The Sabbath Not A Nap

Exodus 20:9 states that humanity should complete all of its labor in 6 days. “Six days shalt thou labor and do all thy work.”

In The Sabbath, Jewish rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel asks is it possible to do all ones work in 6 days?

Heschel’s interpretation is that we should rest AS IF all of our work is done. He goes further to state that we should rest from even the thought of labor.

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Sabbath – Necessity of Unplugging From The Matrix

We find ourselves in a society where leisure time is shrinking. We are on a long trend of work, work and more work. Many of us judge ourselves by how busy we are. Some see a beeper as a sign of “importance.”

We are busy, but what are we doing? Sometimes you can be so busy doing things that you don’t ever take a step back and see how this busyness affects our families, friendships, and connection to God.
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Sabbath More Fully?

I remember talking to a Seventh day Sabbatarian once about some of the emerging literature on the Sabbath. This Sabbatarian didn’t see the relevance of Sabbath beyond Seventh Day Sabbath Apologetics. By that I mean defense and teaching of the seventh day as the Bible Sabbath. She asked me, “what else do we need to know but that the Seventh day is the Sabbath?”

The question betrays an attitude that will on the one hand promote ecclesial chauvinism and on the other hand promotes a lack of theological sophistication in matters surrounding the Sabbath. First it promotes ecclesial chauvinism as we sit back proud of the fact that we keep the Seventh day while others do not. We “know the day” and they “do not.” But our celebration of that day is not enriched by an understanding of what role Sabbath plays or should play in our daily lives.

Which leads to our next issue of turning the Sabbath into simply a day in which we “go to church and sleep” rather than a day we more fully embrace and live in God’s coming Basilea.

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