Sermon:
September 5, 2004
Sunday Night Alive  

Scripture:
Genesis 2:2-4    
Exodus 20:11-18

It was late in the semester. Seminarians’ tensions were beginning to run high as the deadlines for papers, final projects and exams loomed larger with every passing day. Would there be enough time to get it all in? Did all the profs think the only class that mattered was theirs? Didn’t they know the demands being placed on us?            

That was the atmosphere that fateful spring day. You could feel the collective weight of the load that we all were carrying. That’s when it happened. I was there. I saw it. I experienced it. I will never forget it.           

It was in a class called “Pastor and the People”—a good class, an inspiring class, a challenging class.  On that day our instructor’s words had turned to the topic of Sabbath—the importance of it, the value of teaching it, the significance of preaching it, the need to model it. But most important, the call to take it—for ourselves, that is. Sabbath: the biblical practice of rest, reflection and recreation. Well, the irony of the moment was apparent to everyone in the room except the professor. Here was our well-meaning instructor extolling the virtue of Sabbath rest to a group of over-worked and glassy-eyed students for whom there seemed to be no light at the end of the tunnel. To take a break now, in the midst of the work he and all the other professors had given us, would be disastrous. Sabbath: great concept. But to put it into practice—not there and not then.           

It was then that a brave student, who shall remain nameless (but he has red hair and has just joined our staff), raised his hand and asked the question that everyone in the room wished they had the gumption to ask: “How are we supposed to learn about Sabbath at seminary when there is no chance to take it?” Silence fell on the entire room. And that’s when it happened. Maybe it was a moment of clarity? Maybe a moment of guilt? Maybe a moment of inspiration? Whatever else it was, it was the work of the Holy Spirit because our professor paused and then, without missing a beat, cancelled the twenty-page final paper he was requiring for the class—with one requirement. We were to use the time we would have devoted to the paper for Sabbath—for rest, for reflection, for recreation. We were not to use it to finish up other work.           

A stunned amazement fell over the entire room. A gift had been given to us. Grace had somehow seeped in the crack in the window or from under the door and the room was suddenly filled with a vitality that had been absent since the beginning of the new semester. Life had some possibilities. We had some room to breathe. We now had the opportunity to experience the gift of Sabbath.           

The woman sitting next to me began to cry—a common response to the suddenness and surprise of grace in our midst. Another woman, one who had already completed the paper, was angry—a common response to the seeming “unfairness” of a gracious act. (Remember the older son in the story of the prodigal, or the workers of the vineyard who received the same wage as those who only worked half as much? Grace can be a hard thing for those of us who play by the rules and do what we think is expected of us.)           

But on that day, the students of Dr. Fowler’s “Pastor and the People” course were given an opportunity to experience the life-giving practices of Sabbath. It will forever be remembered in my mind as The Day Sabbath Descended on the Seminary. 

Sabbath has been right there with us from the very beginning.  

By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.           

On the seventh day, God rested. God stopped. On this, the seventh and culminating day of creation, God just took it all in.            

A great story, right? But let’s be honest here. Too often when we consider the story of creation, we are too quick to separate this seventh day from the six that have just preceded it. In fact, we often live as if it was really the sixth day that is the crowning achievement. And what was it that happened on that sixth day? You guessed it! It was the creation of humanity that capped all of God’s creative endeavors. Yea for us!!!            

And when we see it this way, when we look to the sixth day as the most important day, we can brush past the seventh day. And that can really change the way we look at the rest of the biblical account. “Oh, yeah, God rested…but then we built an ark…and then we built a tower…and then we built a temple…and then we built the church.” To stop at the sixth day of creation makes the rest of the biblical account, and really the rest of our existence, only about us, about what we can do and accomplish, build up and tear down. But when we connect the seventh day—truly connect God’s action (or non-action) of rest with all that has come before—then we can focus less on what we can do and focus more on what God has already done. If we connect the rest of the seventh day with the activity of the six gone before, then we will spend less time struggling to make a name for ourselves and discover the name that God has already given—that of being one of his beloved.            

When we take more seriously God’s action, or inaction, on that seventh day of rest, we may begin to realize that it is, in fact, toward this sense of rest that the whole of creation is moving.  On the seventh day God finished the work of nature with one more creative act—the creation of rest. It is rest that completed, and completes, the very handiwork of our Creator.

So seriously did the ancient Hebrew people take this notion of creation’s rest, they built it right into the very fabric of their lives. And to ensure its observance, they codified it right into the central document that formed their life together, the Ten Commandments. It’s the fourth one to be exact:                       

Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your animals, nor the alien within your gates. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. 

In their lives together, the children of Israel sought to experience and practice this very notion of rest. God hallowed and sanctified the seventh day; this is the first time we have a concept of something being called holy in scripture. “Remember the Sabbath by keeping it holy.”  (Amazingly, holiness had to do with time, not with nature or behavior.) Sabbath is known in the ancient writings as the “day when God came in.”           

Now I have to be honest here. I do a pretty good job of keeping the Ten Commandments. I don’t pray to any graven images. I am careful how I use the Lord’s name. I give honor to my parents. I am faithful to my wife. I don’t steal, lie or murder, and I keep my coveting down to a real minimum. But when it comes to keeping the Sabbath holy—I mean really keeping it—well, let’s just say that it is an area where real work and transformation need to happen. I imagine that there are others who find it hard to experience the rest of real Sabbath in the midst of our workaholic, overachieving, hundred-miles-an-hour culture.             

So let us look more closely at this fourth commandment in hopes of discovering what this Sabbath rest is. Its language is pretty clear: one day a week is to be a Sabbath to the Lord and on it you shall do no work. In fact, the word shavat, the Hebrew word from which our word Sabbath is derived, literally means “to stop” and “to cease.” And to what is this heavenly cease and desist order directed? It is directed at work. Walter Bruggeman calls Sabbath a “covenantal work stoppage.” And since God “is not a workaholic and has no need to be more secure, more sufficient, more in control, or more noticed,” neither should we. Ceasing labor is the way that human beings can carry out the very first words of the Sabbath command: “Remember.”  Remember that God’s world is not a place of endless productivity, ambition or anxiety. Instead it is a place where listening to and receiving the Word and world precedes our tending to them.             

So is the Bible saying what we think it is saying? I think it is. If we want to live more closely in the way God intended us to, then we must take one day a week and block it off. That’s right, put a great big X right through it and claim it as Sabbath. On that day, work must stop. Cell phones and pagers from work must be shut off. Don’t be checking messages from home or emails from the office. Put all the fix it, mend it, trim it, paint it, repair it, buy it, and redecorate it projects aside and prepare for Sabbath. That’s right, let the laundry pile up, the dishes sit, and the dust remain. Imagine that life is one big remote control and on that day—on our Sabbath day—we are just going to push the pause button. And for that day, everything else in your life will just have to wait. The work will be there when we get back. Not much will have changed during your time away. Well, except maybe us.           

I know this is hard to do. It is hard to get away. It is easy, far too easy, to make exceptions. Make one meeting, return one call, write a memo or compose an e-mail. It is easy to let your weekends be filled with important home projects to finish, dinners to attend, parties to throw, practices to make and work to catch up on. But all of those things will be more easily accomplished, more joyfully experienced and better placed in their proper perspective if we would press pause and enter into the Sabbath rest that God is summoning us to.           

I know some of you are saying that this is easy for me to say. I am not juggling the schedules of both work and children. Blocking off a day just for yourself each week might be hard or next to impossible. But I am asking you to find a way for each of you as parents to carve out some Sabbath space for yourselves. Maybe it’s a half-day apiece. Maybe it’s an every-other-week thing at first. However you can do it, I implore you to find a way. And furthermore, make sure you also have a family Sabbath. Just time for you to be a family. To be together. To rest in the love that unites you and rejoice in the life that has been given you.           

So what are we to do once we get this day blocked off? Well, at least a couple things. I just want to say that I will not be able to cover all aspects of what it means to be a people of Sabbath. But I want to highlight a few ideas for our consideration.           

First and foremost, rest. Build into your Sabbath things that will bring rest to your body and peace to your soul. Each of us should come back from our Sabbaths refreshed, renewed and refilled. This rest will come in different ways for different people. For some it will be quiet time at home, with soft music playing and a good book to keep you company.  For others it could be walking or going to the gym that will renew your spirits. For some it will be golf and for others it will be fishing. Some will go to the movies while others will take a long lunch with a friend they’ve lost touch with. Some will want to do some volunteer work to get a fresh perspective. (This isn’t the “shoulda” and “oughta” kind of service work here. That is the spirit that kills Sabbath. It’s the “I needa” and “I wanna” stuff that makes Sabbath a restful practice.) On Sabbath, give yourself permission to sleep in, take a nap or put your feet up. Whatever it is that will help you be rested and refreshed, do it! If you take this time of rest for yourself, you will find that you can reenter the world as a better boss, a better employee, a better parent, a better friend—a better person. Rest is the first call of the Sabbath.           

Another thing that our Sabbath practices should include is play. We need to develop a theology of play to go along with our theology of work, and regular keeping of Sabbath gives us permission to do just that—to play. Peter Burger, in his book A Rumor of Angels, even goes as far as to claim that when play is at its best, something of the presence of God breaks into our lives and redemptive powers are experienced. This is what Sabbath rest and playfulness are supposed to do for us. Play at its best is supposed to give us a taste of the glory that is to come. It ought to be a time when something of the celebration that is already going on in heaven breaks into our lives.           

So when you take your Sabbath, take time to play. Play with your kids. Play with somebody else’s kids. Play with your dog. Play with friends. No matter what else you do on your Sabbath, make sure that you make time to play. Do things that make you laugh. Goof off.  Paint. Draw. Color—and you don’t always have to stay in the lines. Play cards. Play games. Play hooky from the responsibilities of our work-a-day world. Swim in your pool. Swim in someone else’s pool. Throw a Frisbee. Throw a ball. Throw a party. On your Sabbath, develop a good practice of play.           

Tomorrow is Labor Day. The nation will pause from work and millions will have the opportunity to have a day of Sabbath rest and play. Sometime tonight, make a plan to spend tomorrow in a Sabbath sort of way, and then let tomorrow be an invitation to develop this important practice throughout your lives.           

Oh yeah, you’re probably wondering how I spent that time of Sabbath that was given to me that day. Well, I did two things. First I went to the Chicago Institute of Art. It was a place I had wanted to go all year, and secretly had hoped to go to for more than 15 years, ever since I saw Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and watched as Ferris, Cameron and Sloane had gazed for meaning in the paintings that adorn its walls. On that day, I took it in—the great art of masters. And while there, I too dreamed dreams and conjured up images of how life might be different. (Yes, I even stood right up next to the famous wall-sized pointillism called “Sunday Afternoon on La Grande Jatte” by Georges Seurat, just as Cameron did.)            

Then, after spending time there, I did the other thing I had secretly been wanting to do that year. If you’ve driven down Lakeshore Drive in Chicago, you’ll know what I am talking about. You suddenly turn the corner and there is Navy Pier. And smack dab in the middle of Navy Pier is the largest Ferris wheel I have ever seen. All year long that Ferris wheel called out to me. “Ride me,” it said. But I always had work to do, books to read and papers to write. But on that day, having been freed for Sabbath, I rode the Ferris wheel. In fact, I rode it three times—in a row!  Now was the work still waiting for me when I got home that day? You bet. But I’ll tell you something. I don’t remember a thing about what I was reading or writing that night. But my day of great art and Ferris wheel rides, well, that day I’m sure I’ll never forget.           

Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.  

Note: In preparation for this sermon I pulled out my calendar and a put an X through every Thursday for the rest of year as a day of intentional Sabbath. That is the thing about preaching… you quickly realize you can’t ask people to do something you are not willing to do yourself.  It’s that whole “practice what you preach” thing that gets you every time. So you can all help me stay accountable to this by asking me how I am doing at keeping the Sabbath “holy.” 

There were two resources that were particularly helpful in “fleshing out” this week’s message.  The first was Maria Harris’ book, Proclaim Jubilee! About this book, Walter Bruggeman says, “Harris’s way of studying scripture is exactly how it ought to be done…Without any heavy theory of inspiration, she responds to scripture as though it is a live, revelatory voice that illumines our present and generates futures …” Although I have not read the entire book, I am putting it on my “to-be-read list.” 

The second resource that was helpful this past week was Tony Campolo’s The Kingdom of God is a Party.  Campolo’s writings are fun and challenging and his spirit often jumps right off the page. It is from this book that I got the idea for a theology of play.