#sabbath thoughts

     To be fair to the Pharisees, trying to keep the Sabbath made me understand their need to make a list of rules.  I think the Sabbath is the hardest commandment to keep without becoming legalistic.  However, the first step in the right direction is coming to understand that rules can’t be made, because God made us all different, and rest may in fact look different for different people - and that’s ok.  There are some things that I think can be seen as work for everyone - for example, clearly no one should choose as their Sabbath a day when they go to their job.  On the other hand, rules about things like socializing would be more difficult to make.  My own family is fairly introverted, we love to socialize, but it tires us out.  Others may find nothing more restful than going out to dinner with friends.  Figuring out what rest means takes some thoughtfulness and trial and error, covering everything in prayer.  And we must remember that others may do it differently, but are also following God’s heart.  As Jesus himself said about the Sabbath, “Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment.”

    After reading through scripture and thinking through my own experience, I have come up with a few principles, framed as questions, that help my family make decisions about how we should keep the Sabbath.  I hope that these principles center on God’s heart for the Sabbath, and they can be true for everyone - even though the way they are lived out might look different for different people.  I hope you find them helpful.

1.  Is what we are doing worshipful?  Does it strengthen our relationship with God?

      As I said in an earlier post, I do think God should be the center of our Sabbath, though that does not necessarily include corporate worship.  So in some way, God should be the center of your Sabbath.  For me personally, church generally tires me out.  I’m an introvert, so as much as I love people, being in crowds is tiring.  Also, in times of leadership, what we do at church can be work.  So I prefer to take my Sabbath on a Saturday, that is more restful for me.  However, if our Saturday has to be busy, we rest on Sunday, because corporate worship is still a wonderful activity for the Sabbath.   However, I would like to add that if you are on staff at a church, I do believe you should always pick a different day to be your Sabbath.  Church is your work, and while it is work that serves God (as all work should, honestly), it is still your work, and God desires rest for you no less than for anyone else.  So pick a day during the week when you can rest.      If our Sabbath does not involve corporate worship, it’s still important to stay worshipful and related to God.  That can be done in quiet time and prayer, and in our family we also make sure one of our meal conversations centers on God.  Whatever works for you to remember God on the Sabbath fulfills this principle.

2.  Is what we are doing restful, refreshing, healing, for body and mind?

     This is where things might really look different for different people.  Jesus often healed on the Sabbath, and I feel that speaks volumes about God’s heart for our rest on the Sabbath.  It’s meant to be healing and refreshing.  After the Sabbath we are meant to be ready to face the work and challenges of the rest of the week with more strength and energy, both physically and mentally.  For some people that might mean being outside pottering around the garden.  For me it is reading, being with my family, resting, hopefully taking a nap, among other things.      It also means refraining from doing things that are draining.  Since I started this journey when my kids were little, this was a tricky thing to figure out.  After all, if you have young children, there are some draining things you have to do on the Sabbath and that can’t be helped. Your kids have to eat.  You have to watch them.  However, I began to realize that there were many things I thought “had to be done” that really didn’t.  I don’t have to cook (we either have easy leftovers, sandwiches, or eat out).  I don’t have to do laundry.  I don’t have to clean the house.  I don’t have get any items on my “to do” list done.  And that really does make my Sabbath more restful than other days of the week.      One thing I would stress, is that if there is anything that you are thinking, “I just need to do….”  or “I just really have to get this done…”  whatever it is, you shouldn’t do it, even if you think it will make you “feel better”  or that you will be able to “rest better” if you do it.  I have learned that that is not the voice of God giving us freedom to rest.  That’s the voice of our culture telling us that what is important is how much we get done, that our worth is measured by what we do.  At first it is really (I mean really) hard to turn off that voice.  We really believe that it’s going to be a problem if we don’t get these things done.  However, when I disciplined myself NOT to do those things, I really did learn how to be more efficient the rest of the week to finish whatever needed to be done.  And I also learned that when some things didn’t get done - it was ok.  It’s important to remember - IT WILL NEVER ALL BE DONE.  If we wait until all the work is done to take a break, we will never have one.  That is why God made the Sabbath.  We have to purposely stop and rest, or we never will.  The longer I refused to listen to that nagging voice, the more I was finally able to turn it off and get badly needed mental, as well as physical, rest on the Sabbath.

