Stop Driving Yourself Crazy
As we begin today, I’d like to ask you a couple questions (and don’t raise your hands). Did you come to church today tired? Is there anyone here today feeling overwhelmed by the pace of life? Have you ever been so busy that you just needed a moment to catch your breath? Today’s sermon might be just the answer to balance busy lives.
March 20, 2011
Exodus 20: 8-11, Stop Driving Yourself Crazy
Mary Scheer, Brewster Baptist Church
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Preparations for this sermon came at the same time our 9 month old granddaughter came for an extended visit almost 2 weeks ago. Right about now, the Sabbath looks pretty good to everyone at our house.
Today we’re looking at the fourth Commandment, which says, “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.” (Ex. 20: 8-11 TNIV)
The Sabbath , (or Shabbat in Hebrew, means to cease). Some people view the Sabbath as a day filled with rules and restrictions, others see it as a gift being a day of rest and spiritual enrichment.
How do you view it? Have you thought seriously about the Sabbath?
Growing up, my family had our own version of observing the Sabbath. Like most families in our town, we went to church and then went home for the rest of the day. We stayed in as a family, ate a formal Dinner on special Sunday linen and good china.
We played games and read and relaxed. Although we didn’t have a lot of rules about Sunday, it was understood by everyone that we did not go to friends houses, or go shopping, most stores were closed anyway. There were no sports practices or school activities on Sunday, in part because very few families would have allowed their kids to participate on Sunday.
When my kids were little, I kept the tradition of special Sunday suppers and a slower pace, but it was mostly out of tradition and as they got older, it became more difficult to keep when there was a higher cost to saying no to things as the school, sports and music programs began to have more practices on Sunday.
The Sabbath in the Old Testament was the 7th day of the week, which is our Saturday. The early Christians moved their corporate worship to the evening after the Sabbath and the morning of the first day of the week, on Sunday. The practice of resting on the first day of the week was established and Sunday worship became the norm for Christians.
How did people understand the Sabbath in the day it was given?
The Sabbath had two parts, “to remember” and to “keep it holy.” Deuteronomy 5: 12 says to “observe the Sabbath day “by” keeping it holy.” (NIV)
In order for Israel to “keep the Sabbath holy,” it had to be “observed” a certain way.
To begin with, there were a lot of things forbidden, specifically certain kinds of work. The Torah does permit “work” in our sense of the word, but it does not permit “melachah” which refers to work in creating the universe, which God rested from on the 7th day.
Beginning in Gen 1:31, the Bible says, “God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day. Then the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array.
By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.”
Apart from creation, the word “melachah” was only used again in describing the work of building the Temple and its vessels. (Ex. 31: 35-38). And during the building work would stop to observe the Shabbat.
From this, the Rabbis decided that the work prohibited on Shabbat is creative and building work like the kind done in creating the temple. So they considered the kind of work that went into building the temple and came up with 39 categories of work and deemed them all forbidden on the Sabbath.
This included things like sowing, plowing, reaping, binding, washing, grinding, kneading, weaving, writing, building, building a fire, putting out a fire, hitting with a hammer and more. Travel, buying, selling and other weekday tasks were also prohibited. All restrictions however, can be lifted in order to save a life. (Mishnah Shabbat, 7:2)
In preparing for this sermon, I called a friend who is a Rabbi and an observant Jew to ask about how the Sabbath is kept today.
For the most part, an observant Jew will keep the Sabbath beginning by leaving work at 2-3 on Friday afternoon to begin preparations. Two candles representing the command to “remember” and “observe” are lit to mark the beginning of the Sabbath. Or some families light a candle for each member of the family.
The house is cleaned, the table set, and everything that cannot be done on the Sabbath is done in advance. He said, it takes some work and planning every week, but you get used to planning ahead.
Sabbath begins at sunset on Friday because Gen. 1:5 says, “and there was evening and there was morning, one day.” And ends at nightfall (when 3 stars are visible, or 40mn after sunset) on Saturday. They do not drive, they only walk as far as they can go and return easily, they don’t write, shop or engage in creative work.
The command to cease from their work was taken so seriously that it carried with it the death penalty for violators.
Moses assembled the whole Israelite community and said to them, “These are the things the Lord has commanded you to do: For six days, work is to be done, but the seventh day shall be your holy day, a day of Sabbath rest to the Lord. Whoever does any work on it is to be put to death.” (Ex 35: 1-3; Numbers 15: 32-36)
When Jesus came, he brought a new understanding about the difference between the letter of the law and the spirit of the law.
At that time Jesus went through the grain-fields on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry and began to pick some heads of grain and eat them. When the Pharisees saw this, they said to him, “Look! Your disciples are doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath.”
He answered, “Haven’t you read what David did when he and his companions were hungry? He entered the house of God, and he and his companions ate the consecrated bread—which was not lawful for them to do, but only for the priests.
Or haven’t you read in the Law that the priests on Sabbath duty in the temple desecrate the Sabbath and yet are innocent? I tell you that something greater than the temple is here.
If you had known what these words mean, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the innocent. For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.” Then he said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. (Mt. 12: 1-8; Mk 2:27)
Paul went on to say there is no judgment for the church for how the Sabbath is kept:
When you were dead in your sins…God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross…Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day.
These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ. (Col. 2: 13-17)
This broadens the sense of a physical Sabbath to include a spiritual Sabbath.
The writer of Hebrews said, “Therefore, since the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us be careful that none of you be found to have fallen short of it…Now we who have believed enter that rest, just as God has said…There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from their works, just as God did from his. (Heb 4: 1-3a; 9-11)
We enter that rest when we place our trust in the finished work of Christ which was completed at the cross. He is our rest.
Is the Sabbath for us today? The legal penalty for not observing the Sabbath according to the Rabbinical Law was done away with when Christ fulfilled the law.
But that doesn’t mean that the command to observe the Sabbath is done away with. While there is no legal penalty from the Rabbinical law, the original purpose and blessings that accompany the Sabbath remain.
Observing the Sabbath sets apart time that is holy – In talking about creating a cathedral in time, Abraham Joshua Heschel who was one of America’s leading Rabbi’s and Jewish Theologians, said that,
“The Sabbath is a reminder of every man’s royalty; an abolition of the distinction of master and slave, rich and poor, success and failure.
To celebrate the Sabbath is to experience one’s ultimate independence of civilization and society, of achievement and anxiety. The Sabbath is an assurance that beyond the good is the Holy.
The universe was created in six days, but the climax of creation was the seventh day.
Things that come into being in the six days are good, but the seventh day is Holy. The Sabbath is holiness in time.”
The Sabbath helps us to model ourselves after God’s qualities. He is merciful, so we are merciful; he rested, so we rest. God stopped and reflected on his creation and appreciated it, proclaiming it as good.
So we focus on the good in the world and on the kingdom of God. In doing this, we reconnect with God in a way that leads to appreciation and gratitude.
Because the Sabbath commemorates… the day God won freedom for the Israelites from their slavery in Egypt, we should take time to reflect on the ways that we have been freed from our slavery to sin and our slavery to culture and environment.
The Sabbath encourages us to trust God. After the Israelites left Egypt, and had been walking through the desert for some time, they complained to Moses because they were starving and they missed the food available to them in Egypt.
So God told Moses, “I will rain down bread from heaven for you. The people are to go out each day and gather enough for that day. In this way I will test them and see whether they will follow my instructions.
On the sixth day they are to prepare what they bring in, and that is to be twice as much as they gather on the other days.”
The Lord sent them quail at night and manna in the morning. They were to gather just what they would need one day at a time, except for Friday, they gathered for 2 days.
However, some people ignored Moses and gathered more and tried to store the leftovers but they rotted.
When they gathered extra on the sixth it did not rot and when some tried to go out to find food on the 7th day there was none. (Exodus 16: 1-30)
God is not found in our business. God has designed it so that our Listening, experiencing and learning to trust him happen best in our rest.
One day Jesus and his disciples went to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. Martha’s sister Mary sat on the floor listening to Jesus talk while Martha did all the work of preparing and serving the food.
The text says, “Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made.” She went to Jesus and complained, “don’t you care that my sister just sits here while I do all the work, tell her to help me.”
