Family Series 3: Parenting

Colossians 3:12-21
Matthew 20:20-28
Deuteronomy 6:4-9, 20-25

Instead of another Cajun joke today, we're going to start with a little theology from Bill Cosby. If you get frustrated as a parent, don't worry too much. Even God has trouble with his children.
After creating Heaven and Earth, God created Adam and Eve. And the first thing He said to them was: "Don't."
"Don't what?", Adam replied.
"Don't eat the forbidden fruit."
"Forbidden fruit? Really? Where is it?"
"It's over there," said God, wondering why He hadn't stopped after making the elephants.
A few minutes later, God saw the kids having an apple break, and He was angry.
"Didn't I tell you not to eat that fruit?" the First Parent asked.
"Uh huh."
"Then why did you?"
"I don't know."
God's punishment was that Adam and Eve should have children of their own.¹

Cosby says that his mom put a curse on him: “Someday you're going to have grow up and have a kid just like you!!” My Mom put the same curse on me, and now I understand!

But children are also one of God's greatest blessings. In our Call to Worship today, Samuel read that children are a blessing and reward from the Lord (Psalm 127).

Today, we're talking about parenting. But this discussion isn't just for those of us with children. In 1996, Hillary Clinton wrote a best-selling book based on the African proverb: “It takes a village to raise a child.”² James Dobson, America's biggest name conservative Christian, argued, “No, it takes a community to raise a child.” But they were both saying the same thing. Parents don't raise kids alone. We live together in a networked community. Growing healthy kids involves: school teachers and Sunday school teachers, doctors and nurses, coaches and babysitters, big brothers and big sisters, musicians and TV stars, grandparents and aunts and uncles. When we think about raising healthy kids, this is something that concerns all of us – especially in the household of God, where we are all brothers and sisters in Christ.

Before we go on with the sermon, we're going to stop for some time to think. Look in your bulletin. On the back side of the Table Talk insert, there are some questions. Take a few minutes and write down your answers to these questions:

1. Deep in your heart what do you really want for your children (or the children in your life)?

2. If you could give your kids only one “thing,” what would you give them? (For example: happiness, a good job, a loving family, intelligence, money, godliness, confidence, humility, a loving heart, good health)

OK, what did you say? If you could only have one thing for your kids, what would you give them?

--- --- --- ---

We all want our kids to grow up to be healthy and wise, blessed by God and a blessing to others. That's a goal we can all agree on. But how do we get there? How do we, as a community, help our kids to grow in body and spirit? How do we help our children become the adults God dreamed they would be?

Parenting has three basic tasks: providing, loving, and guiding. If we do all of these together, then our children will amaze us as they develop and grow to be healthy, loving people.

Let's talk about providing first. This is the most basic parental task. We've got to provide for our children's health and safety. All children need certain basic necessities: food, shelter, clothing, medical care, sleep, protection, and fun. So we work, we cook, we wash clothes, we shop, we clean. We do the house stuff and the money stuff so that our kids are taken care of.

This is pretty basic, but we can still mess this up. There are two common mistakes.

Common Mistake #1: We focus all our attention on providing. We try to give best we can possibly give of everything: the best house, the best clothes, the best toys, the best schools. And all of this costs money, lots of it. We can completely miss the boat on parenting if we spend all our time working to provide for our children. Parents, be careful that you aren't working so much that you can't give your kids the love and guidance they need.

South Korea has the longest average work week of any country in the world!³ I know there are good reasons why Koreans began working so much. I understand the history. I know about Park Chung-hee and the Saemaul Undong movement. But don't you think this is enough? Don't you think Korea is wealthy enough and you are wealthy enough? Don't you think it's time to slow down and start giving more time to your families?

Common Mistake #2: We don't give enough sleep and fun. Sometimes, parents are so concerned to be good parents that they push their kids too hard. Kids need sleep and fun like air and water. If we cut those out of their lives, it's like cutting out calcium or protein from their diets.

