Remember the Sabbath Day

One can often discern the seriousness that a value holds for a particular community by the scandal that is created when the value is not observed as expected. This comes up in families and in churches frequently, especially where expected traditions are concerned. Christmas dinner just has not been had unless Aunt Susan's famous homemade dinner rolls are on the table. Candlemas was ruined if the choir failed to sing the psalm to that one particular tune while candles were distributed. You know the sort of scandal to which I refer here.

Observing the Sabbath as a day with out work, buying, or selling must have been of great importance to Jesus' community. This may seem like an obvious statement. After all, maintenance of the Sabbath as a holy day is one of the Ten Commandments. But, as you and I know, not every community keeps every commandment or tradition with the same vigour. Some are a little easier to let slide than others. The reason that I say the Sabbath must have been important to first century Israelites is because, between the four gospels, Jesus is accused at least eight times of breaking the Sabbath observance.

It is true that Jesus lives in something of a fishbowl. He has a crowd of disciples following him about and more than a few detractors, watching for the moments when he puts a foot wrong. Of course, Jesus always has a suitable rebuttal for his critics, but the fact remains that carrying out something that even looks like work on the Sabbath is a big problem in his community. This is a commandment and tradition to be given the utmost respect.

Certainly some of this seriousness about the Sabbath is because it is a clear divine commandment. For over 1,000 years, this keeping of one day each week as a day of rest for every one and every thing has been an important identity marker for the people of Israel. The Romans, Babylonians, Assyrians, Egyptians, and other neighbours do not have an equivalent tradition. The Sabbath is part of what makes Israel identifiably the people of God.

In the world of first century southwest Asia, a Sabbath is a radical statement. This is a world where wealth is idolized just as much as in ours. It is also a world where slavery as a means of generating wealth is commonplace. In a society that is willing to dehumanize some people into property for the sake of making others wealthy, imagine what a powerful comment a Sabbath day is. A day when nobody works. Not merchants nor farmers, not slaves, not even oxen or donkeys. Every one and every thing has a shared day of rest. Time to pray, visit family, sleep, play games, do nearly anything save work or commerce. What a blessing God has given humanity in the Sabbath. (Mark 2:27)

Sabbath rest also takes hold on a larger scale for the people of Israel. Fields are given years of rest when nothing is planted, allowing the soil to regenerate. There was a hope that every 50th year, the year after seven cycles of seven years, would be a Year of Jubilee in ancient Israel. A year of economic rest and regenerations when slaves were freed, lands returned to their original owners, and debts forgiven. It is uncertain how often Jubilee years actually happened; they represented a great disadvantage to the wealthy and powerful who were in control of such possibilities.

We, today, are not a Sabbath-keeping people. It would be a difficult practice to impose on a society as varied in religion and culture as Canada. But even here, at St John's in Hamilton, there is very little discussion about days of rest as a part of our faith practice. Certainly, we would be hard-pressed to find a common day of rest for everyone in the congregation to share.

I can say, from my own efforts at keeping a day of rest each week, that it is a difficult discipline. Some parts are easy enough. I look forward to one day a week when I am not allowed or expected to look at emails. But it is so easy to see an empty day on the calendar and immediately begin thinking of all that needs doing. It would be so simple to put in a load of laundry or wash the floors or look at just one more book for a few notes for Sunday's sermon. And how easy to place an order online with just a few taps on the phone. But no work and no commerce means no work and no commerce, even the kinds we enjoy or feel can't wait. Just like carving out time to pray when we feel there aren't enough minutes in the day, keeping a day of rest is remarkably difficult.

But what a statement it would be if more of us set a day of rest and held to it. In a culture that has made a golden calf out of productivity and constant access by employers or customers, imagine what a revolutionary act it would be to say, "I am not available; I keep a day of rest that is more important than making money or generating productivity."

We hear business leaders and politicans all over North America calling for employees to return to working at their office desks. Declarations that the work from home era has ended and idols like productivity and the economy demand workers return to their task chairs. This in spite of all of the evidence that we produce more today than even before the COVID-19 pandemic (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, October 2024; Statistics Canada, Productivity 2000-2024) —to the great detriment of our planet—and that many studies (Mental Health & Prevention, June 2025; Journal of Occupational Health, January 2024; European Journal of Health Economics, August 2023) show that working from home improves the health and wellbeing of workers.

Rest has no place in a society that demands infinite growth from finite resources. The greed of the wealthy who desire to be ever wealthier is kept in check only by laws created in more temperate days. Laws whose foundations are visibly eroding in so many places. The health and wellbeing of workers and their families is being sacrificed in the name of productivity. Exploitation and impoverishment of workers for the gain of the very few has created a disparity of wealth unlike anything we have ever seen before.

Jesus' accusers may have been wrong about his breaking of the Sabbath rule, but they were right to defend it so energetically. Sabbath was made for humanity as a blessing and given as a gift. It demands that we set aside one day where our identity is not in what we do, but in who we are. A day when we recall in whose image and likeness we were made. A day when we remind one another that God, more than anything, desires our transformation from a people beset and weighed down by sin to a people freed and living in the glory for which we were created.

We cannot free ourselves. For all of our gifts of energy and ingenuity, when we lose sight of who we are, that is the beloved people of God, we find ourselves alongside sin before we realize what's happened. We find ourselves once again devoting ourselves to idols and forgetting that we were made for holiness and glory. We bind ourselves with shackles of greed and gluttony in the name of "the economy" and its bottomless appetite.

God has anticipated our plight and, in the words and acts of Jesus, has reminded us that the Sabbath is a place of healing and restoration. In rest we find ourselves and remember who we have been made to be. In setting aside work for one day we find health. In the Sabbath, we find freedom. Thanks be to God.