As we explore the new normal we find ourselves in during the COVID-19 pandemic the Mount Olivet community has been sharing devotionals to keep our community connected.

Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work—you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns.  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.” – Exodus 20:8-11 (NRSV)

Earlier this month a Wall Street Journal essay confronted the consequences of the United States’ addiction to busyness. There was once a time in the United States (or so Pastor Jeff says) when working on a Sunday, really doing anything other than attending church or a family dinner, would have been unthinkable. Yet today, doing more on Sunday, doing more on any day of the week has become the norm while refraining from work or activity the oddity. The WSJ columnist wrote, “The share of Americans who don’t identify with any religion continues to grow, and even many believers reject the concept of the Sabbath as a divinely ordained day of rest. Instead, we are encouraged to pursue lives of constant action and purpose, and we do. Smart devices allow white-collar professionals to freely mingle work and play. The gig economy and the Covid-19 work-from-home trend have further blurred the line between the two. The Sabbath doesn’t fit into the rhythm of our lives. It feels like an imposition—it is an imposition.” 

Living in Northern Virginia – a stone’s throw from the DC, America’s hub of power and busyness – I know too well the perceived need to produce more than you did the day before or more than the person in the cubical next to you. I know too well the temptation to send one more email before dinner, to respond to a text message while on vacation, or to work on devotional well into the early morning when I know full well I should be asleep.

There is always one more email to send, one more deliverable to deliver, or one more sermon to work on. Being home for the past year the lines have been blurred to the point that many of us forgot what day to the week it was. We had to adjust our schedules to adapt to working full-time from home, attempting to homeschool our children, caring for a parent or spouse, or any combination plus a few more. The lines have been blurred and we are tired. Tired seems like an understatement. Rest is not part of the American work ethos and yet, as people of faith rest has been ingrained in who we are since God created the heavens and earth.

God rested on the seventh day. The seventh day was/is a holy day, a day of rest. When a new covenant was established the call to Sabbath rest was present.

“Observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy, as the Lord your God has commanded you. Six days you shall labor and do all your work,  but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your ox, your donkey or any of your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns, so that your male and female servants may rest, as you do. Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and that the Lord your God brought you out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the Lord your God has commanded you to observe the Sabbath day.” – Deuteronomy 5:12-15 (NIV)

What was intended to be a day of rest, a day of holiness was twisted into, as Walter Brueggemann put it, “a moralistic prescription for a day of quiet restraint and prohibition.”

Brueggemann continues, “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… the fourth commandment on the sabbath is the most difficult and most urgent of the commandments in our society because it summons us to intent and conduct that defies the most elemental requirements of a commodity-propelled society that specializes in control and entertainment, bread and circuses… along with anxiety and violence.”

Our busyness and restlessness are more prevalent than any epidemic or pandemic experienced. Worse yet we cannot inoculate ourselves or reach herd immunity on our own to save ourselves. Busyness and restlessness have touched us all and while many may see Sabbath-keeping (regardless of what day of the week it falls on) as an oddity in the new social norm, this holy invitation is an opportunity from extended to us for a moment of pause, breath, and peace.

A moment to pause in the beauty of God’s creation, to breathe in God’s life-giving Spirit, and a moment of peace in a world that seems hell-bent on turning away from peace every change it is given.

Sabbath-keeping is not another thing to do, or a task to be accomplished. Sabbath is a divine “No!” to the things that compete for our time, the things we gain at the expense of others. Sabbath is as Brueggemann puts it, “the regular, disciplined, visible, concrete yes to the neighborly reality of the community beloved by God… a rest rooted in God’s own restfulness and extended to our neighbors who must also rest.”

May you find rest this week. Rest from your labors. Rest in your weariness. Rest in the grace that surpasses all grace.