Exodus 20:8-11
Exodus 23:12
Deuteronomy 5:12-15
Matthew 6:25-34
One of the first things that God does in the Bible is take a break. I mean, you know, it's been a busy week – in six days God created "the heavens and the earth and all that live in them," which is, if you ask me, a pretty significant accomplishment, and, so, on the seventh day, God rests. Even God, we are told, takes a day off.
This is a story that the people of ancient Israel would have told and re-told. They would have known it by heart. The story of creation would have helped them explain and understand their place in the world, why things work the way that they do, the nature of God, the universe, themselves. This was one of their foundation stories. And, so, there is little wonder, that when they are assembling their rule book for how to live as a community, when God delivers the law to Moses on Mount Sinai, when they receive the 10 commandments – the key distillation and summary of their law, a collection that functions as something like their community's Constitution, a grounding for their identity as God's people – there is little wonder that the 10 commandments refers back to this story, to this act of divine leisure, to God's primordial resting. And, so, they are told to "Remember the Sabbath day and treat it as holy. Six days you may work and do all your tasks, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. Do not do any work on it—not you, your sons or daughters, your male or female servants, your animals, or the immigrant who is living with you. Because the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and everything that is in them in six days, but rested on the seventh day. That is why the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy."
For the people of Israel, the need for rest is built into the very fabric of creation. The land needs to rest – and so there are sabbath years, when you're not supposed to plant any new crops, so that the land can rest. People need to rest, and so there are sabbath days, when everyone, from the most powerful ruler to the lowest slave, from adults to children to livestock, gets a day free from work. And, the economy needs rest, lest it grow too unjust, unfair, unequal, and so every fifty years slaves are set free, and land is restored to its ancestral owners, and debts are cancelled and the poor are offered a fresh start. These are all commands that the people of Israel received from God. Rest is essential. We need it. It's not a luxury. It's not just something that's nice or good for us. It's something that is built into our DNA, that's built into the cosmos – we need to rest. Without it, we simply fall apart.
A generation after God gave the 10 commandments to Israel, a generation after they'd first received the commandment to rest once each week, after wandering in the desert for 40 years, they came to the edge of the promised land, they were about to arrive at their destination. Moses knew that he was about to die, that he would never enter into the land of promise, and, so, he preached a farewell sermon. That sermon is what we know as the book of Deuteronomy. In that sermon, Moses re-tells the story of the people's time in the wilderness, and he reinterprets it for them, so that this story can guide the people as they come into their new home, as they move from wandering nomads to a settled nation. And, when Moses re-tells the story of the 10 commandments, he explains this one a little differently. When he talks about the command to keep the sabbath – to keep a weekly day of rest – this time, instead of talking about how God rested, about how rest is built into the grain of the universe – instead of that, this time he says "Keep the Sabbath day and treat it as holy, exactly as the Lord your God commanded: Six days you may work and do all your tasks, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. Don’t do any work on it—not you, your sons or daughters, your male or female servants, your oxen or donkeys or any of your animals, or the immigrant who is living among you—so that your male and female servants can rest just like you. Remember that you were a slave in Egypt, but the Lord your God brought you out of there with a strong hand and an outstretched arm. That’s why the Lord your God commands you to keep the Sabbath day." Did you catch the difference? Instead of being about the nature of the universe, this time, Moses describes the sabbath as a matter of justice? The people of Israel were once slaves, who were forced to work every day for cruel masters. They are about to become settled people, and some of them will have power over the lives of others. They must rest, so that the poor, the weak, the enslaved, and those who work for them, will also be given a chance to rest. It is unjust to force a people to work without stopping, never to get a chance to rest, just in order to survive. An economic system that does not make space for rest is not something God supports. It may not seem revolutionary to us, but in the ancient world, the idea of resting for a day each week was unheard of. And, yet, the people of Israel are committed to it – because God did it, because it's built into the universe itself, because we need it, because allowing everyone to rest is an essential part of practicing justice. Rest matters. The Bible, the witness of the people of Israel, is clear: if we want to thrive, if we want to live the way God wants us to live, then we need to rest.
One of my earliest jobs as a pastor, I worked for an amazing boss, a great senior pastor – someone who remains a friend to this day. She was awesome, but she didn't know how to rest. Her day off was Friday, but she'd always spend Friday working – I'd be in the office on Friday, trying to get stuff done, and I'd get like 30 emails from her, about stuff she needed me to do. It frustrated me so much – I needed that day to do my own work. And, then, her work often bled into Saturdays. One of my first Saturdays there, I was resting after a long week, trying to spend some time with Kim and with Jeremiah – who was maybe 7 months old at the time – and she called me about something she wanted to do in worship the next day. And, I got so frustrated. I definitely said some things that were a little harsh – but I also took the opportunity to set boundaries and tell her that Saturday was a day for me to spend with my family, and that she should only be calling me on Saturdays in an emergency – and, worship didn't count as an emergency, because, you know, it's not like it's a surprise that we have to do worship on Sundays. As pastors, it's kind of the most important thing we do. Anyway, we had some tension, but we worked through it and have a really healthy relationship now – I just spoke with her a few days ago – and I learned SO MUCH from her, but my point is that her inability to rest started adding stress to my life, screwing up my ability to do my job and find rest for myself. When we don't rest, it impacts others – especially those who we are tasked to lead. In an example that's closer to home, when I don't rest – when I spend my evenings after dinner checking work email or getting stressed about something I can't change or doom-scrolling or whatever – when I do that, I am a worse husband, a worse father, a worse friend – I'm a worse person, because the stress gets to me and I become grumpy, short-tempered, just not a lot of fun. When we don't rest, it hurts us – it leads to stress, which leads to all sorts of negative impacts on our quality of life, our enjoyment, our physical health – and it hurts the people around us, those with whom we work and those who we love.