We all need sleep. We need regular sleep and we need a lot of it. Check out these numbers:

Age and condition	Average amount of sleep per day
Newborn	up to 18 hours
1–12 months	14–18 hours
1–3 years	12–15 hours
3–5 years	11–13 hours
5–12 years	9–11 hours
Adolescents	9-10
Adults, including elderly	7–8 (+) hours
Pregnant women	8 (+) hours

Not getting enough sleep can cause three basic problems: physical health problems, emotional irritability (getting angry easily), and academic problems (difficulty to think in complex ways).⁴ This leads us to some basic conclusions for parenting.

1) Pushing your kids to study for hours and hours is foolish. If they don't get enough sleep, it will hurt their health and their grades. (It may also hurt their ability to stay awake in school!)

Besides, listen to this! Duke University did a huge study on homework, and they found that test scores actually go down if your kids do too much homework! Up to second grade, kids can only handle 10-20 minutes of homework a day. From third to sixth grade, they can do 30-60 minutes a day. In middle school they can do 60-90 minutes everyday, and in high school they can manage up to 2 hours of homework in one day. But more homework actually hurts your kids academically. Too much homework makes test scores go down! It's information overload. It shuts down their brains and makes them dislike learning.⁵ So after a while, tell your kids to close the books and go to bed!

2) Parents need sleep too. If you don't sleep enough, you're going to get angry easily and have health problems. Kids are a lot harder to love when you stumble into the kitchen with a headache because you didn't sleep enough!

Parents, make sure you and your kids are getting enough sleep every night. This is just as important as making sure your family eats healthy foods.

The second basic task for parents is loving. Feeling loved is every child's single greatest emotional need. Next to providing the basics for health and safety, the most important thing a parent needs to do is to help your children feel completely secure in your love. Your kids need to know that you will love them forever no matter what happens and no matter what they do.

When children deeply feel their parents' love, they have a stable foundation for the rest of life. They can handle the ups and downs of life more easily because they are anchored in love.

There are three super-basic ways to show love: time, talking, and touching. Kids need all of these. (The truth is we all need all of these!)

Time. Parents, you're going to hear this from me for as long as I'm the pastor here. Time, time, time. Your families need your time. The most important thing you can give your family is your time. Your kids and your spouse will feel loved if you spend real, quality time with them.

Talking. How many times have you heard a parent say this? “My kids just won't listen to me! It goes in one ear and out the other!” Parents, adults, if you want kids to listen to you, to really listen to you when you talk to them, you've got to listen to them first. If you're doing all the talking, you'll also be the only one listening!

Colossians 3:21 says, “Parents, don't come down too hard on your children or you'll crush their spirits.” Parents, make sure your kids know that you love them just like they are right now. Make sure they know that you are proud of them.

The last basic way to show love is touching. Kids have a deep need to be touched. Kids need to be hugged, tickled, kissed, patted, cuddled, chased, tackled, carried, and touched in a thousand ways. When you touch your kids affectionately, it's like giving vitamins to their emotions!

Parents, love your kids. Show them your love through time, talking, and touching. If you're not a parent, there's lots of good news here. You can still show love to kids. You can volunteer in the nursery. You can pay attention the kids running around here. You can help us get a youth program started. You can volunteer in the orphanage or single mom's home. Our kids need lots of love, and you can help give it.

The last basic task for growing healthy kids is guiding. One of the most famous Bible verses about parenting is Proverbs 22:6, “Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it.”

We teach our kids all kinds of things: how to walk, how to talk, how to use a spoon, how to apologize, how to choose right from wrong, how to think. Sometimes we teach our kids on purpose: “Here, let me teach you how to tie your shoes.” But most of the time, our kids learn simply by watching us.

Paul said, “Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice” (Philippians 4:9). And that is exactly what our kids do every day. We are a constant, living life-lesson for our kids. They are soaking up everything we do as the right way to do it. So, it's extremely important for us to set a good example.

I remember a song that was popular when I was in high school. A father is singing his prayer to God: “I want to be just like you 'cause he wants to be just like me.”⁶

When parents think about guiding their children, they often focus on outward success. Get good grades. Get into a good university. Get a good job. Success. The child is successful, and the parent was a successful parent. Right?

Wrong, wrong, wrong! It doesn't work like that.

