Sabbath

This week's topic was Sabbath. Donna Schaper writes: "Sabbath comes from the word "to separate," as in one of its roots, "sabbatical," where scholars still separate "teaching time" from "study time." Sabbath is the separation of time into different parts. Sabbath is neither rest nor labor but the separation of the two. Sabbath is the pause between them." Additionally, Schaper suggests that sabbath is not a day of the week but a state of mind.

"Remember the sabbath day and keep it holy" is included in both offerings of the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:8 and Deuteronomy 5:12).

Exodus continues: "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 daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your town. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested on the seventh day.; therefore, the Lord blessed the sabbath day and consecrated it."

Deuteronomy 5:12-15 begins similarly, "Observe the sabbath day and keep it holy," with the reminder, "as the Lord your God commanded you." The details are offered in much the same way, but the reason given for the practice varies from Exodus: "Remember that you were a slave in Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm; therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the sabbath day."

In Leviticus 25:3-7, a sabbath for the land is prescribed; the seventh year will be a sabbatical year, a year of complete rest for land which has been farmed the other six years.

When we shared our own concepts of sabbath, our descriptions included:

--Sabbath is a gift from God

--"creation's day of rest"

--Taking time, making space to be with God

--Reminder of our beginning and our completion; remembrance that God is saving us

--Rest day

--great equalizer

--a time of liberation

--break in the tyranny of production and usefulness; locus in different identity

--different than "any other day"

--the seventh day; the first day; even "the eighth day" ( a "little Easter")

--connection between God's wholeness and the promise of wholeness realized for us

(shades of Matthew 5:48)

--God honors God's image in us---no exceptions!

Jesus says: "People weren't made for the sabbath; the sabbath was made for people." Essential to our well-being.

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