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 7th day, God rested. Jesus rose from the dead on Sunday – one day after the Saturday Sabbath. Jesus rose from the dead on the 8th day or another 1st 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.
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