Day 21 - Working & Sabbath Community

Reading: Exodus 23:10-13

At the start of this week, we read and contemplated God’s desire for us to have Sabbath rest. I hope that this week has been filled with moments of Sabbath in your personal life and that you have prepared (or are preparing) a special Sabbath time for Saturday or Sunday. We have mainly focused, however, on what Sabbath means in our personal lives.

After discussing other aspects of work this week, we must notice that the effects of our work reach far beyond ourselves. Our work touches the lives of our families, our colleagues, our friends, and indeed, the whole world. And so, likewise, our Sabbath must reach beyond ourselves.

Exodus calls for a sabbatical year for land, vineyards, and orchards – not only because it is good for the soil to lie fallow but also because it offers the poor and the animals an opportunity also to be fed by the harvest. This passage also states that rest on the seventh day is not just for you but also so that “your donkey, and your homeborn slave, and the resident alien may be refreshed.”

Very few of us today have donkeys...but instead of donkeys, we use machines operated by humans for most forms of transportation and farming. Even fewer people (one would hope), have slaves, but there do remain many resident aliens in our midst, and we continue to maintain a society where some people serve at the command of those who have greater power and education. We continue to be a world of insiders and outsiders. A world where some are entitled to certain privileges and others are not. The scriptures indicate, however, that Sabbath should not be a privilege to which only some are privy.

Often when going to brunch on a Sunday, I wonder when, or if, the people working at the restaurant have their Sabbath. In our instantaneous, self-indulgent, globalized culture, we expect knowledge and resources to be at our fingertips immediately, without stopping to think that someone else’s work was required for that to be possible.

But when we, as individuals, truly slow down, we allow the world to slow down with us. When we cease with incessant productivity, we cease to require it of others, as well, which means that we are making space for the world to rest.

When studying at seminary, I was in awe of a particular minister and professor. I often bumped into him, as I was racing to a class, scrambling to finish a paper, or rushing to a rehearsal. But aside from the annual Shrove Tuesday Pancake-Flipping Race, I never saw him move above a snail’s pace. It was as though he carried a bit of Sabbath with him at all times. A bit of God’s rest – rest in the knowledge that even though he is one of the most productive, wise theological scholars of this time, God is wiser and more faithful than he is, and God would go before him in every work that he did. He was humble enough to know that God would be working, with or without him.

I was always convicted of my self-importance, my sub-par time management skills, and my frantic spirit during these encounters with him. But his pace and spirit gave me permission—not to be constantly late because I was walking so slowly but to re-evaluate calmly and carefully what work I was doing, what time I was spending, what rush was necessary, and where God’s work really was in all of my clutter.

When we practice Sabbath, we acknowledge that God has worked and will continue to work without our busy-ness getting in the way. God’s work arches over all of our work. God gives us all permission to rest, and so we can cease from pumping up each other’s self-importance and instead must permit one another to rest.

As you consider the work, the discipline, of Sabbath in your own life, how might this discipline affect the lives and work of others around you? How does it draw you more deeply into life-giving community? How does it deepen your understanding of the work God would have you to do in His world?

Putting Faith into Action:

In the spirit of the Jewish tradition of the Sabbath, or Shabbat, meal, light two candles on the Sabbath, in response to God’s command both to remember and to keep the Sabbath. In a great attitude of respect, pray the prayer:

“Blessed are you Lord, our God, sovereign of the universe – who has sanctified us with His commandments and commanded us to light the lights of Shabbat.”

Read again the passage from Genesis 2:1-3, remembering the work that God has done in your life and in the world and trusting in the work God has yet to do in your life, through your life, and for the world God so loves.

Invite someone else who is a hard-working person to share a Sabbath with you. This may be someone who works for you or with you, or someone else you have noticed in the community. Give each other permission to rest and appreciate God’s abundance.