The Sabbath's Gift

June 2, 2024

Rev. Mary Erickson

Hope Lutheran Church

2 Corinthians 4:5-12; Mark 2:23-3:6

The Sabbath’s Gift

Friends, may grace and peace be yours in abundance in the knowledge of God and Christ Jesus our Lord.

One Sunday morning a mother called up the stairs to her son. “Son, it’s time to get up. It’s Sunday morning. Church begins in an hour and a half. I’m fixing your breakfast.” Her son just pulled the pillow around his head and went back to sleep.

She called up to him a second time, “Your breakfast is ready. It’s an hour now until church.” Again, he just rolled over and went back to sleep.

Then she called to him a third time: “It’s only 45 minutes to church time. It’s time to get up. Your breakfast is cold.”

Finally, she went up the stairs and entered his room. “Son! You have to get up RIGHT NOW in order to get to church on time.”

He grumbled, “Why do I have to go to church? The people there aren’t friendly. The music is awful and the sermons are dull. I can’t stand it!”

She said to him, “Son, you’re a grown man. You KNOW why you have to go. You’re the minister.”

Our gospel reading today centers around two stories about sabbath. The disciples and Jesus both engage in activities which the Pharisees dictate are out of bounds for the sabbath day.

The sabbath day is the seventh and final day of the week. The origins of the sabbath come from the creation story in Genesis chapter one. During the first six days of the week, God brought all things into being. And then on the seventh day, God rested. That seventh day was named the sabbath. Sabbath means, literally, to cease, to end, to rest.

But what does it mean, that God rested? It’s not that God was taxed and worn out from all the labors of creation, like God needed to hit the pause button to recuperate. No, that divine rest was a day to revel in and savor all that had been made, everything that God deemed so good. By resting after having brought all things into being, God was validating and affirming the universe.

It's like that moment after you finish a task, like mowing the lawn. You step back and your eyes take it all in. You tarry there to appreciate the fruits of your labors and the inherent beauty of your lawn. You see that it’s good, that your labors were worthwhile.

I’ve always thought there was a certain level of irony to our national Labor Day holiday. It’s the day when we don’t work! Everybody takes Labor Day off! But on that day, we pause. We acknowledge that our labors are good. We’re grateful for all our combined labors as a people. We acknowledge the value of their time and abilities.

Gratitude takes time. If we just kept sweating away, nose to the grindstone, we couldn’t appreciate the goodness and value of what is done.

So God rested. God drank in the beauty and worth of the universe. And this holy rest was so good that God commanded humanity to keep the sabbath. We are directed to set aside one day a week to rest FROM our labors and rest IN all that God has done for us – as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

God gave us the sabbath as a gift. It was intended for blessing. It’s a day to hit the pause button, to revel in life, and to rest in the assuredness of God’s steadfast love and grace. The sabbath is a day in which we can mercifully let go of the reins, let go of our need to control EVERYTHING. We rest in the goodness of God.

But if it’s possible to make a work out of doing nothing, the Pharisees excelled at it. The open expanse of the sabbath, its refreshing, unrestricted liberty was intimidating to them. And so they’d made a science of it. Lest they break the Lord’s command to rest, they made an extensive list of what it was possible to do, and more importantly, what it was NOT okay to do on the sabbath.

The sabbath is often framed by what we CANNOT do. I’m old enough to remember when “Blue Laws” ruled the day. Most businesses were closed on Sundays. There were certain items you absolutely could not buy on a Sunday, like alcohol. My mom grew up Missouri Synod, and she refused to write a check on a Sunday. That was a transaction, and that should not happen on a Sunday. However, I do remember my family going to the local restaurant after Sunday church, so I’m not sure how they paid the bill!

The Pharisees had turned the sabbath into a long list of no’s. God’s gift of Yes had been eclipsed by a bloated No. A commandment intended to give life was constricted by an elaborate system of regulations.