Sabbath scofflaws

Why do we need Sabbath?  In my first sermon on Sabbath (Feb 21) I mentioned 5 of the Transforming Center's 15 signs of a tired soul: irritability,  feeling pressured for time, emotional numbness, shortchanging important relationships, and isolation.  If we have these signs, then we probably have tired souls.  

Now let me turn that around.  Instead of asking why we need Sabbath, let me ask: Why do we have tired souls?  The answer: Because we don't keep Sabbath.

A lot of us have been "9 commandment Christians" for a long time.  Jesus said to the Pharisees that "the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath".  The Pharisees needed the second part of Jesus’ rebuke because they were making Sabbath-keeping burdensome for people who really wanted to follow God’s laws.  We evangelicals need the first part of Jesus’ rebuke, "The Sabbath was made for man”: Sabbath was given for our flourishing.  Really.  Yet this is the one commandment out of ten that we are most likely to disregard.  It's no wonder that there are so many worn-out, irritable, emotionally numb, isolated evangelicals.  We are constantly violating the Sabbath.  

Evangelicals tend to be workaholics.  We justify our existence through work and if we don’t feel a sense of worth, we work more and harder.  Another way of saying this is that we believe we are saved by work.  In a recent book, "The Radical Pursuit of Rest", John Koessler starts by breaking the connection between rest and work: we shouldn’t rest so that we can work, or work so that we can reward ourselves with rest.  His radical (but biblical) idea is that rest is an end in itself.  We are designed to enter into rest (Heb 4:3).

Jesus tells us that if we are truly resting our work will be easy: “my yoke is easy and my burden is light”.  For people who are addicted to work and exhaustion as a way of finding worth, that makes no sense.  "Work is supposed to make me tired!  It’s not work if it doesn’t make me tired."  Jesus doesn’t say that he will get rid of work.  Work is a gift from God, given before the Fall.  The Message puts it this way: “Walk with me and work with me...you’ll learn to live freely and lightly" (Matt 11:28-30).  

Jesus calls me not to work so that I will flourish, but to rest so that I will flourish.  How will I respond?

Is Jesus a tollbooth?

John 14:6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."

 Most people today (including evangelical Christians) would interpret this verse as saying that Jesus is the gateway to God.  It's as if Jesus is sitting in some sort of tollbooth that everyone must get past in order to get into "heaven".  

But Jesus is saying that he is much more than that and that the destination is much more than some place we might call "heaven".  The destination is a Person, the Father.  So Jesus is describing a relationship.  The "way" has something to do with how we should act, our lifestyle or ethical standards.  But we do these things because it's how we get to know our Father.  In a relationship, we try to do things that put us in a better position to know the other person, like re-arranging our calendar to spend time together.  The behaviors themselves have importance only as a way to get to know the other.

The "truth" means that Jesus knows us inside and out.  It also has to do with Jesus' reliability, that he is "true".  And it has to do with our being completely transparent with Jesus, just as he is with us.  In a relationship, being open and honest is the way to deepening the relationship.  We don't want to just know facts about the other person, we want to know her/him intimately.  

The "life" means that knowing Jesus motivates me, he moves me.  He is such a good and beautiful person that I will do whatever it takes to know him more because it is such an enriching and enjoyable experience.  When I engage in a favorite hobby, I become more intense, more energized.  When I talk about that thing I become more animated.  How much more so when I am with a person that I love or when I am talking about someone I find to be good and beautiful.  And having a relationship with Jesus and thus with the Father is even more so because he already loves me more than I could imagine (Rom 5:8).

I John 2:12-14 offers us 3 stages of spiritual maturity.  Children are concerned with what they "ought to do".  Young adults are cognitively developed enough to be able to understand truth.  Elders are those who know God deeply and have a depth of life that is beyond simply being moral or knowledgeable.  The physical powers of an elder may be waning but if s/he has connected with the source of all life, s/he will have a sparkle in their eyes and a zest for life that will find its fullest expression when they are living unfettered in the age to come, the Kingdom of God that will someday break through and transform this currently corrupted world. 

God and your calendar

Is God in your calendar?

Think back on a typical day: when did you set aside time for God?  Does he show up if you were to search your calendar?  Of course, we don’t normally enter daily routine items, like waking up, brushing our teeth, etc.  But until our time with God becomes as routine as brushing our teeth, maybe we do need to enter it so that our computer or smartphone or smartwatch can remind us to spend time with him.  

Many Christian groups through the years have ordered their day with times of prayer.  Matins or Lauds is the prayer time that starts the day.  Vespers closes the day.  These are some of the divine “offices”, which comes from the Latin word opus or “work”.  These times of prayer would help people to take time in their day to pay attention to God.  They are just as important as the work of farming or engineering because they help us see the meaning of what we are doing.  They help us become aware of how we fit into God’s purposes in the world. 

These times of prayer aren't supposed to be a spiritual checklist of tasks to be accomplished to get on God’s good side: “Morning prayer, check.  Evening prayer, check."  We are saved by grace, “not by works so that no one can boast” (Eph 2:8-9).  But they help us to grow as children of God, first by reminding us that we are God’s children, and then by creating space for us to be with our Father.  They help us live into the truth of our relationship with God.

So this coming year, put God in your calendar.  Believe me, he won't stand you up.