Reflections
BROKEN WINDOW PANES:
CHALLENGES TO SABBATH-KEEPING
By Steve Cook
I have been on a journey. A journey of discovery concerning something that as a whole, contemporary western culture knows nearly as little as we do about the outer reaches of the universe, perhaps less. Many would consider the idea archaic and far-fetched. That which I have sought after is the Sabbath-more specifically how to keep it. Through readings, a seminary class, and discussions with family and colleagues, this has been a rewarding journey indeed.
I am struck by the rather simple question that if the Sabbath is so central to scripture and our faith traditions, why then do we not see it practiced more often? What are the challenges prohibiting us from being regular keepers of the Sabbath? The focus of this paper will grapple with this one issue related to Sabbath-keeping.
In order to coherently discuss the challenges associated with Sabbath-keeping, we must first agree on what it means to observe the Sabbath. Exactly what is it that we find so difficult to do or be? The following quotes give us a variety of windows through which we might glimpse the meaning of Sabbath.
"What is Sabbath? Spirit in the form of time." (1)
"The Sabbath is not for the sake of the weekdays; the weekdays are for the sake of Sabbath. It is not an interlude but the climax of living." (2)
"The seventh day is a palace in time which we build." (3)
"Observing Sabbath is like wearing an engagement ring." (4)
"Sabbath means quit. Stop. Take a break. Cool it. The word itself has nothing devout or holy in it. It's a word about time, denoting our non-use of it-what we usually call wasting time." (5)
" . . . Sabbath-keeping is not primarily something we do, but what we don't do." (6)
"The Sabbath is not a running away from problems, but the opportunity to receive grace to face them." (7)
"The seventh day is like a palace in time with a kingdom for all. It is not a date but an atmosphere." (8)
"The Sabbath rhythm . . . enables us to integrate all the scattered part of our selves into a whole." (9)
". . . the Sabbath is not an occasion for diversion or frivolity; not a day to shoot fireworks or to turn somersaults, but an opportunity to mend our tattered lives; to collect rather than to dissipate time. Labor without dignity is the cause of misery; rest without spirit the source of depravity." (10)
". . . the Sabbath is not dedicated exclusively to spiritual goals. It is a day of the soul as well as the body; comfort and pleasure are an integral part of the Sabbath observance. Man in his entirety, all his faculties must share its blessing." (11)
"The Sabbath is a reminder of the two worlds-this world and the world to come; it is an example of both worlds. For the Sabbath is joy, holiness, and rest; joy is part of this world; holiness and rest are something of the world to come." (12)
If these quotes are the window into the Sabbath world, then I believe that this window consists of many panes. Panes such as: spirit, refreshment, worship, and ceasing. At least four elements of Sabbath-keeping are present in the above quotes, the first being a renewing of the spirit; a spiritual revival on a weekly, personal basis. Refreshment of the physical and emotional person is a second component. Third, worship is crucial as an acknowledgment and reminder that what really matters in this world is what really matters in the next-our relationship with a loving heavenly Father. The manner in which we occupy our time and go about our business all the rest of the week should be a reflection of this truth. Tied in closely to this is the fourth element, the idea of ceasing, breaking the routine of our everyday lives, focusing on the now-rather than the next task at hand. Ceasing also helps to bring perspective to our lives. Interestingly and obviously, though each of these "panes" is unique, they share many common elements. The Sabbath is only complete when these and other dimensions are present.
Though contemporary society certainly does not reflect this, Sabbath-keeping is central to Judeo-Christian theology. We find at the very beginning of scripture God resting on the seventh day after creating the universe. In Exodus, God commands that His people remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy. The Sabbath is tied to "the experience of a people newly released from bondage" (13) in Deuteronomy.
"The Deuteronomy reason for Sabbath-keeping is that our ancestors in Egypt went 400 years without a vacation (see Deut. 5:15)-never a day off. The consequence: They were no longer considered persons but slaves, hands, work units-not persons created in the image of God but equipment for making bricks and building pyramids. Humanity was defaced." (14)
"The two biblical reasons for Sabbath-keeping develop into parallel Sabbath activities of praying and playing. The Exodus reason directs us to the contemplation of God, which becomes prayer and worship. The Deuteronomy reason directs us to social leisure, which becomes play. Prayer and playing are deeply congruent with each other and have extensive inner connection." (15)
Now we return to the central question of this paper: If the Sabbath is so central to scripture and our faith traditions, why then do we not see it practiced more often? The answer to this question is very complex, but there appear to be six key challenges to Sabbath-keeping.
The Productivity Problem
Productivity and drivenness are key attributes of our culture, both secular and Christian. "How will the work get gone if I take 'time off' to pursue the Sabbath? I'll stop working when my work is completed. I don't have time to keep the Sabbath!" are all issues that prevent us from beginning the journey of Sabbath-keeping. The pressures of our everyday lives overwhelm and threaten to overcome us. We frequently feel like we must run at 110% just to keep up with the demands upon our time. Could it be that some of the demands are self-imposed and not as necessary as we once assumed? Our affluence provides us with many wonderful opportunities, but perhaps not all good things are good things for us. How often do we rest long enough to know what our priorities should be, rather than be driven by the tyranny of the urgent?
"How often people today cry out in exasperation or despair, 'I just don't have enough time!' There is so much to do: earn a living, fulfill a vocation, nurture relationships, care for dependents, get some exercise, clean the house. Moreover, we hope to maintain sanity while doing all this, and to keep growing as faithful and loving people at the same time." (16)
"Six days shalt thou labor and do all thy work (Ex. 20:8). Is it possible for a human being to do all his work in six days? Does not our work always remain incomplete? What the verse means to convey is: Rest on the Sabbath as if all your work were done. Another interpretation: Rest even from the thought of labor." (17)
"We need Sabbath, even though we doubt that we have time for it." (18)
"A major blessing of the Sabbath keeping is that it forces us to rely on God for our future." (19)
"In (this section) we recognized that if we ceased work on the Sabbath day we could also give up the whole attitude of productivity, the worries associated with that pressure, our striving to be in control of our lives, our scrambling for possessions, and our entrapment of our culture and the resultant meaninglessness and boredom." (20)
Service as Sabbath Problem
It is hard to believe that the very places that should encourage and facilitate Sabbath-keeping sometimes do just the opposite. In many churches, service is emphasized at the expense of true Sabbath rest. Parishioners are encouraged to actively minister and not take "time off"on Sundays. This is a real dilemma, for many people depend upon the programs and services offered on a Sunday morning. But every program, though helping to provide Sabbath for some, adds to the busyness for others. As interim Director of Children's ministries at my church, I was told by a potential recruit that she had decided not to teach a Sunday School class because she wanted to keep the Sabbath. Her children attended Sunday School every week and I have no doubt that this was the right decision for her, but it offers an interesting conflict. Part of the answer is that the concept of Sabbath is not equivalent to Sunday, the day of the week. Sabbath can be anytime during the week, and for some people, teaching/service is refreshing.
"Churches must be careful . . . not to devour Sabbath freedom with 'religious' or charitable obligations." (21)
"We are a busy church. We are an active church. In many place we are a full church-nonetheless, we seem to be a church without power." (22)
Distorted Assumptions
Wrong assumptions or models are yet another deterrent to true Sabbath-keeping. Respect for the Sabbath has been given a bad reputation by some Christians. It is the one commandment that seems most maligned by the shadow of legalism. We seldom hear a sermon on the Sabbath or the keeping of it, and contemporary believers "conveniently" neglect it.
"This Christian generation is guilty of a type of neglect which results in spiritual impoverishment. We are not teaching our children how to keep the Sabbath holy. Many of us have abandoned an old restrictive legalism, but we have not replaced it with a joyful holy celebration. If Sunday is not a day that is so special that we and our children look forward to it with delight, then we are neglectful parents." (23)
The Old Testament verses New Testament Apparent Problem
Another of the challenges of Sabbath-keeping is a distorted view of the scriptures. We know that Sabbath-keeping is an Old Testament law concept and that the New Testament emphasizes freedom. Therefore, this argument goes, we who are under the new covenant no longer have to adhere to the Sabbath concept.
Clearly, Jesus' teaching and that of the Apostles is clear that the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. It was never intended to be a legalistic set of rules and regulations. Perhaps the answer here is that we are not bound by the specific practices of Sabbath-keeping described in the Old Testament, but in obedience to God and in order to do what is best for us, we had better adhere to the principles of Sabbath-keeping found in the Old Testament. Some of those principles as stated earlier include: worship, refreshment (spiritual, physical, and emotional), and ceasing.
Other Cultural Challenges
Another significant challenge to Sabbath-keeping is how to make Sunday special, restful, and restorative when the day is no longer protected by legislation and custom. More and more businesses are staying open on Sunday, thus eroding the historical place of the Sabbath in culture.
Additionally, our culture places an emphasis on things (space), over people (time) and thus the Sabbath is undercut. We emphasize getting, receiving, and acquiring over giving, sharing, and serving.
