Reflections
BREAKING AWAY: WORK AND SABBATH
By Harry Heintz
Texts: Jeremiah
Work: we love it and we hate it. Just thinking about work can be work. Figuring out what to do when we’re not at work can also be work. Ask us what we do and we’ll likely name our job. Ask us who we are and soon we’ll tell where we work or where we once worked. Someone wrote up this job history:
My first job was in an orange juice factory, but I got canned . . . couldn’t concentrate.
I next tried to be a tailor, but wasn’t suited to it; it was a so-so job.
I studied for a long time to be a doctor, but I just didn’t have any patience.
Working at Starbucks was the same old grind.
I finally tried being a historian, but there was no future in it.
Then I retired and found out I was perfect for the job.
The common view of work today—that it is to be avoided at all costs—is a total misunderstanding of God’s design for healthy living. Work is good. God is the first worker and calls us to follow in his work. From the opening chapters of the Bible to the closing ones, God gives us work to do and is pleased when we do it well. It is godly to work, but not all the time. God designs a rhythm that confirms who we are, enriches our work, and results in healthy living. It centers around “sabbath.” “Thus says the LORD: For the sake of your lives, take care that you do not bear a burden on the sabbath day or bring it in by the gates of
Keeping sabbath frees us to do good work six days every week. The Hebrew word, shabat, means, ‘quit; stop; take a break.’ Sabbath keeping isn’t about whether we can watch TV or play a game or drive a car or eat at a restaurant. Sabbath is about breaking away from our work for one full day in every seven. It is not primarily about going to worship, though that is an important part of it for many. When the religious leaders got uptight with Jesus for not keeping sabbath in the legalistic ways they did, he put it in perspective: “The sabbath was made to serve us; we weren’t made to serve the sabbath. The Son of Man is no lackey to the sabbath. He’s in charge.” (Mark
When Jesus was presented with an opportunity to serve a man in need on the sabbath, what did he do? Just what we expected him to do—he served the man. “Then Jesus said to them, ‘I ask you, is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the sabbath, to save life or to destroy it?’ After looking around at all of them, he said to him, ‘Stretch out your hand.’ He did so, and his hand was restored. But they were filled with fury and discussed with one another what they might do to Jesus.” The religious folk didn’t get out. I expect a lot of Christians don’t get it either.
Keeping sabbath is a command, not a suggestion. God thought so highly of this that it made the all-time top ten, the big list of commandments. Recently I heard a preacher say this: “The key commandment is the first one—‘You shall have no other gods before me’—the rest are commentary, helping us to keep the first commandment.” Actually I heard the sermon here last weekend and I was the preacher. I believe what I said. Keeping sabbath, regularly and wholeheartedly, helps us not to worship two of the big gods that many of our neighbors worship devoutly. The first is the worship of work; the second is the worship of play. Do you tend to worship your work or to worship your time away from work? Work can be a god and it’s always a false god. Play can be a god and it’s always a false god. Not honoring sabbath is just as sinful as committing adultery, misusing God’s name, lying, or stealing.
Listen to the Fourth Commandment: “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 servant, your livestock, or the aliens residing in your towns. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that it is in them, but rested on the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and consecrated it.” The essential meaning of “holy” is “different.” God blesses all days, but gives a different tone to one day in seven. The sabbath is like tithing. It’s not about giving God the first tenth of our income and then doing whatever we want with the rest. Giving the first 10% to the Lord hallows the remaining 90%, which is used for the Lord in other ways. Honoring God with our financial resources is essential for healthy living. Tithing sets the tone. Keeping sabbath blesses the other six days. God is Lord of our daily work. Honoring God with work and play is essential for healthy living. Sabbath sets the tone.
Among all God’s complaints against the people of
Here are some questions to help us know if we hate our daily work:
-
Do we dread going to our work every workday?
-
Do we look for any excuse not to go to work?
-
Do we fail to see any good coming from our work?
It does not honor God to hate our work. If we are in a job that is really tough, we have several options. We may bring a new perspective to our work. We might look to shift to another aspect of the work where we are. In some cases it many mean seeking another job, but first let’s see if there is a redemptive place for us where we are.
Here are some questions to help us know if we love our daily work too much:
-
Do we know what do with ourselves when an unexpected day off comes?
-
Do we commonly find ourselves doing at least some of our job seven days a week?
-
Do we draw all of our meaning as persons from our performance at work?
It does not honor God to worship our daily work. Are we looking for our jobs to do what is only God’s to do: to establish our identity and meaning? No job can do that. God created us and only God can give us our right identity and meaning.
Our world is flawed, fallen from what God originally intended. Nothing is exactly the way it should be and that includes our work. If someone told me that she had the perfect job where everything about it was wonderful, that there was never even a moment in which she didn’t like her work, I wouldn’t believe her. If someone told me that his job was absolutely meaningless, that there was no opportunity there for him to honor God and do productive work, I wouldn’t believe him. No job on earth is perfect. Every job on earth, save those that directly support sin, do violence to persons, and defy God’s ways, gives us opportunity to do good and honor God.
Sabbath reminds us that God is God and we are not. Our worth in not in what we can do but in who we are. A speaker started off a seminar by holding up a crisp $20 bill and asking, “Who would like this $20 bill?” Hands went up all over. He then crumpled up the dollar bill and asked, “Who still wants it?” Hands still went up in the air. Then he dropped it on the ground and started to grind it into the floor with his shoe. He picked it up, now crumpled and dirty. “Now who wants it?” Still the hands went into the air. “My friends, we have all learned a very valuable lesson. No matter what I did to the money, you still wanted it because it did not decrease in value. It was still worth $20. Many times in our lives, we are dropped, crumpled, and ground into the dirt by the circumstances that come our way. We feel worthless. But no matter what has happened or what will happen, we will never lose our value: dirty or clean crumpled or finely creased, we are still priceless to those who love us.” Sabbath reminds us that God loves us for who we are. Sabbath is a gift of God for us.
John Seiders once told me that there are three activities most of us consider important: worship, work, and play. John said that we tend to play at our worship, worship at our work, and work at our play. The results are often tragic for all three. Instead, let’s worship at our worship, let’s work at our work, and let’s play at our play. God is honored in our worship, our work, and our play when they are rightly balanced and rightly ordered.
Martin and Gracia Burnham were held captive by the Abu Sayyaf terrorist group for 376 days. Just before a Philippine military raid on the kidnappers that led to Martin's death and Gracia's freedom, they sat together in a hammock under a makeshift tent. "Martin and Gracia had been thinking that there was a chance that they would not make it out alive," said Martin's brother, Doug, relying on a phone conversation with Gracia. "Martin said to Gracia, 'The Bible says to serve the Lord with gladness. Let's go out all the way. Let's serve God all the way with gladness.'" They prayed in their hammock, recited Scripture verses to each other, and sang. Then they laid down to rest. The rescue assault began and bullets began to fly, puncturing Gracia's leg and Martin's chest. God is God and we are not. Sabbath is God’s good gift. Break away and enjoy God today.
Harry is pastor of Brunswick Presbyterian Church in Troy, NY.
Print
Email
