Sabbath

During this week’s annual diocesan clergy conference, Bishop Jennifer invited us to a time of rest. Though I needed to leave early I have tried to embrace the practice of rest this week, even if it’s only to take extra time to breathe between tasks. In that spirit, I’m allowing Brother Curtis Almquist of the Society of St. John the Evangelist to take the lead this week.  Here are some excerpts from a sermon he preached in 2018. (You can read the full sermon, “Keeping the Sabbath Wholly,” online.)

Why is sabbath rest necessary? Aristotle presumed that relaxation is not an end in itself.  Relaxation, he said, is for the sake of activity: we rest, we relax, for the sake of gaining strength to return to work.  Isn’t that familiar?  But this is not the biblical understanding.  The Hebrew understanding is that the rest is the goal or the end; it’s the purpose, it’s the crown, it’s the culmination of the week.  Rabbi Abraham Heschel writes that sabbath rest is not for the purpose of recovering lost strength to be able to return to work.  It’s the opposite.  Sabbath rest is for the sake of life.

Say “yes”: Say “yes” to God that you will live within the life parameters in which you’ve been created.  You need to sleep every night… but you need more than that.  You need the space to “be” as a human and not just “do.” ... Claiming and revering space for rest and re-creation is absolutely essential for your living a whole life.  Don’t wait for the intervention of your cardiologist or your psychiatrist, or for your death-bed to get clear what is most important in life.

Say “no”: If you cannot say “no” to yourself and “no” to others, you’re really not free to say “yes.” … Consider putting a boundary around your availability to email and social media – when others can and cannot get at you.  If the first thing you do habitually in the morning is check your email, or search Facebook, or click on NPR – which may completely allow yourself to be hijacked – then take on some other holy practice to begin the gift of a new day.  Put some constraints on your electronic gadgetry: how you are accessed, and how you access other people. … Where [else] should you say “no” to your availability to do the things you are being endlessly requested to do?   Where should you say “no” so that you can live a “yes” to the prior claims of life?

Sabbath rest is holy: Sabbath-keeping is not just about stopping, important as that is. Sabbath-keeping is about sanctifying, which is the practice of holiness.  You are the holy one.  You are one in whom God has chosen to dwell. … Holiness is about living our whole life, practicing the presence of God, and by the terms in which God has created life, which includes sabbath rest.

What if I can’t set aside an entire day for rest? If you’ve lost the practice of keeping sabbath time – or perhaps never had this practice – enjoying an entire day of sabbath may be unimaginable, perhaps impossible, at least for now.  If so, what time could you set aside in a day? Or perhaps in several days?  Be intentional.  If need be, start small. 

But isn’t my life measured by what I accomplish and what I do? Sabbath-keeping is countercultural, it’s also essential. We are hard-wired to need it.  Claiming and revering space for rest and re-creation is absolutely essential for you to be whole and holy.  We don’t rest in order to be more efficient.  We don’t rest in order to work better.  We practice a sabbath rest to be fully alive. You need it.  God knows, you need it.  And you’re worth it.