First of all, “researchers have found that even more than IQ, your emotional awareness and ability to handle feelings [your EQ] will determine your success and happiness in all walks of life, including family relationships.”⁷ It makes sense if you think about it. There are a whole lot of smart, well-educated, well-paid people with really sad, messed up lives. In his book Raising Emotionally Intelligent Children, John Gottman explains, “The key to successful parenting is … based on your deepest feelings of love and affection for your child, and is demonstrated simply through empathy and understanding.”⁸ It is guiding your children with love through time, talking, and touching.

Second, good grades, good schools, and good jobs are not what success is about. For us as Christians, life is far more than that.

Remember James and John's mom in Matthew 20. She came to Jesus and said, “Put my boys in the two best spots, one on your right and one on your left.” Jesus said, “Lady, you just don't get it. Being the best in my kingdom isn't about succeeding in this world. Success in my kingdom is about serving others, not being at the top.”

For us as Christians, success is living close to God, participating in God's mission in the world. That matters way more than what school they get into or what kind of job they have. If your children miss church to study, you are teaching them to value jobs more than God. If you send your kids to hakwons or expect them to study on Sundays, you are guiding them to pursue worldly success instead of God. Parents, please, please, guide your children toward God, not away from God.

Psalm 127 says that children are like arrows we shoot into the future. They will live beyond us. They will do more than us. They are our greatest contribution to the world.

If we truly want to be good parents, we will provide for their needs: food, shelter, sleep. We will show our kids love through time, touching, and talking. We will guide them toward true success – spiritual and emotional health.

If we truly want to be a loving community that changes our world, it starts with our kids. For all of us, parents, singles, married, changing the world starts by loving our kids.

1http://www.ahajokes.com/par006.html.

2Hillary Clinton, It Takes a Village, (Simon & Schuster, 1996).

3“Working Time,” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_time.

4“Sleep,” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep.

5Claudia Wallis, “The Myth about Homework,” Time, 8/29/2006, http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1376208,00.html. And “Homework,” http://www.aft.org/parents/k5homework.htm.

6“I Want to Be Just Like You,” sung by Phillips, Craig, & Dean; written by Joy Becker and Dan Dean.

7John Gottman, Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child, (New York: Fireside, 1997), 20.

8Ibid, 18.

Family Series 2: Marriage

KNU International English Church

Josh Broward

January 18, 2008

December had come again, and Tibodeau and Marie were sitting on their porch watching the gators swim by, and they were talking about what to give everybody for Christmas. Pretty soon, Marie stood up and look at Tibodeau right in the face, and she say, “You know what I want for Christmas?”

“uh ...”

“I say – You know what I want for Christmas? Tibedeau, you old crusty alligator!”

“Keah, woman, what you want for Christmas? I never got no idea!”

“I want a divorce, Tib. That's what I want. I want a divorce.”

And Tibedeau, he didn't even have to think twice about that. He say, “Mais, Marie, I wasn't planning to spend that much on you this Christmas!”¹

Marriage can be tough. Sometimes it's hard to know what the other person even wants. Sometimes we know what the other person wants, but it's hard to give it.

Imagine that you went to the eye doctor to get a new pair of glasses. The eye doctor sits you down in a chair in his office. Then, he takes off his glasses and gives them to you, “Here. Put these on. They work great.”

You put the glasses on, but they only make the problem worse. “Oh, no! These don't help at all. I can't see anything!”

The doctor looks a little confused. “I don't understand. Those are my best glasses. Try harder.”

You say, “Doctor, I am trying. Everything is blurry.”

The doctor says, “Well, there must be something wrong with you. I know those glasses work. They're the same glasses I've used for 10 years, and they work great for me!”²

Jesus said “love your neighbor as yourself,” and most of us take that a little too literally. We give other people what we want instead of what they want. We do to others what we would want them to do to us. But the problem is that we're not all the same. We want different things in different ways.

I would love to get a book on poker or tickets to a sports game, but those would be terrible gifts for Sarah. I'm smart enough to realize that, but I forget it all when we are in a conversation. I'm ready to solve every problem she's ever had, but she just wants me to listen.

