A Kind Word For Sabbath-Keeping

Several weeks ago I began a sermon on the Ten Commandments with some probing questions at the expense of an well-remebered tradition in the Christian Reformed Church: Sabbath-Keeping.  (CLICK HERE and fast-forward to 39:10 for the sermon)  For better or for worse - and in truth I might say there is a little of each at play here - those days are long gone.

In the interest of full consideration though, I'd like to pass on a portion of a recent post by Tish Harrision Warren in the NY Times that caught my eye.  As she often does, she is able to find a life-giving wisdom among the practices of authentic gospel-centered practice that captures the original intent and inspires modern faith.

When Philip Schaff, a 19th-century Swiss German theologian, immigrated to the United States, he was impressed by the ability of ideologically disparate religious groups to collaborate politically to solve social ills. For Schaff and many others, a key issue in the burgeoning industrialist economy of the North was the preservation of time for worship, rest and family life to preserve the dignity of the worker. They looked to Sabbath laws, in part, to help achieve this. Schaff stressed that keeping theSabbath wasn’t merely a religious observance but served a civic function. It was a practical way,through time itself, to treat workers as valuable humans with whole lives to be lived.

In an 1863 address to the National Sabbath Convention, Schaff argued that “Sabbath rest” is necessary for both body and soul; that it preserves “health, wealth and the temporal happiness and prosperity of individuals and communities.” He went on to say that “our energy and restless activityas a nation, our teeming wealth and prosperity and our very liberty makes the Sabbath a special necessity for us.” He called Sabbath laws a check and limit to the “degrading worship of the almighty dollar.” “Take away the Sabbath,” Schaff said, “and you destroy the most humane and democratic institution,” which is made particularly for “the man of labor and toil, of poverty and sorrow.”

I don’t expect us to put blue laws back on the books. I understand that most Americans — including religious Americans — no longer observe a strict day of rest. I also understand, of course, that the Sabbath lands on different days for different religious traditions. Still, with the boundaryless work of the digital age, with consumer pressure for retail stores and e-commerce companies to remain open at all times, and with our unholy worship of productivity and convenience, the spirit of these laws is more needed than ever before. What practices now limit “our restless activity as a nation”? What resources are there in our culture to curb the “degrading worship of the almighty dollar”?

Excerpted from We Are Humans, Not Machines by Tish Harrison Warren.  New York Times, October 16, 2022

CLICK HERE for the full post - https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/16/opinion/work-rest-sabbath.html

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