Deuteronomy 5:12-15
Do you remember when you were a kid on the first day of summer? I remember waking up in my bed, thinking to myself, “What am I going to do today?” A limitless horizon stretched out before me: the entire summer. Of course there would be chores to help my mother, and weeding the garden with my dad. But at that moment all I could think about was me and my friends and hanging out at the pool. It was pure freedom.
On Memorial Day this week, the unofficial beginning of summer, I had the liberty of sitting out on my patio first thing in the morning and asking myself, what do I want to do today? I did have a few things I needed to do, like visit my mom and feed myself. But other than that, I gave myself permission to put aside all the other to do lists and simply do what came to me. It was, for that brief moment, like channeling summer vacation.
It’s part of the American ethos to work hard and be independent. Americans work several hundred hours more per year than our European counterparts. With work expectations and family commitments, many people are always running somewhere. It’s a cultural preoccupation with productivity and activity.
But it’s not solely our culture that is to blame—it’s human nature to focus on doing and forget about simply being. That’s why taking time to enjoy life and our Creator who gave us life is one of the Ten Commandments. “Observe the sabbath day and keep it holy, as the LORD your God commanded you,” our passage from Deuteronomy says. “Six days you shall do all your work. But the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God; You shall not do any work—you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, or your ox or your donkey, or the resident alien in your towns… so they may rest as well as you.”
Today’s passage is actually the second time this commandment is stated. Moses gave the Ten Commandments to the people at Mt. Sinai as told in the book of Exodus—forty years later, he reminds the Israelites of these commandments, from our reading today. The commandments describe how to live well with God and each other. Sabbath keeping is among the first and most important commandments.
The literal meaning of the word ‘Sabbath’ or ‘shabbat’ means “to cease or desist.” In other words, to stop doing, accomplishing, and performing. To rest. In Exodus, Sabbath keeping imitates God who created the world in six days, and on the seventh day, ‘shabbat-ed’—rested. All of the people, including foreigners and slaves, the animals, even the land itself, rest as a part of the divine rhythm of creation. Sabbath keeping, like the other commandments, is not a dreary obligation, but rather a beautiful gift that keeps people in harmony with the rest of creation.
Here in Deuteronomy, we have an additional reason for keeping the sabbath. “Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the LORD your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm; therefore the LORD your God commanded you to keep the sabbath day.” The Sabbath is a regular, tangible reminder that though the Israelites knew what it was like to be slaves, they are now a free people—free from the tyranny of toil; free from always having to produce and prove their worth; free to choose enjoyment and community with God, neighbor, and creation.
When I was a young pastor, I really struggled with life-work balance. I knew the tyranny of toil. I loved scripture and writing and preaching, and I was good at it. And yet every other week when it was my turn to preach, I was miserable. I belabored every word; I worried over each phrase. Even when I wasn’t working on my sermon, I was consumed by it. My husband began to dread these weeks because I became impossible to be with.
One day when I was with the local rabbi, he said, “If there is one gift that the Jews can give the world, I think it’s the Sabbath.” When I asked him what he meant, he gave me a piece a college student had recently written. In the essay, the student outlined her life. She could see it all from her seat at her desk: granola bars in the drawer, bed within feet, fork in front of her at the computer and among the books. She could spend all week in that spot, rarely emerging except to go to class and occasionally to catch a brief meal at the 24-hour cafe. Time had little meaning, as she worked regardless of day or night or season.
On her computer, however, she had posted a note, “Shabbat’s coming, baby.” Shabbat is the Hebrew word for the Jewish Sabbath. Each Friday night, before sundown, she turned off her computer and emerged from her cave. She went to the prayers and the meal and connected with the things that mattered most: friends, community, God, and the enjoyment of life. It restored both her sanity and her soul.
I recognized myself in this young woman’s story. And I started to desire the gift within this commandment. I began to invite people over on Sunday evenings for a meal, carving out time for enjoyment. I began a daily practice of putting away my to-do list for a few minutes each day, opting instead to sit in the sun and quietly drink a cup of tea. Sometimes I would even shirk my duties for an hour and do something that I enjoyed. Gradually I came to experience myself as free—free to choose to work, or to rest. I was no longer a slave to my expectations or anyone else’s.
You don’t have to take a whole day off to observe the Sabbath commandment. Start by taking 20 minutes to yourself. Call a friend or write a letter. Do something that nurtures your sense of enjoyment. Perhaps do nothing at all, and simply notice the beauty around you. Put aside your to do list, and simply rest in God’s love for you as you are. That’s sabbath keeping.
Poet Mary Oliver captured the spiritual practice of Sabbath in her poem Summer Day:
The Summer Day
Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean—
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down—
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
People of God, you are no longer slaves. You have been blessed with the Sabbath. The tyranny of time and toil has no power over us. You are a beloved child, and every day is like the first day of summer vacation: you are free. What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?