Exodus 20:1-17; Matt. 5: 17-20
On the surface this morning our scripture texts do not seem to have much to do with Gratitude or Thanksgiving. I propose this morning that not only do they have something to do with Gratitude or Thanksgiving, but within them one may find a foundation for Gratitude.
I begin this morning with a personal story of gratitude.
Earlier this week, on Monday in fact, I was reminded of how sweet it is to take a deep breath. I mean literally and not metaphorically. On Monday morning I woke up with a bad cold. My asthma has been giving me trouble this fall and so as the day progressed on Monday, and the cold virus took hold of me, my breathing difficulties increased. By mid-afternoon, I began to worry when my ventolin puffers were not relieving my situation and by evening, I knew that I needed the assistance of the medical establishment through the emergency department, something I had encountered with my children in their own experiences with asthma, but not something I had, had to do for myself before.
As I sat with a medicated mask of ventolin and oxygen strapped to my face and took slow and every increasingly deep breaths, and as my airways began to clear, I was reminded of how sweet it is to breathe and I was grateful.
I knew I wanted to talk about Sabbath Rest as the bases for Gratitude, but I didn’t know that the supporting illustration for my sermon would come from my own experience of relearning to appreciate the simple yet life-sustaining, normally “taken for granted” act of breathing.
In my experience recently in the church we haven’t talked a lot about this fourth Commandment. It is a commandment after all.
“Remember the Sabbath day, and keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work – you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns. For us it is possible that it has become another one of those “S” words. Like Sin and Salvation, we have struggled to find a way to
name it ,
understand its importance
and apply the meaning of Sabbath in our day-to-day lives.
And yet, echoing in our spiritual memories, we might be vaguely aware that there is something deeply important about understanding why remembering the Sabbath is so important as to have been listed in the commandments, just behind, the first three commandments that have to do with our relationship with God.
And just before all the rest that have to do with our relationships to each other.
By way of reminder here is a brief summary of the commandments. The first three after God’s self assertion, “I am the Lord your God, are:
you shall have no other God’s before me
You shall not make for yourselves any graven images
And you shall not take the name of the Lord in vain
Then “remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy,” with an explanation
and then the rest of the commandments:
Honour your father and mother,
You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not bear false witness, and you shall not covet.
In my reading this week one author asks,
Remember, [the Sabbath] as if we would forget. Indeed, the assumption is that we will forget. And history has proven that, given enough time, we will.
“Remember the Sabbath” is not simply a life-style suggestion. It is an ethical precept alongside others such as prohibitions against killing, stealing, and lying. How can forgetting the Sabbath possibly be morally and socially dangerous? How can forgetting to be restful, sing songs, and take delight in creation be as reprehensible as murder, robbery, and deceit?
It was not Israel that kept the Sabbath, it is said, but the Sabbath kept Israel.
Perennially, naming, understanding and applying this commandment have been a struggle.
But before I address the struggle, I want to look more closely at what the commandment actually says and the motivation named for its invocation.
In the Old Testament, the 10 commandments can be found in two places, Exodus 20, that we read today and Deuteronomy 5. In the first one, the Exodus passage, the Israelites are commanded to remember the Sabbath, because God completed God’s creative work in six days, stopped working and rested on the seventh day and then sanctified that day to make it Holy. The commandment recognizes that work is part of life and acknowledges that on six days people will do work, but the seventh is a Sabbath of God – the Israelites and everyone in their households, and their communities, the strangers in their midst, and even their animals will cease and desist from work. Shabbat means: cease, stop, desist. In this way, they were asked to recognize a creative balance between work and rest.
In the Deuteronomy passage, the wording has changed slightly as has the motivation given. Instead of “Remember the Sabbath”, the Israelites are asked to “observe the Sabbath” and to do so in remembrance of God’s liberating power in the Exodus event. “Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt and your God, YHWH, freed you from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm; therefore your God, YHWH has commanded you to observe the Sabbath day.
So together, the motivational clauses of Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5 bind Israel, through its Sabbath observance, to its God experienced as Creator (according to Exodus) and Liberator (according to Deuteronomy).
There is ample evidence throughout the Old Testament that consistent observation of this commandment was challenging. Jeremiah confronts the people with the option of Sabbath observance or nonobservance, the latter leading to the destruction of the city. (Jer. 17:19-27). In our society I don’t know if we think very often about the potential consequences of the lack Sabbath observance. Is there something destructive for our city in the way our society lives? How often do we think about it?
After the return from Babylonian exile Nehemiah attempted to enforce Sabbath observance by closing the city gates to merchants and consumers on the Sabbath day. In our society that would be like disallowing retail truck traffic into the city on Sunday.
The prophet Amos condemns the commercial spirit that cannot wait for the Sabbath to be over in order to do business. (Amos 8:4-6). In our society, technology and global village thinking means that commercial business can now operate 24/7 – relentlessly anytime any day and this is commonly thought to increase productivity and allow greater freedom in the flow of g
oods and materials around the world. We are loath to have any of our “freedoms” impinged upon. Restrictions are quickly seen as unnecessary legalism.