I can think back to many holiday meals growing up and even after returning home as an adult where one sister always took a nap after meals leaving the other sister and I to do the clean-up and the dishes…I can feel for Martha!
If you’re someone who values efficiency and order than you can understand the tension that Martha’s feeling. But Jesus defends Mary’s choice saying, “you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better and it will not be taken away from her.” (Lk 10: 38-42)
Resting at the feet of the Lord of the Sabbath, she experienced and understood Jesus in a way that Martha could not. She was able to rest there without distraction, without being upset or worried. (see also Jn. 12:1-8)
How many of us think of rest and stillness as being a holy endeavor? How many of us would say, “God brought me to this place or that place to rest?”
Psalm 23 says, He leads me beside still waters, he makes me lie down in green pasture, and restores my soul. The lying down comes before the restoring!
Even in our restful places like vacations we try to pack in as much as possible.
Yet God is intentional about mapping out times for us to rest.
Listen to this verse from Psalm 139 from the Today’s Living Bible.
“O Lord, you have examined my heart and know everything about me. You know when I sit or stand. When far away you know my every thought.
You chart the path ahead of me, and tell me where to stop and rest. Every moment, you know where I am.
You know what I am going to say before I even say it. You both precede and follow me, and place your hand of blessing on my head.” (Ps 139: 1-5 TLB)
So often it is in our stillness that we are most able to sense God’s presence. During some of Israel’s most frantic moments, God told them to stop and be still so they could see God’s deliverance.
While God used the Sabbath to teach Israel to trust in his provisions, others such as a man with a crippled hand, a woman who had been bent over for 18 years, and a man who suffered from abnormal swelling all over his body were healed, liberated, restored, and relieved of their burdens on the Sabbath. (Lk 6: 1-11; 13: 10-16)
Though he used these opportunities to speak to the Pharisees about the spirit of the law and the mercy of God, the Bible is full of stories of people who met God on the Sabbath and were forever changed.
I wonder what we miss out on in passing up setting a whole day aside to observe the Sabbath.
For it is uniquely powerful in its ability to prompt gratitude and worship, to encourage rest and deepen faith and trust, to restore balance and sharpen our vision of what really matters. And it has the power it has to deepen our relationship with God.
There’s a saying that says, “more than Israel has kept Shabbat, Shabbat has kept Israel.”[1]
Many people struggle with feeling like there’s not enough time and feeling overwhelmed by the pace of their lives.
But that’s not supposed to be how life is. Jesus invited, “come to me you who are weary and heavy burdened and I will give you rest.” But we can’t run up to him, say, “here, I’m giving you my burden, now give me rest.” It takes time.
Life can become so busy that if we’re not careful even worship can become just another event to get through in the week, we go home after church, hang up our clothes and move on to the next item.
The Sabbath protects us from that, providing time that is holy to reflect in worship and let our worship do its work in us. Through the prophet Ezekiel, God said, On the Sabbath the people of the land are to worship in the presence of the Lord. (Ez 46: 1-3)
Worship is an essential part of the way we keep the Sabbath day holy as it redirects the focus of our heart from things and work, to God and worship.
In many ways the secular world and its values can be a challenge to the Christian faith especially to the call to come apart or separate ourselves from the world.
Although the church may not observe the legal aspects of the Sabbath with its various restrictions, it is one of the Ten Commandments and so remains an important principal for living the Christian faith today.
We should view the Sabbath as a gift. It’s a special time for worship, for reflecting and being grateful. It’s a time to refocus our priorities from the secular to the holy, a time to recharge our physical and emotional batteries, to reconnect with family and strengthen our faith.
The 4th Commandment presents an interesting challenge for us inviting us to look and consider whether we are so caught up in a 24X7 life style that we have forgotten who we are, who God is.
I’d like to extend a challenge for us to step up the ways we honor the Sabbath to keep it holy.
Will you look for ways to increase how intentional you are about setting apart the Sabbath day? You may want to keep a journal and record any lessons or blessings you observe or changes you experience as you step out in response to God’s invitation and command to join him in rest on this holy day.
[1] Judaism 101: Shabbat. http://www.jewfaq.org/shabbat.htm