I'm going to do something unusual for me. I'm going to give you the basic point of this sermon right up front. Here you go. Are you ready? The most basic key to a successful marriage is empathy. Empathy is: “understanding and entering into another's feelings ”³ Empathy is looking at life from another person's perspective, understanding what makes him tick, understanding how she feels and why.

In his book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey lists empathy as one of the basic habits of success. Covey says the single most important principle for relationships is: “Seek first to understand, then to be understood.”⁴ “If you want to interact effectively with me, to influence me – your spouse, your child, your neighbor, your boss, your coworker, your friend – you first need to understand me.”⁵ This sounds a lot like James: “Be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry” (James 1:19).

Men seem to struggle with this more than women. I found a great book a few years back: Everything Men Know about Women by Dr. Alan Francis. The back cover gives a summary: “Famed psychologist Alan Lowell Francis has written a landmark book on men's understanding of that most complex of all creatures – woman. Based on years of research and interviews with thousands of men from all walks of life, he presents the most complete picture ever revealed of men's knowledge of their opposite sex. Fiercely frank and brilliantly insightful, this work spells out everything men know about such topics as: making friends with women, romancing women, achieving emotional intimacy with women, making commitments to women, satisfying women in bed.”⁶

Sounds like a great book, right? This is something worth reading – everything men know about women! Just look inside … blank … every page is blank. The front cover says, “Fully reveals the shocking truth!” Men don't know anything about women!

This is a big problem for all of us, but especially for married people. If we don't understand each other, how are we supposed to love each other? Understanding each other is the first step toward good relationships.

Everyone has an Emotional Love Bank. Willard Harley, author of His Needs, Her Needs, explains it like this: “Inside all of us is a Love Bank with accounts in the names of everyone we know. When these people are associated with our good feelings, 'love units' are deposited into their accounts, and when they are associated with our bad feelings, love units are withdrawn.”⁷

Gary Chapman, author of The Five Love Languages, talks about the same idea: “The need to feel loved is a primary human emotional need.”⁸ “When your spouse's emotional love tank is full and he feels secure in your love, the whole world looks bright and your spouse will move out to reach his highest potential in life. But when the love tank is empty and he feels used but not loved, the whole world looks dark and he will likely never reach his potential for good in the world.”⁹ When the Love Bank is full, we respond with loving feelings and loving actions toward our spouse or our friends, but when our love bank is empty, we naturally respond with negative feelings and actions.

This is pretty basic so far, but now it starts to get difficult. Every person's Emotional Love Bank is different. It's like we operate with different currencies or different languages. We all need different things in different ways, and we all place different values on the deposits other people give us.

This can be really difficult in marriage. We keep doing all of these nice things to try to show our love. We keep making all of these deposits, but the exchange rate is terrible. We think we're giving a lot, but sometimes it doesn't feel like very much to our spouse. That's because we value deposits differently.

Let me give you an example. For the first several years of our marriage, when I wanted to show love to Sarah, I would do something extra around the house – do the dishes or the laundry or something like that. She would usually say thank you, but she wasn't too impressed. She was working with a different love currency. After a while, I learned that taking time to talk was much more valuable to her. So now, if I want to make a deposit, I try to just sit down and talk for a while.

Love is being humble enough to make deposits in the other person's currency or to speak the other person's love language. Love is understanding the other person and giving love in the way that is meaningful to them.

In the book His Needs, Her Needs, Willard Harley explains the top ten most basic emotional needs, especially within a marriage. Men and women tend to need different things.¹⁰

Women tend to have emotional needs for:

• Affection: This is “the expression of love in words, cards, hugs, kisses, and courtesies; creating an environment that clearly and repeatedly expresses love.”

• Conversation: “talking about the events of the day, personal feelings, and plans for the future; showing interest in your favorite topics of conversation,” sharing relevant information, and undivided attention.

• Honesty and Openness: “Those with a need for honesty and openness want accurate information about their spouses' thoughts, feelings, habits, likes, dislikes, personal history, daily activities and plans for the future.”

• Family Commitment: This is spending quality time with your children to help them grow up to be happy and successful adults (not only academically successful, but also morally, emotionally, spiritually).

• Financial Support: This is bringing home the bacon – providing enough money to house, feed, clothe, and educate your family.

