didn’t catch a break in this passage, he continued to make rest a priority. He continued to pray and center himself in love. Sabbath was just part of the rhythm of his life.
My invitation to all of us today is for us to center Sabbath as a priority in our lives, to make it a part of the rhythms of our lives, to view it as the highly important bridging commandment it is. Let us hear the voice of God inviting us to lie down in green pastures and besides still waters, let us heed that voice and through Sabbath rest, find better love of God and love of neighbor.
May it be so. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment