Jack McKinney
November 26, 2006 – Final Sunday before Advent
Text: Mark 2:23-28
Seeking Sabbath: Liberating Our Lives
Have you ever had the experience of mindlessly driving down the street and suddenly, without warning, a startling revelation hits you? It just comes out of nowhere and you are waylaid by a truth about yourself. It happened to me last Sunday as I was driving home after a long day at church.
Now when I say this was a long day at church I am already mischaracterizing it. This was a day when I spent 13 hours in this building without stepping outside. After worship I was in four consecutive meetings lasting nine hours total. I ate lunch in the chapel with a few of you at 3:00 in the afternoon as we squeezed in a sandwich in the midst of our meeting. I give you none of these details to complain about my work hours. Lord knows many of you work harder than I do. And I’m also not going to be preaching today about the need for us to cut down on our Sunday meetings at Pullen. I’ll save that for another sermon. I simply need you to know these specifics so I can relate the truth that hit me on the way home that night.
So, here I am driving home, completely numb from mental and emotional fatigue, and you know what I started thinking about? I began to go over the list of all the things I had failed to accomplish that day. The people I had meant to call but didn’t. The newsletter that I was supposed to proofread but couldn’t. The 14,000 emails (slight exaggeration) that still awaited a response but got no attention from me that day. And as I turned these unaccomplished tasks over in my mind, and felt a familiar cloud of failure descend on me, BOOM! It hit me. The truth that I hadn’t seen coming landed so hard on me I barely kept my car on the road.
And what was that truth? It was a voice that said, “Are you out of your mind? You have just spent all the daylight hours, and a few of the dark ones, at work and it’s not enough? Don’t you think there is something a little distorted about your thinking, Mr. Preacher Man?” Well, I’m not sure the voice said Mr. Preacher Man, but it kind of felt like that.
And in that moment I realized the painful truth. And the truth is it’s never enough for me. I have wonderful, meaningful work, but I can never do enough. I have the opportunity to create and produce, but I can never generate enough. I am like the hamster on the proverbial spinning wheel convinced if I really kick it into high gear I’m going to get where I need to be. But I never do.
I suspect I’m not the only one trapped in this mentality that says every moment must be filled with production and creation. Maybe you work too much, or maybe you feel like you can never do enough good deeds no matter how many you do, or maybe you are just one of those people who got up at 4:00 a.m. the day after Thanksgiving so you could be first in line at the mall. This sermon is for all of us, but especially for you people standing in the dark outside the mall. Seriously, you people need help.
In Mark 2 Jesus gets into an argument with the religious leaders of his day over an issue that seems irrelevant to most modern Christians. Jesus’ disciples are going through a field on the Sabbath and pick some heads of grain to eat. The religious leaders argue that this is a violation of the Sabbath at which point Jesus makes a reference to David in the Hebrew scripture. Jesus recalls an occasion when David and his friends ate the sacred bread of the Presence which was supposed to be eaten only by the priests. (1 Samuel 21:1-6) Then Jesus utters those famous words, “The Sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the Sabbath.”
Of course what appears to be happening in this text is that the religious leaders of Jesus’ day are arguing for a strict interpretation of Sabbath observance, while Jesus argues for a more liberal interpretation of Sabbath law. But before I tell you what I think Jesus is trying to get at it, I have a huge obstacle to overcome in this sermon. I must first address the fact that this text is an argument over the laws around the Sabbath, which if you think about it, has about as much connection to your everyday life as an argument over the best way to milk a yak. Christians, for the most part, just don’t keep a Sabbath any longer. So, before I get into what Jesus is trying to say in this passage, maybe we need a quick refresher on what Sabbath observance was all about.
The principle of Sabbath is rooted in the creation story. God creates the world in six days and on the seventh day God rests. Why? Is God tired? I doubt it. Some scholars suggest God rested to show that the purpose of the world wasn’t simply to work and create. (Rabbi Dr. Michael Samuel, “Why Would a God Need to Rest on the Seventh Day?” Jewish Virtual Library, 2006) Then, of course, Sabbath observance becomes one of the Ten Commandments and a distinguishing principle for the Jews. There are many rules in Judaism that govern the keeping of the Sabbath. Listen to Lauren Winner’s description of the Sabbath laws:
There are, in Judaism, two types of commandments (mitzvot): the mitzvot asei, or the "Thou shalts,'" and the mitzvot lo ta'aseh, or the "Thou shalt nots." Sabbath observance comprises both. You are commanded, principally, to be joyful and restful on Shabbat, to hold great feasts, sing happy hymns, dress in your finest. Married couples even get rabbinical brownie points for having sex on the Sabbath.
And there are, of course, the mitzvot lo ta'aseh. The cornerstone of Jewish Sabbath observance is the prohibition of work in Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5: "You shall not do any work, your son or your daughter, your male or female servant or your cattle or your sojourner who stays with you." Over time, the rabbis teased out of the text just what the prohibition on work meant, first identifying 39 categories of activities to he avoided on Shabbat, and then fleshing out the implications of those 39 (if one is not to light a fire, for example, one also ought not handle matches or kindling). (Lauren Winner, “Take the Day Off: Reclaiming the Sabbath,” The Christian Century, November 1, 2003.)
So, there is a brief overview of what Sabbath law is all about. When the church was founded Sabbath observance eventually shifted from Saturday to Sunday, but even though many Christians still refer to Sunday as our Sabbath day, virtually nothing remains for most of us that resembles the Sabbath commandments that our Jewish sisters and brothers still keep.
Now, with that quick refresher course, let us return to the argument Jesus is having with the religious leaders of his day. The authorities think Jesus and his disciples have broken a law by picking heads of grain on the Sabbath. It’s not clear which law they think has been broken, but it is most likely the one about not harvesting on the Sabbath. Jesus’ rhetorical approach is not to engage them in the particularities of what the law says. He immediately shifts the conversation to a broader principle of what Sabbath observance is all about in the first place. And, according to the example he uses, the Sabbath principle is focused on replenishing what is missing in us. And I don’t think he is just talking about food.
This is where I hope you and I can feel a connection to this story. Beyond the particularities of Sabbath law, beyond the ancient debate described in this text, there is a principle Jesus teaches that still has meaning for us today. When he says the Sabbath was created for humankind he isn’t saying God made a day for us to do whatever we please. I think Jesus is saying we all need regular times when we can take note of what is missing in our lives. And for most of us what we are lacking is rest and play and worship and time to relate to others. The reason these soulful things are absent from our lives is that we are doing the noble and necessary work of making a living, taking care of our families, doing good deeds out in the world, and just generally producing and creating at a dizzying pace. And the price we pay for this non-stop production mentality is that we are all tied up inside. Whole pieces of us that need to be exercised are hardly ever given any attention. Even as our bodies and minds grow weary from constant motion and action, our souls grow dry from neglect. The part of us that longs to sing, to play, to pray, and to simply sit still and notice the wonder of creation is locked up and some of us have lost the key. And the key, my friends, is to slow down long enough to take inventory. What is missing, what is lacking, what am I longing for? And to do that takes time. Sabbath time.
But let me be clear about what I am saying. I’m not suggesting we need to take more time to rest and worship and play so we will be re-energized to go out and work even harder and be even more productive. This isn’t a business productivity principle we are talking about. Jesus’ Sabbath principle says take note of what is missing in us because those soulful parts of us are who God created us to be. We are by our very nature creatures who laugh and play, and praise and pray, and make love and contemplate. And we grieve and mourn, and we feel the depth of our losses, and those sad things also deserve time and attention. Because if we do not make space for our heartaches, we will grow hard and the compassion God desires us to develop for all things, including ourselves, will waste away.
Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “The Sunday is the core of our civilization, dedicated to thought and reverence. It invites us to the noblest solitude and to the noblest society.” (The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Volume X, Lectures and Biographical Sketches, 1884.) Emerson, of course, wasn’t just talking about a day of the week. He was talking about the principle of Sabbath, a time dedicated to slowing down to engage the heart and mind and soul. And Emerson not only sees the personal benefits of such Sabbath observance, but societal benefits as well. Indeed, could it be that our affluent and productive nation strains from a pace of life that makes little room for reverence and noble solitude? Is all of our striving and production giving us what we want in terms of physical needs, but maiming our collective national soul? I fear this is so.
Well, then, what do we do? Clearly most Christians are not going to reinstitute a traditional Sabbath observance from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday. And I don’t think we have to. The Sabbath principle Jesus affirms encourages us to take note of what needs replenishing in us and allow the time necessary to let that happen. Start small by refusing to feel guilty whenever you are not working or producing or creating. If you feel drawn to pray, give yourself time to pray. If you need to laugh and play, or cry and grieve, give your soul that chance. What you will find is all those pieces of you that have been tied up for so long will start to wiggle free. And it will feel good. It will feel like liberation.
And me? What am I going to do? The next time I’m driving home from church and I start to wonder why I didn’t do more, I’m going to stop that thought in its tracks. And I’m going to remember that the Creator of us all, after finishing work, decided to take some time off. I guess God knew the work would still be there the day after the Sabbath.