Sabbath

Charlie Smith, Presbytery Pastor

Down Dog. Cat. Cow. Cobra. Warrior. If you recognize those terms, then you, too, exercise with yoga. I use a phone app to do a 30-minute yoga workout weekly, on Friday, my day off. Still, I have to confess: I really don’t enjoy it very much. Five minutes into the workout, I’m impatient and ready for it to end. I talk back to the instructor with words that I would never use in a sermon. 😊But I keep doing it, because I believe deep in my soul that it is a good thing to “go against type,” working hard to try to be comfortable in my discomfort.

Yoga, and other things that slow down my “living life double-parked” hyperactivity, help remind me of the importance of sabbath, especially in the summertime, when (supposedly) we are to slow down and rest from the frenetic calendars that keep us too busy through the rest of the year.

“Keeping the Sabbath” was one of the distinguishing marks of the Jewish people. The seventh day was marked as a day of rest. The Sabbath was a day to remember who they were, and whose they were. They were the people of God. Needless to say, Sabbath rules have changed. A lot.

We all need to make more time for God and for rest. That’s what it means to keep Sabbath. It’s especially important for pastors. Unless we do that, we can’t be at our best doing God’s work. Regularly keeping Sabbath is setting aside time every week for renewal, for slowing down enough to be refreshed spiritually and to listen for the voice of God. A life filled only with responsibilities and work and interruptions is not a life that’s balanced or genuinely centered on God.

How do you keep Sabbath? What is Sabbath to you? In this newsletter, the Revs. Janet Ruark, Jim Burns and Bill Galbraith – part of Indian Nations Presbytery’s retired-pastor brigade (I’ll even venture to call them “honorable”) share their thoughts about Sabbath.

---

Jim Burns

I remember Sundays. What Christians refer to as the Sabbath.

Our orthodox Jewish neighbors, of course, begin their Sabbath at sundown on Friday, starting with a family meal filled with “blessings, songs, and a festive atmosphere,” concluding at sundown on Saturday. Dictated by a number of laws that said what one is allowed and not allowed to do on Sabbath. A day calculated to encourage people to “rest,” the word which is the literal meaning of sabbath. Rest perhaps as a good night’s sleep or an afternoon nap. Or rest in the sense of taking a rest from all the stuff one did on Monday through Saturday.

I remember Sundays. Chosen as the Christian Sabbath since it was on Sunday that Jesus rose from the dead. A once a week day that should be a day of joy. And a day to rest from the hustle bustle of the other days in the week.

I remember Sundays in the 1950’s. Almost everything was closed. If someone needed gas, it should have been purchased on Saturday. No gas stations open on Sunday. The only thing I remember being open was the Rialto Theater. Being a member of a moderate Episcopalian Church, I didn’t think twice about going to a movie on Sunday afternoon. 

I remember Sundays always being a different day for me. My sister and I went to church, rarely Sunday School as our church was small and Sunday School was not always on the menu. My parents stayed home…..resting.

During the 32 years of being a pastor, Sunday was definitely a different day. Supposedly a “work” day. But in truth, it was often more a day of gathering with people we enjoyed being with and preaching a sermon that was already prepared by the time I reached the pulpit. And I remember how we came home to the smell of a roast or chicken in the oven, and often sat at table with our children and a friend or two….friends who always wanted to come back due to the riotous hilarity that our three boys supplied around that table. It was a joyful time. 

I remember Sundays. I remember writing a series of sermons on the 10 commandments. I wrote them as 10 choices….such as “Choose life” for “Thou shall not kill,” or ‘Choose to be generous”, for “Thou shall not steal.” For the commandment on the Sabbath, the choice was “Choose to do only good on Sunday.” Someone said, “Shouldn’t I do good on all days?” I agree. But I don’t do good on all days. So I figure that if I could get one day closer to “right,” it would be a rehearsal to do better on the other days. So on Sundays I try to smile more, compliment more, argue less, and often watch the Waltons as opposed to the latest R rated movie that won the Academy Award for best picture.

I remember Sundays. I like Sundays. Sunday is a day holy in my heart.

---

Bill Galbraith

Remember the Sabbath and Holy Rest

Our experience of the remembrance of the Sabbath is a call to celebrate God’s goodness through creation. In the witness of Genesis, God is presented as the source of all creation. So excellent was this generative work that it was deemed “good,” even “very good.” Built into this remembering is understanding that life should be not only given to fruitful endeavor but should incorporate regular rest from labor. Sabbath’s original meaning is “to cease.”

Keeping the Sabbath holy leads us to keep Sabbath time separate from other time. Different faith expressions view Sabbath without consensus. Jews practice Sabbath keeping beginning on Friday evening. As a Christian, my sense is that Sabbath time can occur at times more in harmony with our particular schedule. Many Christians view Sunday as Sabbath. For me, Sunday has been a set apart day. It is a time of worship, usually not doing our work and refraining from seeking others to work on our behalf. Pastors and other church staff members need to exercise flexibility on this matter. Sunday for pastors and church staffs has typically been seen as a workday with worship, preaching, teaching, pastoral care, various meetings describing what has been experienced as the, “relentless return of the Sabbath” (attributed to S. Kierkegaard.)

Growing up in a modified-Sabbath keeping family, we started “Sabbath” on Saturday evenings – shining “church” shoes, laying out what we would wear, designating our financial offering and setting it aside, determining what to eat after worship, making sure the car was “gassed up,” but also remembering other needs in the household because we never purchased even a Dairy Queen cone on Sundays. This was our routine to keep Sunday, our Sabbath, holy. It required doing the right things and not doing others. That misconception eventually began to change. It became clearer that Sabbath keeping was not a gift we offer God but a gift God gives us. “The Sabbath was not made for God but for (people).”  This reformation of the commandment’s intent came as an affirmation that grace underlies much of that we call God’s law. Being loved by God is more a gift which begins to dawn. At those times, perhaps we glimpse that at God’s heart is our best Sabbath rest.

---

Janet Ruark

For most of my ministry I was a circuit-rider, driving from home to serve congregations. At night after a meeting, I might wish I lived closer to the church. But most of the time I enjoyed the quiet of the car and the chance to think a thought without the interruption of phone, kids or other demands. It was a moment of sabbath grace.

We rightfully think of sabbath as a time to stop doing what we’re doing and take a breath. I’ve also experienced it as a time to think a thought, and in that thinking to connect with what God is doing in the world. As I made a conscious effort to look for it, there it was in the smell of jasmine, the song of a meadowlark, the solid timelessness of a mountain or the surprising words of a reluctant prophet.

Depending on our politics, we have different lists of what is wrong in the world but we agree: 1) this isn’t the world God wants and 2) it is a world where God is busy at work. What a gift it is to put our busy lives on pause, to see where God’s creative love meets the brokenness of the world, and to give thanks. To have time to think a thought.

Then it’s back again to joining God’s work.