Sunday, October 5, 2014
First
Congregational United Church of Christ – Sermon by Rev. Caela Simmons Wood
I’ve learned a lot from Dr. Seuss over the years.
Awesome new words like “zizzer-zazzer-zuzz” and “fiffer-feffer-feff.” Brilliant
names for children like “Oliver Boliver Butt” and “Zanzibar Buck-buck-McFate.”
Earlier this week I was reading The Sneetches with
our kiddos and my mind wandered to this week’s passage from the book of Exodus.
The Sneetches, of course live on the beaches. Some
of the Sneetches has stars on their bellies and some do not. The star-bellied
Sneetches think they’re hot stuff and are mean to the others. And then, one
day, Sylvester McMonkey McBean shows up in town with his Star On machine. For
just “three dollars eaches” McBean will put stars on the bellies of those who
are lacking. They hop into the machine with glee….only to discover that once
they have stars the original star-bellied Sneetches want to take theirs off.
So…for just ten dollars eaches, McBean ushers them into the Star OFF machine. And
as you can guess, after that, “things really got into a horrible mess.” The
Sneetches jump in and out all day long until “neither the Plain nor the
Star-Bellies knew whether this one was that one or that one was this one. Or
which one was what one or what one was who.”
Finally, though, the
Sneetches learn their lesson. After spending all of their money, they decided
that “Sneetches are Sneetches…and no kind of Sneetch is the best on the
beaches.”
So earlier this week, I
was pondering how the Sneetches reminds me of the Israelites.
I think a lot of people
over the years have thought of the Ten Commandments as the “big bad rules” from
God. People have thought of them
as these strict rules that the Israelites had to follow to earn God’s love.
This
of course, isn’t true. They didn’t earn God’s love by following these rules.
God already loved and cared for the Israelites long before the Ten
Commandments. That, in fact, is why the passage begins, “I am the Lord, your
God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt.” The rules are not a way to earn
God’s love or protection.
This
misunderstanding must have been at work when the Lectionary Committee decided
to pair today’s passage from Phillippians with the Exodus passage.
Paul,
as you may remember, was a devout Jew. As such, he followed the Laws – all of
them, not just the Big Ten. In today’s passage he talks about how he grew up
following the Laws….and how, since discovering Christ, regards them as rubbish.
This is problematic, to say the least.
Because
over the centuries, this disregard for the Laws – this calling them “rubbish” –
has led to lots of problems in Jewish-Christian relations. We Christians have
far too often thought of ourselves as better than Jews because “we don’t need
all those laws.” We have often disregarded the Laws themselves, thinking that
Christ came to get rid of them all. This has not only led us away from a richer
faith, it has also fueled anti-Semitism. I hate that the Lectionary Committee paired
these two passages because I know that there are lectionary preachers out there
saying things like, “We can ignore the Ten Commandments because we know there is
a better way! Jesus came to set us free from the Law! We are saved by grace and
not works!”
These
kinds of proclamations are not only disrespectful of our Jewish neighbors, they
are utterly unhelpful for those of us who are Christian. If we throw out the
Laws, including the Ten Commandments, we miss out on so much.
The
thing is, Jews, too believe they are saved by grace. They were loved before
they followed the Laws. They were loved when they broke all the Laws. Just ask
King David. That dude knew how to break some Laws. God’s love for them – and
for us – is not dependent on our ability for follow rules.
The
Commandments are, instead, a gift from God. A set of boundaries to govern the
Israelites’ lives in an otherwise unruly time and place. They are a way for the
Israelites to remember who and whose they are.
The Sneetches could have
used a Ten Commandments. They could have used a reminder of who they were and
how they should be in relationship with one another. They eventually
remembered, but not before losing all their money.
So when I look at today’s
passage, I find myself wondering, “How can the Ten Commandments help us
remember who we are? How can they help guide our lives, mark us as God’s
beloved children, and create helpful boundaries that govern our living in
unruly times and places?” Because I would surely like to figure that out before
losing all my money to those who blow into town with grand schemes, intent on
taking advantage of my un-rootedness to make a quick buck.
Over the years, as I have
sat with people who feel un-rooted, dismantled, out-of-sorts, worn-down, I have
found myself prescribing the same thing over and over again. It’s one of the
Big Ten, in fact. “Remember the Sabbath, and keep it holy.”
Now I know that
Sabbath-keeping is not something we modern-day Christians talk about too
terribly much. For me, though, it has been absolutely, positively 100% one of
the most powerful spiritual practices that has formed me as a Christian and
enhanced my life. I’d even say that I have experienced it as a tool of
salvation at times.
I didn’t grow up
practicing Sabbath. In fact, I was pretty much turned off by the idea, thanks
to Laura Ingalls Wilder. The only version of Sabbath-keeping I knew was the one
she described: no talking, no laughing, just sitting and reading the Bible all
day. That did not sound like much fun to me, nor did it sound like it could
save my life in any way.
