I went on a girls’ trip this past weekend. We made a point
of doing things we couldn’t normally do with kids (go on a strenuous, uphill
hike; eat at a fancy restaurant; watch girl movies),
but I think the part I enjoyed most were the leisurely mornings and conversations.
It wasn’t until I was away from it that I realized how often I live at home
with a sense of what must be done: chores, monitoring the kids, always a sense
of multi-tasking and planning ahead.
I’ve been thinking for a while about this concept of the
Sabbath. I like thinking of it as acting out our belief and trust in God as
creator and sustainer. As William Willimon said, “Sabbath keeping is a publicly
enacted sign of our trust that God keeps the world, therefore we do not have
to. God welcomes our labors, but our contributions to the world have their
limits. If even God trusted creation enough to be confident that the world
would continue while God rested, so should we.”
I also like thinking of Sabbath in the context of our
work-driven culture. We live in a world where work defines our value and
identity; it’s all about productivity, efficiency, and doing it all. We bring
work home through email, texts, and pagers. Those who work at home—take online
classes, telecommute, parent—have an even harder time leaving work.
In our culture, we work until we’re burned out, then splurge
on a vacation to get away from it all: but the Sabbath is not retreat so much
as rhythm; as Eugene Peterson describes it, “entering into the rhythm of
creation.” Even God, who is all-powerful, chose to rest for one of the seven
days—to shabbat, which literally
means to stop—and so we are created to do the same.
I also like thinking about what it means to make time holy.
Marva Dawn brings this up in her book Keeping The Sabbath Wholly: how
Abraham Heschel argues that we have a faith that aims at the sanctification of
time, as opposed to Western civilization’s drive to conquer space. The first
thing in the Bible that is designated as “holy” is not a place, but a time, the
seventh day.
“Time,” insists Peter Forsyth, “is a sacrament of eternity.” When I set
apart time to sabbath, I am acknowledging that time itself belongs to and is
created by God, a God who is himself outside of time and will one day draw us
outside of time as well. Time is not something I must control and bow down to
and be driven by.
What does it mean for our family to observe a Sabbath? For
me, since I can’t exactly stop being a mom one day a week?
Often a weekend day is when we stop our “regular” work
(school, day jobs) so we can catch up on “other” work (yard work, errands, meal
planning, laundry) and feel good about what we’ve done. But I think Sabbath is
more about separating our identity from any
work.
For me, even though I still am at home, it means I stop
doing the kind of housework and parenting that feels like a chore—and instead
enjoy. It might mean I cook something because I or the kids really love it, as
a special feast. It might mean I don’t harangue Ellie about doing a math or
piano lesson, but instead draw a story with her or go outside to collect snails—things
that help us enjoy creation and how we are created. It might mean we hang out
with friends. If Sunday is our sabbath, it means going to church with an
attitude of special anticipation rather than as cultural obligation or
drudgery.
To approach the Sabbath not legalistically, but intentionally,
probably looks slightly different for everyone. But it should make us look
different to everyone around us. In a work-harried, achievement-focused world,
to stop, to rest and feast and enjoy creation, not just once in a while but
every single week, is to spell out with our time what we’re living for in this
life.
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