Sunday: 21st Sunday after Pentecost A
Reading: Exodus 20:8
Preacher: Peter C. Lane

"Remember the Sabbath day, and keep it holy." That's the text I am preaching on. Some 50 or 60 verses from four different parts of scripture and I'm narrowing it down to one. "Remember the Sabbath day, and keep it holy." Why focus on that one? Because the job of the preacher, as I understand it, is to bring together an interpretation of a text with an appraisal of the people through a personal lens. This sermon began not with an interpretation of the text but with an appraisal of the people through my personal lens. I think people are tired and busy. I've heard about how many of you are overextended. I know how some unconsciously try to make themselves indispensable and thus important. I've felt the urge to define myself through my purchases. And I notice a city where many have to work long and irregular hours to make ends meet. So, when I read, "Remember the Sabbath day, and keep it holy" I knew I had a sermon. Let's see if you agree. Actually one more prefatory remark before I dig into the meat of this sermon. You should know that this entire sermon leans heavily and borrows freely from the work of Dorothy Bass. If you want to know how heavily, the references to her work can be found on my sermon on the web or on the table in the Narthex.[1]

Now, to the point. Remembering the Sabbath day allows us to recall the holiness of God, claim our belovedness, and pushes us to seek after justice. Holiness, Belovedness, and Justice-that is what the Sabbath is about. Holiness-listen folk, God created the world not you. Belovedness-our value does not come from how successful we are or how indispensable we feel. Justice-our actions impact others ability to live into the reality of being children of God. Taking a Sabbath would mean that we would stop our mad rushing around, our constant push for success, our desire for more stuff and we would spend a day contemplating God, ourselves, and the world. That one Sabbath day would be in service to the other six. A day of contemplating those things would indelibly influence our weeks. In that way a Sabbath is leaven in our loaf.

It's not a new idea. This Sabbath idea comes from the very beginning of the bible. You remember that after God had created for six days he rested. Genesis says that in resting, "God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it." Resting for a day is built into our world. We bumped into the idea on this Sunday because it is included in the Ten Commandments, which appear both in our Exodus passage and in Deuteronomy. Interestingly, the reason given for remembering the Sabbath is different in the two versions. They both require the same thing of the reader-work for six days and rest for one. But they give different reasons.

Exodus says don't work because God didn't work. We read some of it this morning but skipped part. Let me read the reason that the book of Exodus gives for resting on the Sabbath, "For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and consecrated it." By resting on the seventh day God was doing in action what he had been saying, acknowledging the goodness of creation. The creation didn't need one final polishing; it was good. The Ten Commandments tell us to share in that pattern of work and rest. When we do, we can "live in and as the image of God." When we rest we can acknowledge that the created world is a gift from God to be enjoyed and not just a resource to be used. We take a Sabbath, we rest to recognize the holiness of God, the goodness of creation, to have the humility to not put ourselves at the center of everything.

Deuteronomy gives a different reason for remembering the Sabbath. It says don't work because you are not slaves any more. It says, "Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm; therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day." Slaves don't rest on the seventh day. Free people rest. In Deuteronomy the command to keep the Sabbath is about remembering what God did for the people. It's a way of reminding them that they are no longer slaves. It is also a call for justice. We might not be enslaved by our jobs but many are in our city. What we do on Sundays impacts what other people do. If we do all of our shopping on Sundays, people have to work at those stores. More broadly, the structuring of our society doesn't allow some people the chance to take a Sabbath. If people are working at a minimum wage that adds up to barely over $12,000 a year, they are not taking a Sabbath. They're working a second job. Our Sabbath taking must include everyone even the resident alien.

Dorothy Bass says, "These two versions of this commandment distill two of our most basic beliefs about who God is and what human beings are most fully meant to be. They speak of creation and exodus; they call us to know ourselves as human beings shaped in God's image and trusting in God's provision, and to treat neither ourselves nor others as slaves."

Christianity added a third reason for taking a Sabbath to the two given in Exodus and Deuteronomy. Early Christians moved the Sabbath from the seventh day to the first to celebrate Jesus' victory over death. Jesus rose from the dead and so every Sunday is Easter Sunday. Part of remembering the Sabbath became remembering the events of the first Holy Week. Our Sabbath worship is about connecting with God and what God is doing in the world. When we do that we remember that God created a good world and has a plan for it. When we do that we remember that fulfillment doesn't come from getting stuff. Our value is tied up in God's love for the world, "Jesus loves me this I know for the bible tells me so." We are beloved.

Sabbath taking is leaven in our lives. It is a reminder to us that God is God and we are not. Taking a day a week to stop reminds us that we are not actually indispensable, we don't make the sun shine or the rain fall. It is a reminder to us that our value is not in what we acquire. Resting after (or before) we worship reminds us that we are free people and our neighbors should be too. And it is a reminder to us that a just and Godly society will provide space for everyone to take a Sabbath. How can we reorganize our lives to better remember the Sabbath? Can we do our shopping during the week? Can we invite our friends over for lunch and fellowship? Can we vote in a way that supports space and time for all to take a restful day? Taking on the discipline of remembering the Sabbath and keeping it holy will impact how we live the other six days. We'll live recalling God's holiness, claiming our belovedness, and seeking after justice.
AMEN

[1] Dorothy Bass, "The practice of keeping Sabbath: A Gift for Our Time" in The Living Pulpit 7 no 2 Ap-Je 1998, p. 16-17. and Dorothy Bass "Keeping Sabbath" in Practicing our Faith edited by Dorothy Bass (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1997).