In the New Testament gospels, the question about legalistic observance of the Sabbath was one of the main controversies between Jesus and the Pharisees. In the gospel stories, the strict legalism of the Pharisees is used as a negative counter-point to the sovereign freedom Jesus uses when he insists on healing on the Sabbath. In the Gospel of Mark we hear Jesus say, The Sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the Sabbath, (Mk. 2:27)and to ask, “Is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the Sabbath, to save life or to kill?” (Mk 3:4)
The Pharisees look really bad in these controversies and recent Jewish Christian dialogue has helped us to see that these unhelpful stereotypes of Pharisees have had drastically negative repercussions for Jews for centuries. I have learned that Sabbath observance for Rabbinic Judaism after the time of Christ and in current practice for many is not so much a time of legalistic restriction, but a time of real joy and delight. Jews today greet Friday evening at sundown, the beginning of Sabbath, with the same joy and delight that one greets a bride at a wedding. When I was in Israel and participated in a Sabbath evening celebration, I was privileged to sing along with my Jewish brothers and sisters, the song, L’cha dodi likrat kalah…”Come, my beloved, to greet the bride, the presence of the Sabbath let us welcome.” As with any celebration, the room was full of joyful energy as we anticipated our time of worship together. You may be aware of the sentiment, TGIF, which means “Thank God it’s Friday.” Now add to that sentiment love and devotion to God of the Sabbath and you’d be close to knowing how that service felt.
In summary, Jesus’ critique of restrictive legalistic requirements around Sabbath keeping could have applied to anyone, Christian or Jewish, who sought to deny the joyful time of rest that Sabbath promotes.
Historically, the official shift for Christians from the Jewish Sabbath to Sunday as the official day of worship occurred in 321 CE when Christianity became the official Church of Rome. However, I was surprised to discover that at first, “The Lord’s day”, as it was called, did not carry with it the injunction to rest. It was only much later in medieval Catholicism and American Puritanism that Sabbath rest became a major part of Sunday observance – only with this difference – the restrictive aspects of the observance were not balanced by the innate joy of the Jewish Sabbath or Shabbat.
Some of you here may have some memories of pleasureless Sundays because of restrictions around what one could or could not do on the Lord’s Day. I’m not sure if that was because of Puritan influence on Anabaptists or because of our own Mennonite tendencies towards legalism at certain times in our history.
Regardless of where we’ve come from in our view and experience of Sabbath rest and practices, our challenge remains to name, understand and apply if we can what it means for us today.
If we take Jesus as our guide, we hear him saying in the Sermon on the Mount that he did not come to abolish the law and the prophets, but he came to fulfill them. He goes so far as to say that if your righteousness does not exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees (read here: any religious leader from any faith who believes that strict adherence to laws brings liberation) then you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. Jesus wants those who choose to follow him to think and go and do and live beyond what even the law requires. His whole list of “you have heard that it was said …. But I say to you…. invites us to deepen and broaden our understanding of the commandments rather than loosen their requirements of us. So, why and how does this apply to the Sabbath?
As it’s placement in God’s list of commandments suggests it may in fact be morally and socially and just plain spiritually dangerous to ignore the Sabbath. It’s like holding our breath. Taken to the extreme, that’s actually a life-threatening thing to do.
What are we being invited to consider here?
It seems clear. What would it look like if everyone who possibly could – human and beast – humanity and creation – stopped working once a week.
Stop, cease, and desist,
and rest – not just occasionally but for one day every week. Six days you shall work and the seventh day shall be a Sabbath of your God.
Because I’m such an integral part of our work and productivity oriented culture, I’m tempted to ask the question, “What would “stopping” accomplish? Even stopping needs to accomplish something doesn’t it?
I humbly suggest that Sabbath rest – the cessation of work does accomplish re-orientation. It re-orients our sense of self and our sense of God.
One day a week we can be reminded that the most important service we can render to God as an act of worship, or a spiritual discipline if you like, is to do nothing, to desist from managing the world for one day and to leave the world to God’s governance in faith.
To stop is an act of faith in God. To stop is to acknowledge our own limitations and to remember that God is the creator, liberator and healer. Six days of the week we are invited to labour alongside God. The seventh day helps us to remember the ultimate goal and purpose of our labour – co-creation, co-liberation and co-healing of the world alongside God in a world that God governs and not us.
There are ways many of you already observe the Sabbath. There are ways that you already know or have discovered
how to stop and breathe,
how to let God be God,
how to be still and know that God is.
I am sure there are times in your lives when your inhale and your exhale is in rhythmic balance,
your airways are clear,
and you experience Gratitude.
That is my hope.
What are some of those times?
I think of our gathering here as a people of God every Sunday for joyful and celebrative worship. This is a Sabbath act.
When we find ways to gather over lunch together, or attend concerts together,
or walk along the beach or stroll through the park, or go cycling with family and friends;
any event corporately or individually on this day that helps us to stop, re-orient and draw near to God. This last part is important. An important aspect of the Sabbath is to avail ourselves of the opportunity to draw near to God – the one who sanctifies a day,
a rhythm of work and rest and who desires that we be Holy as God is Holy.
What are the Sabbath activities that allow you to breathe, orient or re-orient you to the real purpose and goal of your six days of work and allow you to acknowledge the reality of God in your life with gratitude?
How do you already remember the Sabbath? Or how would you like to remember the Sabbath if you could? In a moment we will pause for silent reflection while you consider the answers to these questions.
There is a lot of wisdom in this room that we would find some value in sharing with each other. Let us pause for some silent reflection and then let’s share some of our Sabbath oriented gratitude with each other after which I will
close with a prayer of gratitude.
Holy God,
Every morning you provide us with a glimpse of your steadfast love and faithfulness
When the sun yet again rises above the horizon
painting the sky with Your delight.
And one day each week you call us to a place of rest from our labours
to a place and time marked by nearness to Your Holiness.
May our remembering of the Sabbath
Be for us a reorientation to your governance.
May it be a time where we know that you are God and we are not.
And may this realization allow us to breathe.
For this we are grateful and may our praise and prayers of Gratitude be heard and received by You
Creator, Liberator and Healer.
Amen.
i Wayne Muller in Sabbath: Restoring the Sacred Rhythm of Rest. p. 6-7,9.