Keeping the Sabbath: Trust!

Every seventh year you shall grant a remission of debts. And this is the manner of the remission: every creditor shall remit the claim that is held against a neighbor, not exacting it of a neighbor who is a member of the community, because the Lord’s remission has been proclaimed.

If there is among you anyone in need, a member of your community in any of your towns within the land that the Lord your God is giving you, do not be hard-hearted or tight-fisted toward your needy neighbor. You should rather open your hand, willingly lending enough to meet the need, whatever it may be. Be careful that you do not entertain a mean thought, thinking, “The seventh year, the year of remission, is near,” and therefore view your needy neighbor with hostility and give nothing; your neighbor might cry to the Lord against you, and you would incur guilt. Give liberally and be ungrudging when you do so, for on this account the Lord your God will bless you in all your work and in all that you undertake. Since there will never cease to be some in need on the earth, I therefore command you, “Open your hand to the poor and needy neighbor in your land.” --Deuteronomy 15:1-2, 7-11 (NRSV)

Then Jesus said, “There was a man who had two sons. The younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of the property that will belong to me.’ So he divided his property between them. A few days later the younger son gathered all he had and traveled to a distant country, and there he squandered his property in dissolute living. When he had spent everything, a severe famine took place throughout that country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed the pigs. He would gladly have filled himself with the pods that the pigs were eating; and no one gave him anything. But when he came to himself he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired hands have bread enough and to spare, but here I am dying of hunger! I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands.”’ So he set off and went to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him. Then the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ But the father said to his slaves, ‘Quickly, bring out a robe—the best one—and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate; for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!’ And they began to celebrate.

“Now his elder son was in the field; and when he came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing. He called one of the slaves and asked what was going on. He replied, ‘Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fatted calf, because he has got him back safe and sound.’ Then he became angry and refused to go in. His father came out and began to plead with him. But he answered his father, ‘Listen! For all these years I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command; yet you have never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him!’ Then the father said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.’” --Luke 15:11-32 (NRSV)

Grace and peace to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

It must have been tough to be a banker in Israel. Although one could get used to having that one day each week - that shabbat day, that seventh day - to stop and to rest. It was an entirely different thing to erase all debt every seven years. As a creditor, to simply eliminate any outstanding loan payments and entire loans beginning at midnight on the eve of each seventh year. Each jubilee year.

This command though was only part of a series of commands for Israel related to shabbat, to overall financial practices, and to sabbatical years - this series of biblical regulations that were part of what came to be known as the Holiness Code. Part of the collection of laws given to Israel by Moses at Sinai. Each seventh year - each sabbatical year - the land was to lie fallow.  To rest. In the same year, any property that had been taken had to be returned to its original owners and heirs. All indentured service were to be freed. And, then, of course, all debt was to be erased. Gone.

It must have been tough to be a banker in Israel. In fact, it must have been tough to be someone in a position of power, someone controlling others, whether through owning debt, or taking property, or owning others - holding onto power was not an easy thing in Israel. 

Because that’s exactly what God intended.

Over these past three weeks, as we’ve explored what it means to be keepers of the Sabbath. To stop. And to rest. Today, we come to the biggest of the three. The hardest of the three. The third aspect of Sabbath-keeping that really encompasses every element of this fourth commandment and, really, of all the commandments. As we’ve learned how important it is for us to stop and to rest. To remember who we are. And who God is. The text from Deuteronomy today is a striking illustration of the trust that the Israelites are invited to live in. Trust that we are invited to live in.

How hard it must have been for Israel! To go from years and generations of slavery to forty years of absolute trust and dependence on God in the wilderness. Then, to becoming landowners in Canaan, to begin forming and shaping their society and their ways of living together with all of the challenges and messiness that can bring. And, then, God calls for all debt to be erased every seventh year.

One has to wonder how that worked out? After all, isn’t it human nature to want to try to game the system? How might debtors respond? Would they somehow try to manipulate the process to ensure that the largest possible amount of debt remained by the end of that sixth year, so that it could be eliminated? Or how about those bankers? Perhaps they only made loans for six years, even reducing the total amounts they would lend, always with an eye for the seventh year - that sabbatical year. 

But, isn’t that really the point? Because, in our human nature we try to find these work arounds. Because we are afraid. Afraid that things won’t work out. That we won’t have enough money. That God won’t provide. Even though God says God will. Even though our experiences prove otherwise. 

God understands our mindset. The gradual way in which sin creeps in. How we become enticed to build ourselves up at the expense of others. To guard and to protect our worth. And to ignore the need of others. To amass power for ourselves and then to consolidate it. To use it to disempower and dehumanize others. God recognizes the human mindset. And calls it out. God calls out being tight-fisted and hard-hearted. Resenting those in need as though they are taking something away from us. Refusing to see each other as mutual caregivers, that we belong to each other and are to help one another in the same way that God helps us. Because there will always be need in the world. It is our human condition that ensures this.

It’s why the Sabbath command is so important. Because it reminds us that God is God and that we are not. And it leads us to trust. To trust in God, an abundant God, who will ensure that we are cared for. And who invites us to join with God in caring for each other and meeting each other’s needs.

Because this is the way of freedom. The way of freedom won for us in Christ. A freedom that is for everyone, regardless of financial worth or status. A freedom that disrespects power and control. A freedom that sees everyone and everything as coming from God’s creative hand. And as we live into our Jesus-won freedom. As the Spirit works in our hearts to deepen our faith, we grow in trust. Trusting God. That God will meet our needs. And that we are then free to meet the needs of others.

This is God’s ideal. That there be no separation between freedom and welfare. That the justness of a society is measured by its treatment of the dependent. The orphan. The widow. The foreigner. The poor. The lowly. As J. M. Hamilton writes on this chapter in Deuteronomy, “The view of human rights in the Bible ‘defines that treatment which the dependent has a right to expect of society and that treatment which society owes to the dependent.” 

What a radical view of how we are to care for our neighbor and for the dependent in our society! That it is their right. And that it is an obligation by the community. What a radical view for a society - for our secular society - that has taken its cue from the Enlightenment, rather than from Scripture. Seeing human rights as things to be safeguarded from others rather than a set of obligations that is owed. How radical is that?

But, isn’t it this radical nature of God’s grace that we see in the story of the prodigal son? This young man who goes to his father and insists upon his inheritance. Who then takes it and squanders it in the worst way possible. Who ends up slopping pigs. So hungry that he even considers joining in and eating their food right along with them. Someone who has been a fool. Someone who has earned exactly where he’s ended up. Self-destructed. At the bottom. Where he deserves to be.

It’s interesting, isn’t it, to view this story with a Sabbath lens? As the young man returns home, still scheming how he might convince his father to take him back, his father sees him. Is overjoyed. And welcomes him in. The young man discovers that he is loved and claimed simply for being his father’s child. And he is given a place, working alongside his father, in freedom. Restored to wholeness. His older brother is offered this same place, but it’s so hard for him to let go of the false idea that his worth is measured in what he does. What he produces. What he earns. Instead of who he is - his father’s child.

It’s why the Sabbath is so important for us. If we cannot assess our value and our standing by how productive or how successful or how good we are, the invitation by God and the grace offered by God to simply abide in God’s love, to trust in God’s love - a love that claims us as God’s own - it can feel terrifying. And, perhaps, even a little offensive.

But, we, too, can move from slavery to freedom. We, too, can be awakened from death into life. We, too, can feel our joy made complete. We, too, can experience rest for our souls. If only we Stop! We rest! And we trust. And we let God meet us just as we are.

Amen.

Preached July 28, 2019, at Grace & Glory Lutheran Church, Goshen, KY.