The Bible is pretty clear that rest is essential. It's essential for our health. It's essential for human thriving. We need to allow for rest. But, our society is built around, is dependent upon, us not resting. Our world is defined by speed. Modernity is dependent upon constant acceleration in order to keep moving forward, keep the economy growing, keep us producing. Our culture demands that we keep moving, keep going. Our culture doesn’t care much about what we are doing – but it does care that we are doing it quickly. Concepts like innovation, disruption encourage us to throw away the old and value newness above all else. How many times has some new invention been pitched to us as a time saver – only for us to discover years later, once it becomes essential, that it's actually a time suck. Email was supposed to be so much faster and more efficient than older forms of communication, saving us time to be creative. Except for that now, email is so easy to send, that most of our jobs are kinda just checking email all day long. Smart phones were supposed to make life so much easier – the whole internet in your pocket, access to your messages without having to turn on your computer – except, now, because we can carry our work around in our pocket, we never get to be away from work – work even follows us on vacation – and the internet, full of wonders, is also full of terrors, and black holes where we lose all sense of time, and dumpster fires of anger and despair and fear.
But, we are told – the people behind each new product convince us – that, if we can just run a little bit faster, we will finally catch up. If we can just get this one new awesome device, we will be able to slow down and find the good life. But, there's no catching up. As soon as we catch up, we have to speed up yet again – unless we want to fall behind. Unless we are running fast – and constantly getting faster – then we risk falling behind. Even when we watch TV, we are scrolling on our phones – unable to be in the present moment. Even when we are at home, we are available by email or text. Even when we have a day off, we have a mile-long list of activities and projects that we must do. We are always on call, always rushing forward. And this constant need to be going all the time can be crushing – it can be overwhelming – and it can cause us to sink into depression – we feel like we can’t catch up, and so we become overwhelmed, exhausted, just by the pressure to be on all the time.
We are desperately seeking the Good Life, and we think that if we can just go a little faster, work a little harder, we can find it – either by discovering some new thing, or by making enough money so that we can finally step off the treadmill, or whatever. But, here's the word we hear from Jesus: the Good Life is already here. It's not something we can achieve. It's not something that we can earn. It's not something we can chase down if we could just run fast enough. The Good Life, what we are seeking, is what theologian Andy Root calls "resonance." It's a sense of the present moment being full of God's presence, being full of beauty and joy. It's what happens when a three-year old bursts into a spontaneous dance. It's what happens when a baby giggles over a game of peekaboo and you find yourself giggling along with them. It's that cup of coffee in the silence and the stillness before the day begins. It's the moment of praise, together with God's people, when you know that God is there and that even though the world is a mess, all will be well. It's that sense, deep down in your bones, deep in your jellies – that sense of goodness, contentment, peace. It's a thing that the ratrace, that the rush can't give you. What Jesus says, in today's Gospel lesson, is that it's something only God can give. All our work, all our toil, cannot buy us the good life. It is important – and I'm not saying you shouldn't work. I'm not saying that work is bad. I work hard. My wife works hard. I was raised to work hard. I know so many of you work so hard to provide for your families, and that you are generous with the money you make, using it to care for others who are in need. That's good, it's important, and there's no reason to be ashamed of that. But, what I'm saying is that running faster and faster, chasing after the good life that's just ahead of us – it will never give us what it promises to give us. In the end, true goodness, true contentment, true peace, is a gift that only God can give. And, when we refuse to rest, when we refuse to slow down, we are resisting, we are hiding from, God's gift of peace, of presence, of joy, of wonder.
So, here's the Good News for a bunch of Northern Virginia overachievers who live in a culture of working all the time. Here's the Good News for folks who are trying to keep our new year's resolutions because we think that if we can just lose that weight, or read more, or whatever, that we will finally find the good life. Here's the Good News: you don't have to save yourself. You can't find the Good Life on your own. And, you don't have to. That's God's job. God loves you, even when you are overworked, when you refuse to rest, when you can't step off the treadmill. God loves you no matter what. Which means that you are free to rest, you are free to slow down, you are free to stop working, because you are not responsible for keeping the world spinning – that's God's job. You are free to rest, because it doesn't depend upon you. It depends upon God. And God is always faithful.