Does Healthy Liberal Christianity Need a Sabbath?

While on vacation, I got thinking about the idea of Sabbath. At the beginning of Genesis, after God has finished with creation, God rests. Later in the Ten Commandments, the Israelites were told to “remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy.” While Sabbath continues to be kept by modern Jews and by seventh Day Adventists, liberal Christianity has not had much to say about it. At best, the notion of Sabbath in American Protestantism has been conflated with the importance of the “worship day.”

It could be useful for us to take Sabbath more seriously. Of course, first having some understanding of it might be of help. Many good books have been written about Sabbath, so if you want to learn more about it than this short essay can contain, there is plenty of material out there. For our purposes, I will consider just two questions: “Is there wisdom in the commandment for regular rest?” and “Does Healthy Liberal Christianity Need a Sabbath?”, or more specifically, “What are some ways that the observance of Sabbath might contribute to our health, beyond the more obvious need for rest?”

Surely, the first question is pretty easy to answer, at least in general. All human beings need rest. We sleep when we are tired, we take coffee breaks and lunch breaks, and we do sometimes engage in diversions so we don’t end up working all the time.

The second question is a bit more difficult, because “Sabbath” often gets branded with the charge that it is just one more legalistic attempt to enforce obedience. Clearly, we liberals hate to be told what to do, and we resist being obedient if the only point is obedience itself. It might be important for us to remember that Jesus got into trouble a number of times because he did not follow the Sabbath Laws in the way the religious leadership of the day enforced them. We might say that he was a religious liberal at odds with the conservatives who were in power. At one point, he reminded them that “the Sabbath was made for humanity; humanity was not made for the Sabbath.” In other words, “Treat the Sabbath as a divine gift, an opportunity, not as a divine requirement.”

If, as Jesus said, the Sabbath is a gift, what is it good for? Is it simply a mandate to rest from our labors so we will be able to labor more? It is often interpreted in that way. That would mean that productivity is the highest human value, and that we have an obligation to rest so we can put the larger portion of our time into what matters most. Somehow, defined that way, Sabbath doesn’t sound like a gift at all.

What if we tried to see the value in Sabbath itself? What if we were able to learn from our Jewish brothers and sisters that Sabbath has enormous value? Of course, we would have to stop defining Judaism only in terms of the crises found in the New Testament. But if we could open our minds, we might be able to ask the question, “How is the Sabbath a divine gift that is valuable in its own right?”

We live in a consumerist culture that most highly values productivity, entertainment, and keeping busy at all costs (and it usually costs a lot). So the idea of Sabbath having value for us seems crazy from that cultural perspective. So, it’s all the more important that we learn to see Sabbath differently. We might then learn that Sabbath is about relationship – not only relationship with God, but relationship with one another, too. We can’t relate if we don’t take the time to communicate, listen, and appreciate. The last word of the previous sentence is essential, because, above all, Sabbath gives us the opportunity to appreciate being alive. Often we humans think we need someone else to convince us that life is OK. I am reminded of an acquaintance in college who was a fierce consumer of alcohol at parties. Often on the morning after the party, he would ask, “Did I have a good time last night?” If he received an answer in the affirmative, he was happy. While our daily diversions may not be quite as mind numbing as overconsumption of alcohol, they are still quite effective. Perhaps we need some structured way to avoid both productivity and diversion so we have the opportunity to appreciate life for itself.

I think Jesus wanted people to enjoy life, and to create communities of justice so a person didn’t have to be rich or privileged in order to do so. He encouraged all people to receive the gift of Sabbath so all could appreciate life. When he healed people on the Sabbath, he was actually distributing the divine gift.

Finally, in thinking about Sabbath, I am reminded of a quotation from John Bradshaw who spoke and wrote a great deal about recovery from addiction. He said, “We are human beings, but we treat ourselves like human doings.”

Sabbath gives us the time and the space to live as human beings. That is the divine gift!

Wayne Gustafson
“No matter who you are, or where you are in life’s journey, you’re welcome here!”
The United Church___of Christ