On average, women will feel loved and cared for if these needs are met.

Men tend to have strong emotional needs for:

• Recreational Companionship: Everybody needs to have fun, but some people really need to have fun with somebody. This can be sharing a hobby, going for walks, or playing games – basically having fun together.

• Sexual Fulfillment: There are two factors here: quality and quantity. We need good sex and enough sex. “The emotional need for sex … is a very exclusive need.” We have promised our spouses to meet this need, and our spouses have promised to fulfill this need only with us.

• An Attractive Spouse: For many people, having an attractive spouse makes them feel really good about themselves and their marriage. This doesn't mean we all have to be models, but it does mean that appearance does matter on an emotional level.

• Domestic Support: Some people crave a home that is a refuge from the stresses of life. They feel loved when someone helps with cleaning, cooking, laundry, and child care.

• Admiration: “Many of us have a deep desire to be respected, valued and appreciated by our spouse. We need to be affirmed clearly and often.” If you have a high need for admiration, then criticism is especially painful.

On average, men will feel loved and cared for if these needs are met.

But these are all for the average man and the average woman. We are individuals. Your husband is not the average man; he is one man. You aren't trying to please the average wife. You need to make your wife feel loved.

For example, I like to think I'm a manly man – arggh, arggh, arggh – and all that. Well, this week, Sarah and I did our homework early. On your talk sheet there's a link for a survey to see what your emotional needs are. It turns out that my biggest emotional needs are partly on the women's side. I want affection, conversation, and honesty more than I want some of that other stuff.

You need to find out what your needs are and what your spouse's needs are. Then, you can make your wife feel all warm and cozy inside. Once you know what your husband really wants, you'll be able to keep his Love Bank full most of the time.

Let me finish out with two little stories.

First, when my dad was four years old, his father took him shopping for a Mother's Day present for his mom. Dad kind of wandered the aisles of the store looking at everything and feeling overwhelmed. Finally, Dad said, “I don't know what to get her.”

My grandpa said, “Well, usually, it's a good idea to give someone something you would like to get yourself.” My 4-year-old Dad thought about that for a while, and then he bought his mom a rubber ducky for the bathtub! (We still have that rubber ducky. It's a family treasure.)

Giving a rubber ducky is cute when you're 4. It's not so cute when you're 44. If we want to have successful relationships, we've got to learn how to give the people we love what they want, not what we want.

When Jesus said, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” he didn't mean love your neighbor just like you like to be loved. He meant, love your neighbor as much as you love yourself. Learn how your neighbor feels love and then give your neighbor love in that way.

Last story. One of church folks, Robb, often teaches adult men. One day he and his students started talking about marriage in class. Robb asked, “How often do you say, 'I love you,' to your wife?” Most of them couldn't remember the last time they had said, “I love you.” They said, “Oh, she knows I love her. I work all day. I play with the kids. She knows I love her. I don't have to say it.” Robb gave his students some homework: “Tonight when you go home, tell your wife that you love her.”

The next week, one of the men came back glowing. He had done his homework. That night, when he got home, he looked his wife in the eyes and said, “I love you, Yobo (honey).” He said, “It was amazing. She gave me a big hug, and she cooked my favorite dinner, and she was extra nice to me for the rest of the night!”

It's amazing what a full Love Bank will do!

1John Bergeron, More Boudreau and Tibodeau, (Abbeville, LA: Cajun Folklore Enterprises, 1997), 46.

2Stephen R. Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, (New York: Fireside, 1990), 236.

3empathy. (n.d.). WordNet® 3.0. Retrieved January 15, 2009, from Dictionary.com website: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/empathy

4Covey, 237.

5Ibid, 238.

6Alan Francis, Everything Men Know about Women, (Laguna Hills, CA: Newport House).

7Willard Harley, Jr., “The Love Bank,” www.marriagebuilders.com.

8Gary Chapman, The Five Love Languages,” (Chicago: Northfield, 1995), 19.

9Ibid, 37.

10Harley, “The Most Important Emotional Needs,” and side articles at www.marriagebuilders.com.

Family Series 1: Work and Rest

KNU International English Church

Josh Broward

January 11, 2009

If you're new here today, I want to welcome you to KNU International English Church. My name is Josh Broward, and it's my great joy to serve as the lead pastor here.

Our mission is to be a loving community that changes our world. We see that happening in three basic ways: 1) Being Renewed by God's Love, 2) Multicultural Community, and 3) Global Change through Local Action.

Throughout this year, we're going to be talking a lot about the first and most basic part of our vision: being renewed by God's love. When God's love makes us new, God helps us to love God, to love others, and even to learn to love ourselves.

In a basic way, we live out God's love in our families and homes. For the next six weeks, we'll be talking about how we can have faithful and healthy families.

Each week during this series, I hope to start with a Cajun joke. Some of you might know that I grew up for 9 years in New Orleans in Louisiana. People in this part of the USA have a unique history and culture and accent. They are Cajuns, and I'm half Cajun – in spirit at least.

There was these two Cajuns named Claude and Pierre. Pierre saw Claude coming down the street one day, and Claude had these two big black eyes. Pierre, he say, “Ahh, Claude, how you get them two big black eye?!”

Claude, he say, “Ahh, Bra, now that's a story!”

Pierre, he say, “Keaw! I got nothing but time.”

“Well, you know my wife, she always on me to act right, specially on Sundays. She always on me to go to church. Well, this past Sunday, she woke me up way early an say, 'Claude, you aint going out to work today – no way. You's coming with me and the kids to church.' And all the ways there, she was on my case: 'Claude don't you do that – It's Sunday … Claude, you gotta be nice – It's Sunday … Claude, you gots to wear your good clotheses - It's Sunday … Claude, don't use that dirty talk – it's Sunday.' By the time we gots there, I was sick of Sunday already!

“Well, we was standing there singing some boring old song, and I started looking around. I sees this woman in front of me, and she gots one of them … you know … in the back side … where the clothes gets all caught up in the cheekses.”

“A wedgie?”

“Yeah, that's it! So I started thinking. I thoughts: 'It's Sunday, and I supposed to be good on Sunday. I supposed to do nice stuff on Sundays.' And I started looking at that lady's clothes all caught up in her cheekses, and I thought: 'That can't be too comfortable, no! I'm 'a do something nice – since it's Sunday!' So I reach up there, and I pull it out. … Well, that lady wasn't grateful, no! She turns around and socks me! So that's how I got the black eye.”

Pierre he say, “Keaw! That's terrible! But how you get that other big black eye?”

“Well, I thought she must have liked that way, so I reach up there, and I put it back in!”

Something tells me Claude was kind of mixed up about Sundays. His wife was kind of confused about Sundays also. Sundays aren't about being extra good or not saying bad words or just going to church. In the church, we can get pretty mixed up about Sundays and Sabbaths and working and resting.

This may seem like a strange way to start a series on family, but it makes sense if you think about it. How do we spend most of our time? Working. When are we home and with our families the most? When we're resting.

Actually, work and rest are pretty huge deals in the Bible, especially in the Old Testament. As I've researched this over the past few weeks, I've been surprised at how much importance the Bible puts on work and rest. This is a big deal.

Let's start with the Old Testament view of the Sabbath. Remember the Ten Commandments?

("Exodus 20" Video)

("1 Outta 7" Video)

OK, so the Sabbath is kind of like “a date with God.” That's a bit cheesy, but still on target. But this whole “date with God” thing doesn't rank very high on our moral inventory. The other Ten Commandments get a lot more press and attention.

Don't steal. Check.

Don't kill people – check.

Don't lie – check.

Don't carve any idols – check.

Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy – um, what does that even mean? Especially for today. What does it mean to keep the Sabbath in a world that runs 24-7 365 days a year? And what is the Sabbath even? Is it Saturday or Sunday? Does it start the night before, or is it just the calendar day?

As I researched this over the past two weeks, I was amazed at how much the Bible talks about the Sabbath. It almost seems as if this is the most important commandment. It's almost like this commandment is the hinge on which all the other commandments shift.

When God and Moses were finishing their talk up on the top of Mount Sinai, the last thing he said to Moses was: “'Tell the people of Israel to keep my Sabbath day, for the Sabbath is a sign of the covenant between me and you forever. It helps you to remember that I am the LORD, who makes you holy. Yes, keep the Sabbath day, for it is holy. ... It is a permanent sign of my covenant with them.' ... Then as the LORD finished speaking with Moses on Mount Sinai, he gave him the two stone tablets inscribed with the terms of the covenant, written by the finger of God” (Exodus 31:12-18).

It's like God is saying: “Here are the 10 Commandments – zapped in stone with my own almighty finger, and be especially careful to keep #4. If you get this Sabbath thing right, everything else will work out. If you'll just keep that God-date once a week and give me time to shape you, I'll help you keep the other 9 commandments on the other 6 days.”

Notice also the order of the commandments. 1-3 are all about God. One God. No idols. Be careful with God's name. 5-10 are all about people. No stealing, no lying, no killing, etc. In the middle is the Sabbath command which is about God and others and ourselves. You yourselves rest before God and make sure everyone else gets to rest too. Is it possible that keeping the Sabbath will transform us so that we can live right with God and people?

OK, what is the Sabbath all about, and how do we keep it? Let's take a closer look at the actual Sabbath commandment in the 10 Commandments.

Let's read Exodus 20:8-11 and Deuteronomy 5:12-15.

Wait a minute something was different there. Did you catch it? What was the difference between those two readings? …

They are almost exactly the same until the last verse, but then they give different reasons for why we are supposed to keep the Sabbath. The Exodus passage roots the Sabbath in the creation story, and the Deuteronomy passage places Sabbath in the context of the exodus from Egypt. The two basic theological themes for the Sabbath are creation and freedom.

Let's talk about creation first. “Remember to observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. ... For in six days the Lord made the heavens, the earth, the sea, and everything in them; but on the seventh day he rested. That is why the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and set it apart as holy” (Exodus 2:8, 11).

The Sabbath is a re-enactment of the creation story. Each week is a mini-drama of creation. Genesis 1 tells the story of how God made everything we see and don't see in six “days,” and then on the seventh “day” he “rested.” I'm still trying to figure out how God rested. What does God do for rest? I don't know, but he rested.

God made stuff for six days, and then he “looked over all he had made, and he saw that it was very good,” and then he rested. He just stopped and looked at all the goodness. (Genesis 1-2.)

There's an old Jewish prayer: “Days pass, years vanish, and we walk sightless among miracles.” Steve Doughty, a pastor from the US, explains how this prayer has shaped him: “Even with our so-called labor-saving devices, we are leading fractured lives, and the chance to enjoy goodness and beauty is slipping away from us. … We spend six days working and working hard, and that's good, and we're trying to make things better. But on the seventh day we have a chance to see the goodness that already is.”¹

Life is not always about tomorrow. Today matters. This week matters. Life is not all about getting into a good university or getting a good job or making money. This week is just as important as a week next year. Sabbath is about stopping to see the good that already is.

Early Christians celebrated Sunday as “the eighth day.” God began creation on the first day ever. Then, on the 7^th day, God rested. Jesus rose from the dead on Sunday – one day after the Saturday Sabbath. Jesus rose from the dead on the 8^th day or another 1^st day. For early Christians, this was a sign that everything is being made new in Christ. Jesus' life, death, and resurrection are bringing in a new creation. In Jesus, we have started a new week of theological time. Every Sunday worship service is like a little Easter – a celebration of the re-creation that Jesus brings through his new life.² Now, for most Christians, Sunday carries forward the meaning and traditions of the Jewish Sabbath and Easter.

Celebrating Sabbath is giving God the space to continue his creative work in us. It is giving God one day a week to restore us. Sabbath is a time when God refreshes us or heals us. The Pharisees got all upset because Jesus healed people on the Sabbath, but Jesus said healing is what Sabbath is all about. Sabbath is creation and re-creation, every week.

Sabbath is also about freedom. The Sabbath command in Deuteronomy says: “Remember that you were once slaves in Egypt, but the Lord your God brought you out with his strong hand and powerful arm. That is why the Lord your God has commanded you to rest on the Sabbath day” (5:15).

Sabbath is about freedom. We don't have to work seven days a week anymore. We are not slaves anymore. We don't have to do a lot of stuff.

A candle-maker/preacher named Milton put it like this: “Our culture fills every [little piece] of silence with noise, with music, with activity. We are bombarded with the distorted 'truth' that enough is not adequate ...”³ We feel like there's something wrong with us if we stop moving, if we aren't listening to something or doing something productive with our time. Sometimes I can't even wait for a document to load on my computer before I feel the need to do something else – play solitaire or check my email – anything! We are addicted to doing.

Sabbath is a reminder that we are free. We are free people who are loved by God, loved just as we are. Sabbath is one day a week of total freedom. Keeping the Sabbath is not about making sure we are especially good on at least one day. Keeping Sabbath is letting God freely love us and make us fully free.

In Jesus' time, the Sabbath rules had become a new form of slavery. There were so many don'ts that they almost couldn't breath. In our gospel lesson today, Jesus basically said, “Relax people. The sabbath is supposed to make your life better not worse. It gives freedom not slavery. And I – the Messiah – am bigger and better than any day.” (Mark 2:23-27.)

In our Epistle lesson, when Jewish Christians started to bring down the old Jewish Sabbath laws on people, Paul said, “Woah, there. Hold on. Life isn't about don't, don't, don't. Life is about forgiveness and freedom and new life through Christ.” (See Colossians 2:12-23.)

When we Christians start talking about Sabbath, it's easy for us to start laying down rules again: “You can do this, but not that. If you do this, you're a bad Christian.” That's going down the wrong path. Sabbath is about freedom.

OK, so how do we practice the Sabbath. How can we experience this recreation and freedom that God offers us in the Sabbath?

Well, the most basic word in the Sabbath commands is “rest.” But this Hebrew word for “rest” or “Sabbath” is literally to “cease”, to “desist,” to “stop.” We honor the Sabbath by stopping. We are on the merry-go-round, roller-coaster of life, and we stop. We get off for one day a week.

We stop working, but it's more than that. We stop our restless striving. We stop trying to be productive. We stop over-scheduling our lives. We stop doing all the regular stuff that we feel like we have to do. We don't work at our regular jobs. We don't do housework. We don't pay the bills or do finances. We don't work ourselves to death at church. We don't catch up on email. We stop.

Why are we stopping? Why are we resting? John Calvin said it like this: Sabbath is “resting from our work so God can do God's work in us.”

What do you do once you've stopped? You rest. You do the things that re-create you. What gives you more life and more energy? What helps you connect with God?

• Go to bed early. Sleep late. Maybe go to bed early and sleep late.

• Go for a walk, preferably in nature (so you can see the goodness of creation).

• Take a nap. (Let's bring back the Nazarene Nap. That's an old Nazarene tradition of taking a nap on Sunday afternoons.)

• Have dinner with your family.

• Play some games with family or friends, something that gets you talking and laughing.

• Do some art. (I'm hoping to start drawing and painting some on my sabbath.)

• Read something you want to read just for fun.

• Take some quiet time and read the Bible and pray.

• Call your family and just talk about life.

• Or, here's a really radical thought … just do nothing. Just sit in a comfy chair or lay on your bed and do nothing in particular. Let your thoughts wander, and thank God for that he loves you just as you are and that today, for just one day, you don't have to do anything. For just one day, you can just rest.

Here's the amazing part. If we will do this, if we will really do this – this whole keeping the Sabbath thing – this just might be the most important thing we ever do. This just might be the single most important thing we could ever do to have a healthy happy family. This just might be the one commandment that is most important for actually keeping all the other commandments. Keeping the Sabbath might be the one thing you do that changes all the other things you do.

1Parsons, Monique, “Sabbath Chic,” http://www.beliefnet.com/Faiths/2000/08/Sabbath-Chic.aspx,downloaded 01/05/09.

2 Capes, David, “The Eighth Day,” 2002, http://www.baylor.edu/christianethics/SabbatharticleCapes.pdf, downloaded 01/05/09.

3Milton Brasher-Cunningham, “The Work and Rest of Sabbath,” http://www.baylor.edu/christianethics/SabbatharticleBrasherCunningham.pdf, downloaded 01/05/09.