Rules for Kingdom Living, Part 3
Rules for Kingdom Living, Part 3
October 27, 2019
A study was conducted in which a group of children were put in a large, open field to see what they would do and how they would play. Surprisingly, the children, for the most part, stayed near the center of the field and didn’t venture very far from each other. The test was then re-run with a second set of children, but this time they were placed in a similarly sized field that had a fence around it, but rather than huddling together the children spread out and played in the entire area. Whereas most of the time we tend to think of a fence as being a boundary that keeps us in and restrains us from going and doing what we really want to do, this study showed just the opposite; it was the fence that gave these children a sense of freedom and security.
In much the same way the 10 Commandments, these ancient rules for Kingdom living given by God to Moses on Mt. Sinai three and a half millennia ago, established the boundaries and parameters for life within the covenant community. Though largely cast in the negative, “Thou shalt not”, like a fence these laws set the boundaries which allowed Israel to identify her relationship with God and with her neighbors. And as we have seen in our study together, though given to a particular people in a particular time and place these commandments continue to establish the same kind of boundaries which are applicable and beneficial for life in every time and place, including our own, today.
The fourth commandment which we look at this morning is one of only two which is stated in the positive rather than the negative formulation: “Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy.” Sounds simple enough, but how are we to interpret and apply that? Like a fence around a field or the sidelines on a football field it may give us clear guidance as to when we have “crossed the line and stepped out of bounds”, but it doesn’t give us much guidance as to what we can or need to do “between the lines”. When I was a child I remember not being able to go to the movies on Sunday afternoon even though we had gone to church earlier that morning, and I imagine you might have similar or even more stringent stories to tell. Is that the appropriate application of this teaching, or fast forward to today in which, to the casual observer, the Sabbath day looks no different than the other six days of the week? So how is this 4th commandment to be “lived out” today?
If we look at the rationale given for this commandment we get two slightly different interpretations. In our lesson from Exodus we are instructed to keep the Sabbath holy because God set it apart at the end of the six days of creation. We read, “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, your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your town. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea and all that is in them, but rested on the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and consecrated it.” According to this teaching from Exodus we are to rest on the seventh day because God rested on the seventh day and we want to be like God. So the Sabbath is a day for worship, for prayer, for the recognition and appreciation of God’s work of creation and of salvation.
The same teaching in the book of Deuteronomy, the retelling of the Law, however offers a slightly different rationale for the keeping of the Sabbath. The same instruction is given that no work is to be done on the seventh day but the reason given is this: “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.” (Deut 5:15)
Do you hear the distinction or expansion of the commandment? In Exodus the rationale for the Sabbath is to remind us to be like God; in Deuteronomy it is to remind us that we are people, persons, not slaves, not machines, not beasts of burden. While this commandment has always carried with it religious overtones in reality it originated as a declaration of worker’s rights. It is a statement of economic justice, an expression of God’s justice and care for the poor, so not only should owners and managers get a day off, but all workers, resident and alien, and even the livestock deserve a day of rest. Can you see how freeing and beneficial this commandment is for all people? Live within these boundaries and life is better for everyone, owners and workers. Just as our ancestors were set free from bondage to Pharaoh so we should not submit to the Pharaoh’s of today, even those of our own making. God has designed that six days we work and on the seventh day we worship and rest in that great open field this commandment creates for us.
How then did what started off to be a day of worship and rest become a day of holy restriction and inactivity? Unfortunately the Scribes and Pharisees of Jewish antiquity were not satisfied with the open-endedness of this commandment, so they began setting out rules and regulations to define what the law meant by keeping this day “holy”. For instance, since the Sabbath was to be a day of rest and no work was to be done, then work had to be defined. For example, the question is asked, is it lawful for a father to lift his child on the Sabbath? The answer is “yes”, unless the child has a stone in his pocket, and then it would be work, for the stone is considered a burden, even if the child is not. Furthermore, the scribes determined that an individual was forbidden to tie a knot, light a lamp, build a fire, write more than two letters of the alphabet, and so on. As William Barclay points out, “Inevitably the whole character of the Sabbath changed”. What started off to be a day intended for worship and rest and recreation became a day of prohibition and restriction in the name of religious obedience.
Interestingly enough, in our New Testament lesson, Jesus blatantly violates and disregards the Scribal law by allowing His disciples to pluck and eat grains of wheat as they walked through the fields on the Sabbath day. It is curious that Jesus got into more trouble by breaking Sabbath laws than He did anything else. Here He challenges the authority of the religious leaders by calling them to respond to a higher authority than their strict interpretation of the Law by saying, “The Son of Man is the Lord of the Sabbath” and then quotes the prophet Hosea saying “The Lord desires mercy and not sacrifice.” Then to further show His contempt for their nit-picky interpretation of the Law He healed a man in the synagogue who had a withered hand. His message was simple and direct: loving compassion for the needs of individuals and heartfelt worship of God are a higher calling than any rules and regulations we might put in to place as to what can and cannot be done on the Sabbath day.
So what meaning does the 4th commandment have for us today? Does this mean we can do whatever we want? I don’t believe so. Certainly any freedom can be taken to an extreme; as we’ve seen with the other commandments there is a boundary line we must be careful not to cross to our own peril. So, keeping in mind that this commandment, as are each of them, has been given for our benefit, we would do well to apply Luther’s instruction to “love God and do as you please”, meaning those who love God will want to do as God pleases.
Without question, this day should be a day “set apart” from all others. This one should look different than the other six. It should be a day not just to sleep in late and leisurely read the paper but to pay attention to the Divine design God has for us: a day to find a different rhythm than our normal routine; a day for un-doing rather than doing; for re-storing rather than storing; for re-creation rather than creation. The Sabbath is intended to be a day in which we nurture our spiritual lives in our worship of God and care for our physical need for rest or, in as much that so many of us have such sedentary lifestyles, perhaps it should better be used as a day of physical activity. In as much that it is intended to be a day when we cease from our labors perhaps we should also be mindful to use as a day to allow others to cease from their labors as well. So while it may be permissible to go to the mall or the grocery store or out to lunch, we might consider not doing those things on the Sabbath day in order to allow others to not have to do our work for us. Admittedly, some will argue the economic impact that would have on those businesses and workers and I won’t argue that. I am not trying to play the part of the Scribes by attempting to impose rules or regulations on others, but I would propose that if you or your workers have to work on the Sabbath, then another day of the week should be “set apart” to allow time to attend to both spiritual and physical needs. The Lord is the Lord of all of time, not just the Sabbath day.
Perhaps we might rethink our use of the Sabbath “not in terms of things not to be done but instead in terms of things that it would be good and appropriate for us to do; not so much in terms of a refusal to do certain types of work so much as a determination to do certain other types of work – acts of healing, of mercy, of creativity, of justice, of beauty, of love.” (N.T.Wright)
I keep a file for sermon illustrations so this week I was looking for Sabbath stories and I ran across this one from Redbook magazine, September 1999. I have no idea where I got this article. I don’t read Redbook. I don’t know if Redbook is even being published anymore. Maybe I tore it out of a magazine while visiting my mom or while sitting in a waiting room. Anyway, the article is titled “The Secret of Stressless Sundays” written by Katrina Kenison. She begins the article by explaining the busy-ness of her life: professional woman, married, mother of two elementary age children. Change the names and fill in the blanks and her life sound like many. She writes, “For most of us, Sundays have become much like every other day of the week- a scramble to get some work done, the errands run, the groceries bought, the homework finished by Monday morning. The only thing special about Sunday in our household was that we would buy doughnuts for breakfast and drop a ten-pound newspaper (which no one ever had the chance to finish) onto the kitchen table. My head told me it made sense to be productive all weekend and have an easier week as a result; but it never seemed to work that way. There’s always more to do than time to do it in, no matter how I spent my Sunday. What’s more, my soul was begging for a break.” (Did you hear that, her “soul” was begging for a break?)
Then almost as if she had listened to the gracious guidance of the 4th commandment she writes, “We needed time carved out of our hectic lives that is protected and honored, not just scheduled. (Sounds like Sabbath to me!) Over the last year our family has made Sundays special. It is the one day when we are simply not busy, the day when to-do lists are set aside. On a practical level, this means no TV (if there is entertainment in our house it is of our own making); no errands (we do them on Saturday or let them wait); no shopping (whatever it is, we don’t really need it); and a focus on the family (this is what our two kids really want anyway).
“It wasn’t easy at first just to do this much – or rather, this little. And we’re still figuring out exactly where to draw the lines. I will deadhead the roses but I won’t pay the bills. I might bake bread, if the spirit moves me, but I don’t feel obligated to cook dinner. We don’t arrange playdates for the kids or social engagements for ourselves; instead we let the day find its own rhythm.
She concludes, “Somewhat to my surprise, Sunday has become everyone’s favorite day. We linger over breakfast pancakes, listening to the Brandenburg Concertos. We divvy up the newspaper and pass it around. We go to church, after years of thinking we didn’t have time for church. We putter in the yard or take a walk in the woods. We laugh and get silly. We play, and by Sunday night – having experienced the pure joy of doing nothing- I feel recharged, ready to take up residence again in my own busy life.”
I share this with you not as a recipe for Sabbath practice. To make their routine into a set of rules and regulations would defeat the purpose, wouldn’t it? But what she is describing has the feel of Sabbath rest, doesn’t it? Perhaps a good place to begin practicing Sabbath would be to ask ourselves, not what shouldn’t I be doing but rather what could I be doing to better allow me to live in to this day as the Lord intended; a day intended to be enjoyed within the freedom of the great boundary established by “Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy.” Amen.