Deuteronomy 5:1-15
Sermon by Rev. Caela Simmons Wood
August 25, 2024
Last week we heard the story of Jesus’s quieting a storm at sea. Do you remember the three words he uttered after the disciples woke him up and asked for help? “Peace. Be. Still.”
This week, we’re focused on that middle word - the smallest one, but it packs a big punch: BE.
Fresh off of sabbatical, the word “be” is top of my mind because I spent a lot of time thinking about it these past three months. In our day-to-day lives, we probably don’t make space to ponder “being” as much as we should. When the to-do list is never ending, we don’t have much space to sit around and wonder what we should be doing next - it’s all right there in front of us. There are so many things to get done - our existence can sometimes feel like a never ending quest to complete all the tasks and, hopefully, find a moment of rest at the end of the day.
It can be all-too-easy to forget that we were created as human BEings, not just human DOings.
One Sunday during my sabbatical, I traveled over to Junction City to worship with our kindred at Zion UCC. Their pastor was on vacation that week, but the guest preacher was a lovely retired minister that I’ve known for a decade. He was surprised to see me in a pew, of course, and I explained I was on sabbatical. “How wonderful!” he said, “What are you doing with your sabbatical?”
With a bit of a nervous laugh, I said, “As little as possible!”
I think he looked at me a little funny after that, though I may have just been feeling self conscious. Even though I know that, for me at least, the practice of taking sabbath serious during a sabbatical is the right path, I still have a hard time admitting that to other people. Even in a time specifically set aside for sabbath, the pressure to perform and produce is still there.
Sabbath-keeping is so radically counter-cultural, isn’t it? I suppose that’s why our holy texts present is as a command, rather than just a suggestion. Otherwise, we’d gloss right over it as a ridiculous pie-in-the-sky possibility.
I don’t know about the rest of you, but I was not raised with any concept of sabbath or even a respect for the idea of rest. The messages I received from the world were that I needed to work hard all the time so I could move on to the next thing and the next. I was told that my value was determined by the quality and quantity of what I produced. And if anyone ever told me that rest was a good idea, it was because rest might make me more productive.
But at the beginning of the Bible, God doesn’t rest in order to be more productive. God rests….for the sake of resting, I guess. We’re not really told why. But anyone who has ever taken seriously this commandment to honor the sabbath can tell you all kinds of wonderful things happen as a result. Stress is reduced. Relationships blossom. Physical and mental health improves. Perhaps more than anything, the “magic” of sabbath isn’t about what happens on the day of rest. The real joys are found in the way the other six days flow. When sabbath is a regular part of our spiritual practice, it means that our whole sense of time shifts. It suddenly seems there is more time, not less. Priorities become clearer and our general sense of anxiety about DOING ALL THE THINGS tends to lessen.
As wonderful as sabbath is, we all know that taking a whole day each week to rest can be downright impossible due to economic constraints and the general structure of our society.
So let’s go back to that tiny word: BE. What if we thought about sabbath-keeping as not just about a specific quantity of time but the quality of time. In his 1951 classic, The Sabbath, Rabbi Abraham Heschel points out that God is very concerned with the quality of our time. In fact, Heschel argues that the Bible is MORE concerned with time than with space. He says, “[Scripture] pays more attention to generations, to events, than to countries, to things….We must not forget that it is not a thing that lends significance to a moment; it is the moment that lends significance to things.” [1]
No wonder, then, that God - caring so much about time - puts an emphasis on sabbath-keeping. Heschel calls sabbath “a palace in time” - one of God’s greatest gifts to us - and he reminds us that sabbath “is not a date but an atmosphere.” [2]
We sometimes let the perfect be the enemy of the good when it comes to sabbath. We get so hung up on the impossibilities of doing it by the book, that we give up completely. But what if we took seriously Heschel’s invitation to see sabbath as an atmosphere? Are there ways we can approach time with intention in order to cultivate a spirit of sabbath-keeping even when it’s not a whole set-aside day? Are there ways of BEing in the world that can help us counter the false, hyper-capitalist narrative that our worth lies only in DOing?
I can think of a few ways of BEing that can help us receive God’s gift of sabbath. And I want to hear some of your ideas, too. But before we get into the nitty-gritty, I want to amplify a couple of things Walter Brueggemann lifts up about sabbath. First, Brueggemann names Sabbath as “resistance” - in particular, resistance to the narrative that we are simply cogs in a great economic wheel and that our worth comes from what we produce and consume. He cites the words of Jewish theologian Michael Fishbane who says we “enter the [sabbath] sphere of inaction through divestment.” That very-economic word - divestment - reminds us that sabbath is both very much about economics and it is a communal activity. Brueggemann states it quite clearly. Sabbath is “an alternative to the endless demands of economic reality…that will leave us endlessly ‘rest-less,’ inadequate, [and] unfulfilled.” [3]
Secondly, Brueggeman says “Sabbath is not only resistance. It is alternative… The alternative on offer is the awareness and practice of the claim that we are situated on the receiving end of the gifts of God. To be so situated is a staggering option, because we are accustomed to being on the initiating end of all things. We neither expect nor even want a gift to be given, so inured are we to accomplishing and achieving and possessing.” [4]
Sabbath is a gift to us. We can allow ourselves to receive the gift, but that is a very different posture than toiling to create this palace in time with our own bare hands. Sabbath is not something we strive for, but something we accept.
In that spirit, let’s chat a bit about some things we can do as individuals and as a community to receive this gift of sabbath. This invitation to remember that we are human BEings not just humans DOing.
Here’s quick list that I jotted down earlier this week:
Create margain in our schedules. Do not fill everything up to the brim. It leaves no room for breathing, for just BEing in the day-to-day. Unplanned and unscheduled things will always sneak in, too, and without any margain, we become miserable.
Brueggemann says Sabbath is about “work stoppage” and about remembering that we are citizens of God’s realm, not prisoners of empires here on earth. Sabbath can be about choosing how and when we work. It is also about intentionally monitoring what and when and how we consume.
Sabbath reminds us that joy is a Christian virtue. We were not created to work without ceasing. We were also born to sing, laugh, dance, and be goofy. We were created to appreciate art, nature, and beauty. Making space for joy in daily life is a way of stepping out of DOing and into BEing.
As ridiculous as it sounds at first, I think praying without ceasing is actually not an impossible goal. Depending on how we define prayer, of course. I define it as orienting ourselves to the already-present reality of God among us. And that’s something that can be taken with us into the classroom, the board room, the grocery store, the family dinner table, and hiking trail. Carrying the awareness of God’s presence frees us to BE and it’s a way of tapping into the gift of Sabbath in our daily lives.
Okay. Those are a few of mine. What do you have? What are some ways we can embrace this gift of sabbath? Ways that we can remember we are human BEings not just humans doing?
(conversation)
Let’s close with the words of Lonnie Rashid Lynn, better known as the musician Common. These are the closing words of the first song on his 2005 album, Be:
Walk like warriors, we were never told to run
Explored the world to return to where my soul begun
Never looking back, or too far in front of me
The present is a gift, and I just wanna be
NOTES
[1] Heschel, Abraham. The Sabbath, 6.
[2] Ibid., 21.
[3] Brueggemann, Walter. Sabbath as Resistence, xi-xii.
[4] Ibid., xiv.
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