| Walter Brueggemann keeps us looking at the importance of the command to keep holy the sabbath. This is again from "Mandate to Difference." This command stands at the center of the decalogue and dominates the horizon of commands at Sinai; - The seventh day is holy....requiring a disengagement from the way we devote our other days to ourselves
- The seventh day is for work stoppage....
- The requirement of work stoppage is comprehensive....
- But it is the motivations for work stoppage that is important for us. The grounding of this dramatic work stoppage is that creation itself culminated in work stoppage for the creator after six days of creation. As a consequence, this day, which is unlike every other day, is blessed, invested with power of life and healing, devoted to the mystery of God's own life.
- From the eternal foundation of the world, the reality of God is not invested in perpetually "continuing creation," and so the ones in God's image are not invested in perpetual productivity. Work stoppage characterizes the way in which the creator relates to creation.
As I was reading through this, I realized that this day is also a day when there would be nothing to do. This could mean no worship. We worship and honor and obey our God by letting go of our control of the day and maybe - even how we think we are to "structure" the day. Rest - do nothing - do not use it a day to complete a project or even one where people have to pick up responsibilities within what we call a worship "service." What would that kind of thinking do to worship life. Well, it might make worship something we do in the midst of all the other things of the week. it might be that worship is the work of the people that orders our week. That is work. Then, another day - a day of rest - a time to let go of the pull to create the world as we would want it. Productivity is our way of attempting to rule. I have to hear this more than I have to write about it. Then....I wonder if it is work to enter into something that brings a person joy and refreshment and a sense of community. I don't think that is so. I suppose we simply need not make the whole command to rest something we think we must regulate so that even thinking about the day makes us work about how to keep it holy. Connection: It has taken me years to let go of the ordering of the day into segments of work. Some weeks, I do let go and rest even when I could be "doing something" or "getting something done." I have also come to see being with friends a way to rest and enter into a sacred time of simple conversation, fun, and food...and whatever. You bless this day, O God, and you hand us our lives and tell us to be full of life and then also to make sure that we are full of rest. Guide us in our resting and stepping out of the currents of the day and simply sitting back and putting our feet into the refreshing movement of your river of life and rest in you alone. Amen. |
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