3.  Does it build relationship?

   I think the one reason Jesus healed on the Sabbath is that the heart of God cares for our well being and our relationships.  (”You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength,” and “Love your neighbor as yourself.”) When Jesus ran across someone who needed him, that might be the only time he ran across that person, and his relationship with them was a top priority.  So when we rest on the Sabbath, the people around us are still a priority.  While we do spend a lot of time doing our own things, I try to make sure to spend time with people I love on the Sabbath as well.  In terms of my family, we try to compromise on activities that are restful for us.  That might be just talking, or playing games, or watching a movie together.  Sometimes that might mean doing something that wouldn’t be my top choice for rest, but the relationship is important too, so we rest together as well as on our own.

4.  It might not be restful, but you can pull your ox out of the well.

     On one occasion when Jesus and the Pharisees were debating whether or not he should heal on the Sabbath, Jesus said to them “Which of you, having a son or an ox that has fallen into a well on a Sabbath day, will not immediately pull him out?”  Once again, we have to remember that caring for one another is our priority.  If there is an urgent need, even if it isn’t “restful” you meet it.  Sometimes things happen, people need you, and it isn’t “breaking” the Sabbath to help them.      Once again, the key with this is being in prayer, and understanding God’s heart, because he does desire rest for us as well.  If we let ourselves help every time we’re asked, once again, we won’t every rest.  The principle here is urgency of the need.  This is for those things that can’t be done on another day.  I do sometimes say no to helping people on our Sabbath, if it’s something that can be done on another day.  But there are times that things come up that have to be done in the moment.  When that happens, people come first.      I think this finding those boundaries is especially important for people in the ministry.  If you are in the ministry, you need a break from the needs of other people. since it is your job to meet them all the time.  On the day you designate as your Sabbath, I suggest making sure that you have another pastor, or a trusted lay leader if your church is small, on call for that day, making sure that everyone knows that all needs are to be redirected to that person.  You would only need to be contacted if there was some specific reason only you could meet that need - and that should be a very rare occurrence.

