| August 9, 2009
You are welcome to reflect on this message “The Most Neglected Commandment” (Ex 20:8-11) August 9, 2009 Dr. Dan Ivins, preaching
“And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy.” Six days God called good. But the seventh day he called neither good nor very good. He called it holy. Think about it. The first sacred thing in all creation, was not a shrine, nor a temple; nor a book. The first sacred thing was a day. By the time Jesus got here, they got hung-up on it. He said “the Sabbath is made for man,” not the other way around. Today we don’t take it seriously enough. Because we’re afraid of rest.
The Exodus story contrasts life in the bondage of the Egyptian empire under Pharaoh versus life in the freedom of the Judean wilderness under God. The people of Israel had been enduring the Egyptian empire and cried out for release from slavery. God had compassion on their suffering, and called Moses to deliver them from the power of the empire.
Now they’re on their way to “a promised land, land flowing with milk and honey.” But in between bondage and blessing lay the wilderness. And when they got there, the people complained against Moses. Even though life in the empire was harsh. And competitive. The empire always had somebody who could make bricks faster than you could, showing you up in front of the boss. The empire was also coercive. You had to meet your quotas. Your time was not your own. It was a life of constant anxiety. But at least you knew where you got your bread. As long as you played ball with the empire, you got fed. So you did what you had to do to keep it coming.
By contrast, life in the wilderness was free but not easy. There was no competition. Everybody’s on the same side. There were no quotas. Your time belonged to you. No boss spying on your productivity or lack thereof. No impulse to work overtime, or else the next guy’s gonna get ahead. No advertisers urging you to stretch yourself thin so you could have the latest gadgets that make you cool. The wilderness offered a different way of life that was liberating and open-ended. And scary.
Because there was this one nagging question: Is there anything out here to live on? The empire was stifling, but at least we could eat. Is there any other way to get fed? Yeah God had something in mind. He would “rain bread from heaven, and each day the people went out and gathered enough for that day." When the people stopped fixating on the empire and the past and focused on the present wilderness -- that barren, empty desert where there was nothing to live on, that’s when they saw the glory of the Lord. They’d been living by the code of the empire for so long, eating the empire's bread, that they didn’t recognize God's Manna on their doorstep.
In Hebrew, "Manna" means "What is it?" bread. And they discovered the place that is God's prime territory for teaching us that God's bread is all we need to survive. But more than a story contrasting life in the empire and life in the wilderness, this is a story about the institution of the Sabbath. "On the sixth day they gathered twice as much food, because 'the next day is a day of rest, a holy Sabbath to the Lord; so the people rested on the seventh day.”
Sabbath is the seventh day of the week on which God expects us to rest. Sabbath is wilderness time; for withdrawing from the empire to reflect on the true manna that comes from God; and that God provides more than enough to live on, more than enough to share: "those who gathered much had nothing left over, and those who gathered little had no shortage."
Only those with a mistaken notion of Sabbath wouldn’t appreciate not having to go to the grocery store! Or else we suffer from a distorted understanding of Sabbath. Where I grew up Sabbath meant that you didn't dare enjoy yourself; associated with harsh rules and deprivation. But biblical Sabbath is about the freedom to enjoy God and to recall how God provides all we need, and more. Sabbath is a blessing not a burden. It’s a gift of time free from the empire's competitiveness and coercion and exploitation and abuse and anxiousness. Sabbath is time for play, like a child enjoys the world without apprehension. For too many, our play has become work. We used to say, "I play tennis." Now we say, "I'm working on my backhand." Sabbath is God's foretaste of heaven.
The purpose of Sabbath is to make room in our lives for that kind of time. It won't be done for us. And we can no longer depend on our society to lend us a hand at it. It’s hard to say no to Wal-Mart, to Sunday football, to the golf course, because staying busy is how our culture measures worth. Effective people are busy people. Religious people are busy people. When busy-ness is a way of life, it makes saying no a lot harder than tithing! Limiting my activity doesn’t make me feel holy. Doing more makes me feel holy. So the fourth commandment is the most neglected of all.
I can still remember the Blue Laws in the Southland, when nothing was open on Sunday. There was little competition for our attention. But church is no longer the only game in town. The empire is too addicted to consumption and cash to willingly give us a break. That means we have to take the responsibility to structure Sabbath time for ourselves. We have to set borders to keep the empire from co-opting every single minute of our days and nights.
Did you notice the Exodus story, is filled with boundary-setting? The people can gather manna for five days, twice as much on the sixth day, but none on the seventh. And if you don’t observe the boundaries, you get a can of worms to eat! Ignoring the boundaries opens the door to chaos, decay and disintegration. This is the biblical way of saying without the Sabbath, life sucks!
Observing Sabbath is being pro-active, guarding against the forces that threaten life with deterioration. Sabbath keeping not only puts a boundary around work. It also puts a boundary around worry. One day in seven to withdraw from the feverish activities that create anxiety. And that would include a healthy withdrawal from TV, computer and cell phones. Say what? How uncool! We wanta even twitter and text while driving, making a car an un-guided missile!