"This, then, is the answer to the problem of civilization: not to flee from the realm of space; to work with things of space but to be in love with eternity. Things are our tools; eternity, the Sabbath, is our mate. Israel is engaged to eternity. Even if they dedicate six days of the week to worldly pursuits, their soul is claimed by the seventh day." (24)
" . . . Jesus honored the Sabbath. He spent it worshiping and teaching. However, because he truly embraced time instead of space, he cherished persons more than rules." (25)
Edwards summed up this tension of Sabbath-keeping when he wrote that the following corrosive factors contributed to the erosion of the Sabbath: American pluralism, forms of individualism, changing views of time, and the devaluation of the contemplative. (26)
"Perhaps the Christian community could repel this invasion with a weekly counteroffensive-the Sabbath practice of giving rather than accumulating, of caring for the needs of others instead of requiring for oneself, of putting aside one's personal pleasure in order to create pleasure for many. Especially for the sake of our children, we want to model the importance of embracing a lifestyle of giving; for our own sake, we adults need the freedom that inevitably results from choosing to be stewards rather than possessors." (27)
"To keep the sabbath means that we embrace a wholly different set of values from those of the world around us. In the first place, we embrace intentionality: we choose carefully how and why we do what we do. We live deliberately in order to embrace a quality of life that is possible only in relationship with the Lord of the Sabbath." (28)
Our Sin Problem
A central manifestation of the effects of sin is that we want to be in control of our lives. It is difficult to stop doing that which we feel proves our worth or that won't get done properly if we don't do it, or leaves us with a sense of incompleteness if left undone. Busyness in our culture proves value and prosperity. "Succeeding" by worldly standards (and such success almost always demands busyness) demonstrates that we have it together and are in control. Sabbath threatens these concepts because we are no longer at the center of our universe, for Sabbath-keeping involves giving ourselves to and focusing on God and others.
"Voltaire, an apostle of the Enlightenment and no friend of the church . . . declared that, 'If you wish to destroy the Christian religion, you must first destroy the Christian Sunday.' " (29)
In conclusion, it might be said that the six primary obstacles to Sabbath-keeping are our "need" to be productive, obligations, misperceptions concerning legalism and the scriptural teaching, a culture that doesn't recognize the Sabbath, and our own sin problem. The sabbath is our glimpse into the joy of eternity, yet we neglect it. The Sabbath is the foundation upon which all the rest of our week is built, yet we neglect it. The Sabbath is our children's example of our view of God and renewal, yet we neglect it.
"As we keep or break the Sabbath day, we nobly save or meanly lose the last and best hope by which man arises." --Abraham Lincoln (30)
There are many difficulties set in our way as we seek to keep the Sabbath. Nothing worth doing, especially when it is directly related to our relationship with the Lord, comes easily in this world. It will require discipline and determination and God's help. So my journey is not one of despair but hope for these obstacles are nothing compared with the rewards of obedience: peace, hope, joy, refreshment, appropriate perspective, and healthy relationships both with my heavenly Father, family, and faith community here on earth. This journey has led to true refreshment.
Endnotes
1. Abraham Joshua Heshel, The Sabbath: Its Meaning for Modern Man, p. 75.
2. Ibid., p. 14
3. Ibid.
4. Karen Burton Mains, Making Sunday Special, p. 163.
5. Eugene H. Peterson, "The Pastor's Sabbath," Leadership, 55, Spring 1985, p. 82.
6. Ibid., p. 86.
7. Dorothy C. Bass, Practicing Our Faith, p. 83.
8. Heschel, p. 21.
9. Marva J. Dawn, Keeping the Sabbath Wholly: Ceasing, Resting, Embracing, Feasting, p. 142
10. Heschel, p. 17.
11. Ibid., p.19
12. Ibid.
13. Bass, p. 79.
14. Peterson, p. 85.
15. Ibid.
16. Bass, p. 75.
17. Peterson, p. 32.
18. Bass, p. 76.
19. Peterson, p. 29.
20. Ibid., p. 55
21. Bass, p. 87.
22. Mains, p. 92.
23. Ibid., p. 84
24. Heschel, p. 48.
25. Dawn, p. 120.
26. Tilden Edwards, Sabbath Time: Understanding and Practice for Contemporary Christians, p. 35.
27. Dawn, p. 124.
28. Ibid., p. 145.
29. Edwards, p. 16.
30. Mains, p. 123.
Bibliography
Bass, Dorothy C. Practicing Our Faith. Dorothy C. Bass, ed. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1997 (232 pp)
Bullock, A. Richard. Sabbatical Planning for Clergy & Congregations. Washington, DC: The Alban Institute, 1998 (21 pp)
Dawn, Marva J. Keeping the Sabbath Wholly: Ceasing, Resting, Embracing, Feasting. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1989 (217 pp)
Edwards, Tilden. Sabbath Time: Understanding and Practice for Contemporary Christians. New York: The Seabury Press, 1982 (151 pp)
Heshel, Abraham Joshua. The Sabbath: Its Meaning for Modern Man. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1951 (118 pp)
London, H. B. Jr. Refresh, Renew, Revive. Colorado Springs: Focus on the Family Publishing, 1996 (209 pp)
Mains, Karen Burton. Making Sunday Special. Waco, TX: Word Books, 1987 (191 pp)
MacDonald, Gordon. Ordering Your Private World. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1985 (195 pp)
MacDonald, Gordon. Restoring Your Spiritual Passion. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1986 (223 pp)
Peterson, Eugene H. "The Pastor's Sabbath." Leadership (Spring, 1985), 52-58
Steve Cook serves as Executive Pastor of High Point Church located in Madison, Wisconsin. He also serves as the Web Developer for the Ministry In Daily Life Web-Site.
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