     Before I get to the practical aspect of what this means (for that is very important), I want to talk a little more about the difference between understanding the Sabbath as worship and the Sabbath as rest, because this really frees us when we come to the practical application of keeping the Sabbath holy in our culture today.  God gives reasons in the commandment as to why the Sabbath is about rest.  God infused a rhythm into creation.  It’s His own rhythm.  Six days of work, one day of rest.  God created, then he rested and enjoyed His creation.      That is why I don’t think this commandment is about demeaning work, rather it’s about the rhythm of life. God even had a place for work in the Garden of Eden - God put people there to “work it and keep it.” (Genesis 2:15)  What changed after the fall was not that we had to work, but that work was hard.  Instead of beautiful, fruitful, creative. life-giving, serving work, it became hard, back-breaking, sweaty, painful, sometimes fruitless labour.  But originally this wasn’t the way it was.  We still feel the effects of the fall in our work, but we can also experience work as it was originally intended.  Either way, work is important.  It’s a necessary part of life - and still can be a good part of life.  But rest is an important part of life too.  We need time to rest, to heal, to restore ourselves from our labors.  And we also need to time to enjoy - to feel the fruits of our labor, to enjoy this beautiful creation God has given us, as he enjoyed it, and called it good.  We need time to enjoy our relationship with God and others.  We need rest.  Throughout the Old Testament we see this rhythm for everything in creation - even the land needed time to rest (Leviticus 25:1-7).  That is the way creation, and we as a part of creation, work best with a time for work and a time for rest.  In fact if we rest, our work is more effective.      Furthermore, the commandment in Deuteronomy adds another aspect to understanding the Sabbath as rest: “You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm.  Therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day.” (Deuteronomy 5:15)  I think this has a two-fold meaning.  First there is worship in the Sabbath.  We remember God and what he has done for us.  But I also think this means that resting is part of our freedom in God.  When the Israelites were slaves there was no rest.  They were forced to work all the time.  To never have rest is to be in slavery.  When we have freedom in God, we have the freedom to rest as He did.  We have the freedom to heal from our labor.  God is always about bringing us the best he has for us, and rest - healing and restorative rest - is part of that.      So that is why I believe that when we keep the Sabbath, rest in God is our primary focus.  Obviously, worship is a part of that, and I believe that pretty early on the Israelites started making corporate worship part of the Sabbath.  Work is distracting, and when we stop working, we have the time to focus on God in a special way.  But while worship should be a part of the Sabbath, I have come to believe that corporate worship doesn’t have to be.  That’s not what God asked of us on the Sabbath.  The focus should be on rest.  The reason I think this is important is because we no longer live in a culture where everyone sets aside a day for rest.  In fact, rest is not valued.  It’s hard to rest.  We feel guilty, we feel like we should be accomplishing something all the time.  There is a voice in our heads that says “You really should be doing this or that, you’re wasting time.”  But I am convinced this is not God’s voice.  God designed us to work, and to have rest.     So what does it mean practically to keep the Sabbath holy?  What do we do when no one is resting around us?  It was easy to do for the Israelites when the whole community set aside a day for rest.  For us it’s different.  I think the most important part of Sabbath isn’t what day it is - that’s where we can get legalistic.  And if it’s not about corporate worship then it doesn’t have to be the day you go to church.  The most important thing is to pick a day and set it apart as the Sabbath for your family.  This is the first step to keeping the Sabbath.  This can absolutely be Sunday - but it doesn't have to be.  Since no one around us keeps the Sabbath there can be activities and work all the time.  I have found it’s most important to pick a day that works best for your family.  It can even change from week to week.  For our family it’s whatever day on the weekend that we have less things to do.  We set aside the other day as the Sabbath and say no to things for that day.  I prefer it to be Saturday, and that’s what we do if we can.  That’s partly because we are all introverts, and with young children getting up and getting out the door to church really isn’t very restful.  In seasons where we have leadership at church, it is even less restful.  We have to be “on” and prepared.  However, if we do it on Saturday, we still take time apart to focus on God in quiet time and in our conversations as a family, because worship is still an important part of the Sabbath.       However what day it is might look different for you or your family.  If you or your spouse works on the weekend, then your Sabbath should be a day you don’t work.  I also believe it’s best for the whole family to take their Sabbath together if it’s at all possible, but in our culture it sometimes isn’t.  If a dad or mom works on the weekends, but the kids are in school, the kids may have to have a Sabbath on the weekend, and that parent may have to have their Sabbath another day.  You have to do what works for your family.  I also firmly believe that church leaders should set aside a Sabbath day that isn’t Sunday.  Sunday is work for church leaders, and they need rest too.  The Sabbath is a gift for everyone.     The most important thing is to set it apart, whatever day that is.  Keep it holy - that is the first step to claiming this beautiful gift of God for you and your family.  This part can be tough to figure out - but you can.  It may even take some trial and error - it did for us.  I wanted to be Saturday if possible, and my husband wanted it to be Sunday.  We had to figure out why we each wanted that consider if those reasons were in line with how God wanted us to keep the Sabbath.  In the end, as I said, there was compromise.  We had to pray and talk and try things and figure it out.  It may take some time, but you can do that too.  God has a rhythm of life for you, and rest for you.  I am praying for all of you, that you can find God’s rest in your life.  It’s a beautiful gift, just waiting for you.