In the first chapter of Genesis God created the heavens and the earth, the seas and the stars, every kind of plant, every kind of tree, birds of the air, all creatures of land and sea as well as human beings. God called all of this ‘good’ and ‘very good.’ On the seventh day God rested. God declared the seventh day not just ‘good’ or ‘very good.’ God BLESSED this day, and called it HOLY. In the reading today from Exodus the first and third commandments are the only ones receiving God’s special emphasis: “I am the one and only God. Create no idols and bow to none other than me;” and “Keep the Sabbath Holy because I have blessed it and made it sacred.”
Barbara Brown Taylor tells us Rabbi Abraham Heschel once wrote that the “first holy thing in all creation was not a people or a place but a day.” In her book ‘An Altar in the World,’ she says it is up to those of us who love God to resist the ravenous economic forces laying claim to lordship in our day, demanding allegiance and worship as did the idols of old. “In the eyes of the world,” she says, “there is no payoff for sitting on the porch.…If you want to succeed in this life (whatever your ‘field’ of endeavor), you must spray, you must plow, you must fertilize, you must plant. You must never turn your back….That is what the earth and her people are for, right? Wrong god”, she says.
“In the eyes of the True God, the porch is imperative—not every now and then but on a regular basis. This not called ‘letting things go’; this is called ‘practicing Sabbath’.” It is not laziness; it is a commandment! We are COMMANDED to rest!
“Sabbath is the TRUE God’s gift to those who wish to rest and to be free,” says Taylor. “According to the rabbis,” she continues, “by practicing Sabbath over and over again…people “gradually become able to resist the culture’s killing rhythms of drivenness and depletion, compulsion and collapse.” They worship “a different kind of God [and] are shaped in that God’s image, stopping every seven days to celebrate their divine creation and liberation.”
“Keep holy the Sabbath” was written into church law eventually, and the law required attendance at Mass on Sundays. The commandment itself came to simply mean “go to Church on Sunday or you’ll go to hell!” That’s the Catholic version anyway. There was nothing about the holiness of REST, nothing about God’s desire for us to luxuriate in the loveliness of creation! The law became a weapon, inducing fear of a punishing god, rather than an invitation to seek the presence and love of God, and rest in the Holy of Holies.
At its best, communal worship allows us to bask in that presence in the company of others who are also learning to hear and trust God’s voice amidst the attention-grabbing frenzy of the marketplace. We need one another to live into the vision of a God who commands us to stop! to stop paying tribute to those forces that re-make our humanity into a commodity. This is a God who wants us to rest from our labors long enough to appreciate the glorious nature of Creation—including the creative effort of our own hands. This is a God who wants freedom for her people, not enslavement to anything, anyone, any idea, system or structure demanding allegiance. This is a God who wants us to be a people of compassion, mercy, integrity and forgiveness, a people who live out of love rather than fear, a people who place God first in our lives, honoring one another and abusing no one.
When Jesus drove the moneychangers and merchants out of the Temple he did so, according to some scholars, with hand-twisted reeds, not whips made of leather. It was a herding tool used by shepherds to shoo the flock in the proper direction. He recognized the oppressive rule-bound mentality that allowed for desecration of the Temple. He knew the motives of Temple authorities, merchants and moneychangers, and he knew the fears, needs and ignorance of ordinary people who followed rules as they searched for forgiveness and salvation.
Jesus knew the purpose of the Law was not to enslave the people and hold them captive. His God was God of Sabbath rest and freedom. His God brought people OUT of slavery, not into it. His God wanted them to bathe in the wonder of a Divine Presence in and around them. The shepherd was shooing them toward the one and only God while overturning the idols that would distract, enslave and exploit them. Just like us, they needed the idols to be pointed out and rousted from the Temple so their eyes and ears could be opened again to the True God, the God of right relationship, the God of rest and freedom.
The God who is our God would have us take a step back from our daily responsibilities and distractions each week and make space for the Holy of Holies to refresh our lives. Lent is the perfect time to begin a practice of Sabbath rest. It is a perfect time to allow the field of our busy lives to lie fallow for one day out of the week so God can reach us in the quiet.
There is a prayer in the New Union Prayer Book, Gates of Prayer, called “Welcoming Sabbath” that Taylor quotes in her book. I want to share it with you so it can be part of your Lenten prayer as it is mine.
Our noisy day has now descended with the sun beyond our sight. In the silence of our praying place we close the door upon the hectic joys and fears, the accomplishments and anguish of the week we have left behind.
What was but moments ago the substance of our life has become memory; what we did must now be woven into what we are.
On this day we shall not do, but be.
We are to walk the path of our humanity, no longer ride unseeing through a world we do not touch and only vaguely sense.
No longer can we tear the world apart to make our fire.
On this day heat and warmth and light must come from deep within ourselves.
May we all walk a blessed Sabbath journey through the remainder of Lent.
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