Our mother read to us a lot as children, and all of us particularly liked Laura Ingalls Wilder’s “Little House” series, so she read it to us several times. In those books the experience of the Sabbath sound TERRIBLE. I remember being really grateful that Christianity had given up on Sabbath by my time! 😉

For those of you who haven’t read the Little House books, or had them read to you, they describe Sunday as a day of quiet rest. They would sit on hard chair all day, unable to get up and play, or to talk to each other. Now, I’m going from my memory and not quoting the books directly, but what I remember is that they could only read religious books – the really long ones that were well over their heads – perhaps do needlepoint, but Laura hated needlepoint. It was hard, HARSH, boring, and basically terrible.

I saw why it went out of style.

I fear that when people hear “Sabbath,” that they think of it like that. They think of something boring, restraining, and harsh. That is, I fear many people miss the point of Sabbath entirely! The idea of one day off from work a week is profound, and was totally unique when it emerged. Walter Brueggemann, one of my favorite Biblical scholars and theologians, wrote a short and powerful book entitled, “Sabbath as Resistance: Saying NO to the CULTURE OF NOW”. Brueggemann believes that Sabbath is one of the defining characteristics of YHWH faith, and that it is utterly imperative to a full life.

His work has framed my thinking on Sabbath. For starters, it was in reading Brueggemann commentaries that I realized that Sabbath exists for the people to be fully human! It is a time set aside for relationship and reflection – time for families to be together, time for friends to visit, time for intimacy to flourish, time for human beings to have enough time to consider what truly matters and DO IT. Working 7 days a week doesn’t give people enough time to be fully human, but the world of economics wants productively and consumption ALL THE TIME. The first commandments for Sabbath come to a people recently freed from slavery. They knew what it was to work all the time, and YHWH instructed them NOT to continue.

In the US at least, there is an underlying myth that suggests that the well-being of the economy is the ultimate good. Sabbath resists that narrative, and claims that our identities are in being human and being beloved children of God – NOT in our capacity to produce or consume. I want to give you a better idea about what Sabbath really is by giving you access to some of Brueggemann’s work. He thinks Sabbath is central to everything. In fact, in his book he supports the claims that “the fourth commandment on Sabbath is the ‘crucial bridge’ that connects the Ten Commandments together.”¹ That is,

“The fourth commandment looks back to the first three commandments and the God who rests (Exod. 20:3-7). At the same time, the Sabbath commandment looks forward to the last six commandments that concern the neighbor (vv. 12-17; they provide for rest along side the neighbor. God, self, and all members of the household share in common rest on the seventh day; that social reality provides a commonality and a coherence not only to the community of covenant but to the commandments of Sinai as well.”²

In addition to seeing the Sabbath commandment as the central one, Brueggemann asserts that Sabbath teaches us about the essential qualities of God. Namely, that our God is not interesting in systems of oppression that dehumanize people. God rests, and that matters. He says, “the Sabbath commandment is drawn into the exodus narrative, for the God who rests is the God who emancipates from slavery and consequently from the work system of Egypt and the gods of Egypt who require and legitimate that system.”³

The idea of STOPPING WORK once a week was radical. It still is. When I have brought the idea up to youth in our society they have looked at me like I have two heads. It seems impossible to them. I’m with Brueggemann though. I think it is imperative if we are to be full humans. He says, “the Sabbath of the fourth commandment is an act of trust in the subversive, exodus-causing God of the first commandment, and act of submission to the restful God of commandments one, two, and three. Sabbath is a practical divestment so neighborly engagement, rather than production and consumption, defines our lives.”⁴ Remember, Sabbath was designed to be time for relationships!

It has always been hard. Brueggemann again, “Such faithful practice of work stoppage is an act of resistance.  It declares in bodily ways that we will not participate in the anxiety system that pervades our social environment. We will not be defined by busyness and by the pursuit of more, in either our economics or our personal relations or anywhere else in our lives. Because our life does not consist in commodity.”⁵ I love how he contrasts the systems of the world as anxious and anxiety producing with the fullness of humanity gained from life with a God who rests! It is an important reminder that anxiety need not be the only way!! (Which is getting hard to remember for many people in our society.)

Brueggemann says, “Sabbath is the cessation of widely shared practices of acquisitiveness. It provides time, space, energy, and imagination for coming to the ultimate recognition that more commodities, which may be acquired in the rough and ready of daily economics, finally do not satisfy. Sabbath is variously restraint, withdrawal, or divestment from concrete practices of society that specialize in anxiety. Sabbath is an antidote to anxiety that both derives from our craving and in turn feeds those cravings for more.”⁶ Taking time off from the merry-go-round of consumption and production is the only way to figure out what really matters. Unfortunately today, with the minimum wage where it is, many workers simply cannot afford to take a day off! This is yet another reason why we need to fight for a living wage. People who work ALL THE TIME can’t live entirely full lives, and the ways that our society prevents full humanity are unacceptable.