I didn’t think about Sabbath
much until Abraham Heschel opened my eyes to the richness of Sabbath-keeping.[1]
Heschel refers to the Sabbath as “a sanctuary in time” and writes about how the
purpose of Sabbath is to mark that time as different, set apart, holy. Heschel
notes that the Hebrew word for holy is first used in the Bible in reference to
the seventh day of creation. After creating the world and naming each part as
“good,” God rests on the seventh day, and names that day “holy.” The other
parts of creation – the water, the sun, the birds, the fish, the grizzly bears
– they are good, pleasant, nice to be around. But the Sabbath day – the time of
rest – is special. Set apart. Consecrated. Is the one thing God calls holy.
Heschel notes the radical
significance of labeling time as
holy. No object is holy. But this
kind of time is holy.
One of my other guides on
the journey to Sabbath has also noticed the subversive nature of
Sabbath-keeping.
Old Testament scholar
Walter Brueggemann has written a book called Sabbath as Resistance. He explains that Sabbath is not about
worshiping God – so if you were thinking you could check off “keep the Sabbath”
on your to-do list just by coming to worship this morning, Brueggemann would
disagree. Instead, he says that Sabbath is about “work stoppage.” It’s “about
withdrawal from the anxiety system of Pharaoh, the refusal to let one’s life be
defined by production and consumption and the endless pursuit of private
well-being.”[2]
My first practice of
Sabbath-keeping actually derived from this idea of Sabbath as resistance to the
larger culture of consumption. Back when I was in my early 20s I made the
decision to stop shopping on Sundays. That was no easy thing to do living in
Dallas with its glittering shopping malls and alluring gourmet restaurants on
every corner. But I wanted to take at least one day out of my week and say a
resounding NO to the forces of culture that tried to claim me as their own. I
needed to find a way to say NO to the advertisers claim on my identity. A way
to remind myself of who I was – a beloved child of God. It helped. Keeping
Sabbath in that way was incredibly life-giving for me while living in that
non-stop 24-hour-cycle-of-consumption in Dallas.
Over the years, my
practice of Sabbath-keeping has varied. But it has always focused on finding
some way to mark the time as holy – different, set apart, consecrated.
This is not to say that I
sit around the read the Bible all day. For me, Sabbath has often looked like
taking a nap, reading a frivolous magazine, playing with my kids, cooking a big
meal for my family. These are all things I enjoy doing. They don’t feel like
work to me. Someone somewhere along the way told me that a great rule of thumb
for keeping Sabbath was to ask myself, “Am I about to do this thing because I have to or because I want to?”
Sabbath, for me, has been
a time to say NO to the endless loop of production and consumption. In a world
that is product-driven and seems to insist on my completing tasks each day, I
have tried to say no to having my identity defined by what I can produce.
Now I know what you might
be thinking, “How on earth can you ever find a whole day to relax? That seems
impossible.” The short answer is, I don’t always make it work. There have been
whole years where I have fallen off track. It’s not easy and it is often a
struggle. I guess that’s why it’s called a spiritual practice…because I need
lots of practice.
But when I get it right,
it is so worth it, because Sabbath-keeping has been a way of radically
reorienting myself to the demands of the world. Letting the laundry sit there
for the day, letting the e-mails go unanswered – taking that leap has shown me
the truth: I am not as essential as I thought I was. Turns out the world will
keep on turning even if I take the day off. I have to laugh a bit at that
discovery…I mean, in Genesis God took the day off during the creation of the
world and everything was okay. And it turns out I’m not even God.
Now how about that?
That – my friends – gets
at the very core of what Sabbath has been for me. A radical reorientation that
has shook me to the very core of my being.
Sabbath-keeping reminds
me that God is God and I am not.
Sabbath-keeping calms my
anxieties….somehow knowing that I can take a day off from work each week also
helps me feel calmer about the tasks that fly into my face the other six days
of the week.
Sabbath-keeping has saved
me from the lie that the world has offered….that I am only valued for what I
can produce.
Instead, keeping the
Sabbath has reminded me that I belong to God. And that the world around me is
often imbued with a holiness that I am often too busy to see.
Keeping the Sabbath has
felt like a gift to me. And it is a gift that God offers to all of us. Thanks
be to God.
Books with practical how-to help on keeping the Sabbath:
Dawn, Marva J. Keeping the Sabbath
Wholly: Ceasing, Resting, Embracing, Feasting.
Heschel, Abraham Joshua. The
Sabbath.
McKibben-Dana, MaryAnn. Sabbath in
the Suburbs: A Family’s Experience with Holy Time.
Muller, Wayne. Sabbath: Finding
Rest, Renewal, and Delight in Our Busy Lives.
[1] For a great
introduction to Heschel’s thinking on Sabbath: http://www.myjewishlearning.com/practices/Ritual/Shabbat_The_Sabbath/Themes_and_Theology/Sanctuary_in_Time.shtml?p=1
[2] Brueggemann,
Walter. Sabbath as Resistance: Saying NO to the Culture of NOW”
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