The MSM is a major tool of the empire for shaping its subjects by the empire's values. As much as any Pharaoh, it resists our withdrawal from culture’s "alternative liturgy," in order to make space for God's rest. The media ought to be our friend but today is imperializing us; usurping every single moment. The church says to set aside one day in seven to tell the media ‘No!’ and give God room to operate.
There is no talking of a loss of Sabbath without talking about the rise of consumerism. No sense talking about Sabbath rest without talking about Sabbath resistance. Sabbath is the great equalizer, a reminder that we don’t live on the earth but in it. Where there’s money to be made, there’ll be no rest for anything, animate or inanimate. In the eyes of the world, there’s no payoff for rocking on the porch. But in the eyes of God, the porch is imperative, and not just every now and then either, but on a regular basis. What makes us so resistant to it? “Look at the birds of the air,” said Jesus. “They neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns. And yet your heavenly father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your life span? Why worry about what you wear? Look at the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet even Solomon in all his glory was not decked out like one of these.”
Sabbath is God’s gift to people who want to rest and to be free; a day to be and not do. Saying no to empire enables us to resist the killing rhythms of drivenness and depletion, compulsion and collapse, addiction and abdication that we face daily. For myself I get real tired of the noise. At all times of the night. When I go home I can sleep for seven hours without waking. I go to sleep with the sound of cicadas in the grass and wake up to robins chirping in the trees. It’s my little getaway.
Once you decide to take one whole day off from “earning your salvation,” you better be ready to wrestle with the brawny angels, guaranteed to show up. Because we like company in our causes, it makes it difficult to be a “lone” revolutionary, for that’s what you are when you say no. When you rise up against your history, your ego, your culture and its ravenous economy, you may even have to stand against the church, for it can demand as much as any Pharaoh too.
At least one day in seven pull off the road and park the car. Stay home not because you’re sick but because you’re well. Celebrate that! Test the premise that you’re worth more than you can produce. Even if you spent an entire day being good-for-nothing, you’d still be precious in God’s sight. The thing is, this is not optional. It’s a commandment. Your value is already established, even when you’re not working.
It’s hard for me to understand why people put “thou shalt not work” in a different category from “Thou shalt not kill or commit adultery or have no other gods before me.” Those teachings are on the same list folks! There’s no saying yes to God without saying no to God’s rivals. That’s what has to happen if we intend to live in God. When we live in God, we lose ourselves long enough for God to find us. And when God finds us, we lose ourselves again in sheer praise for just being alive.
Sunday worship allows us to experience that free and open space where God meets us. The wise will put boundaries around the acquisitive, addictive, competitive, anxious striving in which we’re immersed the other six days, to relish in a different way of being. And maybe over time, we’ll become a little more able to re-enter our work with less apprehension, and with a greater readiness to look for God not just on the Sabbath but in every day, to be truly present to everyone we meet. And there was evening. And there was morning...the seventh day.
Providence Prayers: (8/9/09) We gather once again in worship Lord, knock, knock, knockin' on heaven's door. To offer our praise because Thou art God, who stands above all the other before Thee. Look at us, misdirecting our worship, misplacing our loyalties, and misspending our affection. But we keep knockin' on heaven's door with confidence and faith. Bring renewal to the weary, hope to the discouraged, and healing for the hurting. We bless Thee O Lord, for those back‑door mercies ‑ that lift us when we life is too much for us. We're so in love with life and committed to all that enhances life! And yet, we recognize how often our culture is at cross‑purposes with Thy life‑affirming intentions.
We thank Thee for sending Jesus to liberate us from every form of bondage, including our avarice, and our orthodoxy. And for unnerving us with Sabbath surprises! Yet we keep on working overtime, wearing ourselves out, establishing routines trying to make life predictable. Thy healing Spirit calls us to peace and rest. Yet we’re far more at home with war and busy-ness. Most are too busy to give one hour a week in the worship of something higher than themselves.
Forgive us for trying to narrow‑down what Jesus opened‑up; for failing to grant Thee first place in our lives. May this church continue to reach out to all in need ‑- anyone who needs a church, or a Savior; or a friend, or a good dose of hope; all in need of forgiveness and a fresh start, and always, those coming to terms with their losses. We’re grateful for Thy many blessings to us. Help us to continually count them and freely share them with those who have less.
Remind us in this worship that all of Thy commandments matter, and wise are those who take them seriously; only not too seriously that it gets in the way of living, as Thou wouldst have us to. Be “our bridge over troubled waters;” the lighthouse that guides our steps. Be ahead of us, among us and underneath us till our journey's end. Always “leaning on the everlasting arms” of Christ Jesus our Lord. In whose name, we offer this and all our prayers... Back |