In the final page of his book, Brueggemann offers this little reflection, “It occurs to me that Sabbath is a school for our desires, an expose and critique of the false desires that focus on idolatry and greed that have immense power for us. When we do not pause for Sabbath, these false desires take power over us. But Sabbath is the chance for self-embrace of our true identity.”⁷ He really believes that time OFF, that Sabbath itself, provides space for us to become more compassionate to ourselves and to others, that is, to become more fully human.

Now I offered ALL of this because I’m concerned that it is entirely too easy to face our gospel lesson with a blasé treatment of the Sabbath, and worst yet to use the gospel as another excuse to dismiss the Sabbath entirely. That wouldn’t be OK. So, now, a few notes on the particularities of our Gospel lesson. This is VERY Lukan passage. It is a story that only shows up in Luke. It is a story involving a woman. The setting is in the synagogue, and that should be our first clue that Jesus is about to cause trouble because Luke has Jesus start something every time he goes into a synagogue.

The woman enters, on her own. She comes to worship God on the Sabbath, even though she would have been separated from community because of her physical illness. She does NOT ask Jesus for help. He sees her and has compassion for her and seeks her out. He speaks to her, of forgiveness, and then he touches her. The touch would have made him unclean, and as per usual, he doesn’t care! His compassion for her is greater than his desire to avoid the uncleanness. Her response is praise God when she is healed. Then the story moves away from her. The leader of the synagogue gets mad at Jesus for breaking the Sabbath with the healing. If Jesus had been healing AND EXPECTING PAYMENT FOR IT, I think the leader of the synagogue would have had a valid point. He didn’t though. He gave it as a free gift.

Jesus makes a great point about freedom and the Sabbath, using a verb that means “loose.” He points out that in caring for animals on the Sabbath, they are loosed so that they can access water. Should not the woman also be loosed from her bondage to this physical illness – that kept her from community? That is, shouldn’t she be freed to celebrate Sabbath in its truest sense again by being a full member of community and participating with others in relationship??

Jesus praises her by calling her a “Daughter of Abraham” thereby acknowledging her humanity, her faith, her faithfulness, and her status as a beloved child of God. The crowd celebrates, which means they think he did right to heal on the Sabbath too!

So what’s the issue? As one commentator put it, “In their understandable concern for religious identity, marked by Sabbath-keeping, the religious leaders lost sight of compassion.”⁸ Ohh! In any organization, the leaders are responsible for maintaining the well-being of the institution. It is ‘their job.” Keeping the Sabbath was the central piece of religious identity for most people in those days, particularly in the time of Luke with the Temple had just been destroyed for the second time. The leader of the synagogue wanted to keep the people connected to God! The leader forgot that Sabbath exists to help people become human, to build up relationships – that is, to make space for compassion to grow. The leader missed that the point of the Sabbath was that people might make choices like the one Jesus made – to see another person fully, and be willing to do what you can do to make their life more wonderful. The leader got stuck in the rules, and forgot why they existed.

This happens in the church today as well. Institutional leaders get stuck on the rules, and forget that the purpose of any rule in the faith tradition is to build the kin-dom of God and expand God’s love in the world.

Sabbath is a gift from God for the people. It builds the kin-dom by making space for people to be fully human. It expands God’s love by giving people time to connect. Sabbath is a way to be alive, to be human, to reflect, to connect, to become more compassionate and whole. May today be such a day for us all! And may a day like this come every week – and may it eventually come for all God’s people every week! Amen

1Walter Brueggemann, Sabbath as Resistence: Saying NO to the CULTURE OF NOW, (Westminster John Knox Press: Louisville, Kentucky, 2014) page 1.

2Brueggemann, 1.

3Brueggemann, 2.

4Brueggemann, 18.

5Brueggemann, 32.

6Brueggemann, 85.

7Brueggemann, 88.

8Tokunboh Adeyemo, General Editor, Africa Bible Commentary, Paul John Issak, “Luke” (Zondervan: Nairobie, Kenya, 2006) page 1231.

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Rev. Sara E. Baron

First United Methodist Church of Schenectady

603 State St. Schenectady, NY 12305

Pronouns: she/her/hers

http://fumcschenectady.org/

https://www.facebook.com/FUMCSchenectady

August 21, 2016