Sabbath is God’s gift to you and your neighbor: seek it, find it, live it.
Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Second Sunday after Pentecost, Lect. 9 B
Texts: Mark 2:23 – 3:6; Deuteronomy 5:12-15
Beloved in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen
The Sabbath is God’s gift to you and to your neighbor.
It is precious and life-giving. Little wonder Jesus chose to follow Jewish wisdom and heal a man with a withered hand on the Sabbath. He offered him life, respite from the daily pain of his existence, just as God intended. Just as, Jesus points out elsewhere, the rabbis approved for a person whose child or ox fell into a well on the Sabbath, or whose donkey needed to drink on the Sabbath. Jesus’ opponents want a reason to criticize him, but in their tradition they’re on shaky ground.
But this argument is completely irrelevant to you and to me. We, and our culture and society, barely give the idea of Sabbath a second’s worth of time. Probably only for Christians when it comes up in a Gospel like this. But nitpicking over what’s permissible on the Sabbath? Nothing is further from our minds and hearts.
“Observe the Sabbath day and keep it holy,” as we heard this morning, is one of the Ten Commandments.
Yet we, who claim to follow Scripture and shape our lives by God’s Word, barely conceal our disinterest in following this commandment.
Lutherans could blame Luther himself. Luther swings and misses badly on Sabbath in the Small Catechism. He says it’s about going to church and hearing God’s Word. Now, our life-giving Sabbath practice is to gather here for worship, to be fed at Christ’s Table, to be shaped and led by God’s Word, to pray and share fellowship with each other.
But that’s a practice we do on Sabbath. It’s not Sabbath itself. And whether it’s Luther’s fault or ours, it’s where we are. When was the last time you consciously took time away from your life and called it Sabbath? Can you even imagine a day that was completely unproductive? Restoring?
And yet, Jesus says it’s God’s gift to you. To your neighbor.
The Sabbath was created for humanity, Jesus says, not humanity for the Sabbath. Yes, it’s a commandment, it’s in the top ten. But it’s the commandment solely intended for the grace and refreshment of all people.
And our Jewish siblings who keep Sabbath can testify to this gracious gift. No food is prepared, no cars driven, no phones or computers used, just to name a few among a number of restrictions. There is time for reading and conversation, for communal worship and prayer in the home. For those who live it, these restrictions open up a day of wholeness. Jews greet each other with “Shabbat shalom,” the “peace of Sabbath,” offering each other the hope that this will be a day of shalom.
Shalom means peace – peace from war, peace with God. But in Hebrew it means so much more: completeness, safety, health, welfare, friendship. Shalom is all these. Shabbat shalom wishes the fullness of human life in this time of Sabbath, complete wholeness as God’s children.
Sabbath is God’s gift of shalom to you and to your neighbor.
Look at Jesus’ healing of this man, and maybe you can see this. The Sabbath Jesus gave freed him to be fully what he hoped to be. Sabbath breaks whatever it is that binds you, restricts you, grinds you down, and leads you to wholeness. We are as fragile as clay jars, Paul says today, and we’re facing challenges that can crush us. All God’s children are, some have constant pain and affliction. We’re all people who need the shalom of Sabbath.
Whether you live under self-imposed rules or have the oppression of systems and structures laid upon you, you need a moment of respite. Sabbath. Whatever it is that traps you, binds you, weighs heavy on you, Sabbath is letting go of that for a time. To find shalom.
So what might Sabbath be for you?
Well, do you spend every waking hour always doing something, never feeling your work is done, even at home? What if one day a week you let go of all that and simply existed? Didn’t worry about being unproductive? Or took a nap and didn’t apologize to yourself or others?
Or, this: how much does technology bind you up and trap you? Could you go 24 hours without your phone? Without watching television or using your computer? What if you didn’t have to hear or see every bit of news or entertainment that’s pouring into the world, just for one day? What might that be like, to find that quiet?
And what if, one day a week, you consciously made shalom your priority over all things, looking for health, wholeness, peace, welfare, shalom mentally, physically, spiritually? And for your neighbor, too?
And what of your neighbors? If Sabbath is a gift to all God’s children, can we make this world pay fairly for work done, so our neighbors don’t need to work three jobs seven days a week to keep their home and put food on the table? Could we finally become passionate peacemakers so true shalom can exist in this world and war become obsolete? How might you be a part of giving Sabbath to your neighbor?
Maybe this sounds too complicated.
The world and all its problems are overwhelming. So is changing things in your life. We have limited time to get things done. But ask this: would a Sabbath respite be something you’d really love to have?
So start where Jesus starts: Sabbath is God’s gift to you and to your neighbor. God wants to open up a spaciousness in your life where you can simply be, exist, dream, live. Once a week. Where you step off the treadmill or pull your car off the interstate, or whatever metaphor works for you, and sit still. Where you let go of the things that bind and entrap your mind, your body, your heart.
Where you release yourself from whatever expectations you or others have imposed on you. And listen to God’s voice saying you are beloved, and so are all your neighbors. Where you seek shalom in all its fullness. And remember what it is to breathe. To smell. To see and taste and touch. To be refreshed and rested. To sleep.
Look, according to Scripture, even God needs a Sabbath. How about you? And how about your neighbor?
In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen
