September 3, 2006 (Labor Day
weekend)
“Labor & Rest:
Keeping Sabbath”
Genesis 2:2-4; Exodus 20:8-11; Mark
2:23-28
In
the early 20th century someone made what is now a familiar observation
that we “work at our play and we play at our work”. More recently, a professor
from
“....we worship our
work, work at our play, and play at our worship."
Confusing? You bet! Out of balance? Of
course! Is it true?
In the year 2000, 46% of Americans
said that they would work an 80 hour work week for a few years if there was
potential for a large financial payoff:
We as Americans are most definitely
out-of-balance when it comes to work. While we might point our fingers at one
end of the spectrum; at the welfare state and those able-bodied who refuse to
work, we need to look first at ourselves, and the amount of hours we chose to
work. For there is danger in worshipping work instead of God... of losing our
souls while striving for fame or fortune... or simply to provide for our lives
what we believe we need. Today we need
to be reminded that the Chinese pictograph for “busy” is composed of two
characters: “heart” & “killing”. Today we need to hear a word for God about
the importance of taking Sabbath from our work.
1. Rediscovering
a correct meaning of “rest”?
We
read in
Genesis 2:2-3
2 By
the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh
day he rested from all his work. 3 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.
It
is a commonly held belief that to “rest” means to “take it easy” or even to
“take a nap”. I must confess to you that this is exactly what I believed
growing up. The Sabbath was a day for going to church, and then, often times
after church, falling asleep in front of a football game. I remember my Grandpa
Johnson sleeping in his chair, the first recliner I had ever seen with the big
wooden handle on the side which raised the foot rest. I remember my Dad snoring
away in his tan leather chair with matching outimun, which Carole and I still
have!
The
word “Sabbath” has come to mean “rest” in our language, but in the Hebrew it
means “seventh”; for on the seventh day God “rested”. And yet the word “rested”
in this familiar passage is also properly translated “ceased”, and in our
language “rested” and “ceased” are not the same, are they?
On
the seventh day, God rested... He creased. Ceased what? God ceased his work of
creation on the Sabbath.
While Deists would like us to believe in a God
who created everything and then laid back to watch how things would pan out, we
believe in a God who paused after His work of creation, he paused to evaluate
and appreciate the “goodness” of all He had accomplished, but we believe in a god who remains active and
very much engaged with all He created; sustaining, forgiving, redeeming and
sanctifying people like you and me. We believe in a God described in Psalm 121:
Psalm 121:4
..... he who watches over
will neither slumber nor sleep.
There
is no doubt that all of us, certainly most of the people in our culture, need
to rest.. to catch up on our sleep. But in modeling “Sabbath”, and calling us
to observe “Sabbath”, God is directing us to something greater than physical
rest alone. He is calling us to weekly observe a “holy” day... literally, a day
“set apart” from the rest. A day to “cease”, to pause from the work we normally
do, to ponder and appreciate... to stop and smell the roses... to appreciate
who we are and to remember who God is. God calls us to pause, and yet to also
remain actively engaged with the world. So important is the Sabbath, that God
presented it as one of 10 commandments to His children in the wilderness:
Exodus 20:8-11
8
"Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. 9 Six
days you shall labor and do all your work, 10 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. 11 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 the words of Wayne Muller, author of the
excellent book titled Sabbath:
Sabbath is more than the absence of work; it is not
just a day off, when we catch up on television or errands. It is the presence
of something that arises when we consecrate a period of time to listen to what
is most deeply beautiful, nourishing or true. It is time consecrated with our
attention, our mindfulness, honoring those quiet forces of grace or spirit that
sustain or heal us.
Wayne Muller, Sabbath: Finding Rest, Renewal, and
Delight in Our Busy Lives, Bantam, 1999.p.8.
Rediscovering the Sabbath is rediscovering
a new meaning of “rest” in a wearisome world.
Rediscovering the Sabbath is also:
2. Rediscovering
our “best”
The
Bible is very clear that we are called to be free people. The Apostle Paul
proclaims in Galatians 5:
Galatians 5:1
It is for freedom that Christ has set
us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a
yoke of slavery.
Over the past two Sundays we have examined
the topic of work; what was God’s intentions for our work experience, what went
wrong, and how “work” can be a blessing once again.
In
the beginning God blessed us with opportunity to experience the joy of working
with Him as stewards of all He created. We lost the blessing of work when we
chose to work for ourselves, but we can rediscover it whenever we give
ourselves in obedience to God. (There you go... two sermons in two sentences!)
But
the truth is that for most people, work continues to feel more like slavery
than freedom to be the “best” we can be... to be what God wants us to be and
has made possible in Christ.
Tim McGuire, former editor of the
Minneapolis Star Tribune and former president of the American Society of
Newspaper Editors, once said:
Work is brutal.....
Most people don't think that work could possibly have anything to do with
spirituality. They assume that these two worlds cannot mesh. But if we bring
our souls to work, then we can transform our work...... The problem for most
people is that their work transforms them into something bad, something bitter
and tired and broken. As seen in Terry
Mattingly's
My
guess is that everyone here today can relate to the power work has to define us
and to take control over our lives. By rediscovering Sabbath, we are fighting
this force which wants to control us and so wrongly define us by what we
accomplish. By rediscovering Sabbath we rediscover our “best” because Sabbath
will always reorient us to a correct and healthy perspective.
When
we take time to “cease” our work, to pause even for a day, and to find what we
have, rather than seek after what we don’t have, our perspective on life will
dramatically change.
My
personal devotions have lead me this week into the life of the Prophet Ezekiel.
And with this morning’s message forming in my mind I just couldn’t help but
reflect on how Ezekiel’s exhausting work of confronting the priests of Baal, the
unfaithful Israelites and King Ahab and Jezebel had left him totally spent.
In
1 Kings 19 we read of that famous broom tree in the wasteland, under which
Elijah crashed and prayed that he might die. But instead God gave him food and
rest. But God offered even more. For that food and rest fueled Elijah for his
trip to
How
many of us allow our work to beat us down and give us that same perspective: “I’m
all alone”.... “there’s no one to help me”; pressure and responsibility
mounting to the boiling point? Perhaps your work has gotten so difficult, and you
so weary, that you too have prayed for death.
But
there, amid his Sabbath from his work as a prophet of God, Elijah regains
perspective as God is able to speak to him and tell of what he has; the 7,000
faithful in Israel: Elijah is not alone. Amid this Sabbath, Elijah not only
receives hope, but God’s instruction as well.. tasks which remind Elijah of his ongoing
purpose in service to God.
The
demands of Elijah’s work had warped his perspective, weakened him physically,
emotionally and spiritually. But a Sabbath from work fully restored him to all
God needed him to be. Soon he was off, back to work, anointing two new Kings,
and then anointing Elisha as God’s prophet who would one day succeed him.
>>>
Keeping the Sabbath is not a restraint; it is the gift of freedom from God,
freedom to be our “best” which also includes freedom to love God and love our
neighbors.
We
obviously make opportunity on our Sabbath to love God as we gather to worship
Him; to make Him the object of our praise, our prayers, our singing and our
attention. But Sabbath is also about loving our neighbor as ourselves.
We
know that in Jesus’ day, “Sabbath” had become more a legalism; more of a
restraint than a freedom. On a number of occasions Jesus’ actions confronted
this warpeddefinition. We read in
Mark 2:23-28
23One Sabbath Jesus
was going through the grainfields, and as his disciples walked along, they
began to pick some heads of grain. 24The Pharisees said
to him, "Look, why are they doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath?"
25He answered, "Have you never read what David did when
he and his companions were hungry and in need? 26In the
days of Abiathar the high priest, he entered the house of God and ate the
consecrated bread, which is lawful only for priests to eat. And he also gave
some to his companions."
27Then he said to them, "The Sabbath was made for man,
not man for the Sabbath. 28So the Son of Man is Lord
even of the Sabbath."
On other occasions Jesus was likewise criticized
for healing on the Sabbath.
-
Healing a blind man (John 9)
-
Healing a man with a shriveled hand (Matthew 12)
After that last healing Jesus plainly
declared:
....it is lawful to do good
on the Sabbath. Matthew 12:12b
In rediscovering Sabbath
-
we rediscover a new meaning of resting,
-
we also rediscover what is our “best”, as we allow God’s
Sabbath to restore us physically, emotionally & spiritually, and to give us
freedom to love God and love our neighbors not only on Sundays, but with a
recaptured perspective throughout the work week!.
Do
you experience the power of keeping Sabbath? Sabbath opposes the growing
confusion of work, play and worship. It has the power to keep us standing
upright as the Children of God when life’s pressures hit us from different
angles.
I recently read of a team in the
Their painstaking labor came within inches of destruction
when, after a long day of setting up their small rectangles into an intricate
maze, one of the team members left a window open. A sparrow flew in and knocked
down about 25,000 dominoes.
The reason that all the 4 million dominoes did not fall was
interesting. The organizers had placed 750 built-in gaps throughout the line of
dominoes. These intentional gaps were a safety device, allowing enough space
for a domino to fall without knocking over the ones behind it.
"Sparrow Nearly
Ruins Record for Dominoes," news.yahoo.com (11-14-05); submitted by David
Slagle,
Today, amid a culture celebrating labor,
and encouraging our need to do ever more work, I encourage you to observe
Sabbath. Place within your own life those built-in “gaps” which will not only
protect you from disaster, but will allow you to achieve all God created you to
achieve, and to be all God has created you to be. AMEN
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