Sabbath

 

“Honor the Sabbath Day” is the shortened version of the Fourth Commandment. It is reinforced by the first creation story of God creating for six days and resting on the seventh. In Leviticus, this was taken very seriously that if you saw your neighbor working in the field on the Sabbath, you were obliged to kill him.

Thankfully, Jesus came to share a different vision of what the Sabbath means. He tells his detractors that Sabbath was made for humans, not humans for the Sabbath. Meaning, to me, that it is an opportunity for us to relax and chill out, rather than one more thing we have to do and worry about.

There is the story of the Oregon Trail that some in the caravan wanted to rest on the Sabbath and some were insistent that they must keep going to get there sooner.

The result was that those who took one day off a week got there about a month earlier than those who traveled every day because they were rested and could walk longer each day, had less injuries and accidents, and showed up ready to work rather than worn down to the nub.

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Hershel who wrote a wonderful book on “The Sabbath” writes:

Just as heaven and earth were created in six days, menuha was created on the Sabbath. Menuha, which we usually render with “rest,” means here much more than “rest,” means here much more than withdrawal from labor and exertion, more than freedom from toil, strain, or activity of any kind. Menuha is not a negative concept but something real and intrinsically positive.

When I was in Walker, Minnesota, one of my church members ran a resort. They didn’t have Wi-Fi or TV in their cabins or lodge and the first couple days of week-long stays found the children (and adults) grumbling. But often, the resort owners would get a note in the winter telling them that their family decided to have one night a week where they shut down their electronics (TV, computers, game consoles) and just played board games. This is menuha.

Sabbath is also here to remind us that our identity and worth are not tied, presently or eternally, to our productivity, what we own, or what we have done or can do. We are created in God’s image, loved with God’s whole heart, and brothers and sisters in Christ. Jesus tells us not to be anxious about what we will wear and what we will eat because God is watching over us.

Sabbath is also a taste of heaven. This is why, in the commandments, the whole community is supposed to “take 5.” So, we have time to hang out together, to rest and play together, and to worship together.

In our society and time in the history of 24/7, even here in Cook County, if you have good enough internet, we can wear ourselves out, forget who we are and what is important, and see creation and others as tools and resources to be used rather than gifts to be cherished. Let us practice the Sabbath with our families, our church communities (or whatever our community is), and in our County, so we can stop, rest, play, and have that fuller, abundant life that is promised and attainable here on earth as it is in heaven.

Each month a member of the Cook County Ministerium will offer Spiritual Reflections. This month’s contributor is Pastor Enno K. Limvere, Designated Pastor of First Congregational Church of Grand Marais, United Church of Christ.