Pentecost 7

Readings: Deuteronomy 15:1-2, 7-11; Luke 15:11-32

Keeping the Sabbath: Rest!

Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all their multitude. And on the seventh day God finished the work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all the work that he had done in creation. --Genesis 2:1-3 (NRSV)

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As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.

“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father. --John 15:9-15 (NRSV)

Grace and peace to you from God, our Father, and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Last week, we began our three-part series on the Sabbath. We heard last week that once a week, we are to STOP. To let go of how the world defines us - by what we produce. To stop and to live into our humanity. To stop doing and practice just being. One day out of seven.

We can’t just stop, though, can we? Standing or sitting in one place for 24 hours? No. We are to stop. And, then, to rest.

What does rest look like to you?

Rest in scripture is more than simply lounging around all day. Napping. Reading a book. Doing nothing. Rest means much more than simply “having a rest.” Rest is really focused on what happens after one completes one’s work. Rest, in scripture, means completion.

So, it’s no wonder then, that, after God had crafted the world and the inhabitants of that world in six days - at the completion of that phase of God’s work - God rested. It’s as though God finished God’s work. (And, by the way, the Hebrew word used for God’s work is the same word used for ordinary work - the work that you and I do each week). God finishes this phase, stops, and takes a look back at what God has created. God stops to rest and to enjoy what God has made. Because this is integral to who God our creator is. God enjoys the beauty and the harmony of each creature and each feature that, in its very uniqueness, contributes to the whole.

It kind of reminds me of the symphony!

My son grew up on classical music. He grew on a wide variety of music, but, in particular, because I played a lot of classical music on the piano and the organ, he heard a lot of it. And learned to love it.

In elementary school, he took lessons to play guitar. Then, later on, piano. (How many of you learned an instrument in elementary school?) But, what he most loved was listening to the symphony. So, it wasn’t long before I purchased season tickets to the philharmonic for the two of us. First, let me tell you that seeing classical music performed by an orchestra is way better than listening to a recording of it. As its performed, you’re able to watch each instrument being played. To watch the percussionist move back and forth between the tympani and bass drum. To see the trombonists work the slides of their instruments. To see the violists bow their instruments or pluck the strings - each technique very different from the other. But, then, secondly, to hear an orchestra in person is also way better than listening to a recording. To hear, much more distinctively, as the bassoons play a phrase. Or to hear the trumpets enter as the music swells and grows bolder and louder. To see and hear the uniqueness of each instrument. Each very different in look and sound. Yet, each that contributes to the whole.

Yes, I think that on the seventh day, when God rested and viewed all that God had made, God saw and heard the uniqueness of each creature and each feature, and God saw the symphony of his work. And God experienced joy.

Because, this is who God our creator is. Just as a parent, who simply sits back to watch their child play, and learn, and grow. To watch one’s child simply be a child. God enjoys the beauty and harmony of each unique aspect of God’s creation. God creates to enjoy. God creates to relate and to connect to all of creation. And God, in setting apart this day at the end of our week of work - God, who created us in God’s very image - desires for us to find joy and relationship and connection in our rest.

There’s another aspect of the Sabbath, this shabbat, that we read in our Genesis text. In addition to God resting on this seventh day, God blessed the day. And sanctified it. God made it holy. In all of the creative work that God had done before this day, it is only this day of rest, this seventh day, this Sabbath, that God sanctified.

Throughout scripture, when God sanctifies something, God makes it God’s own. Just as God has sanctified us and made us God’s own, God sanctifies and makes this day God’s own. It is a day that belongs only to God. It is a sacred day. It is also the clearest hint for us of how we, created in the divine image, should end our week. How we should find our rest.

It’s how Christ found his. “As the Father has loved me,” Jesus tells his disciples, “so I have loved you; abide in my love.” It is in a rest that abides in God’s love where we find renewal. Where we understand that our life is not self-generated, that our life doesn’t come from us, but that our life is a gift. From God.

In the words just before our reading from John today, Jesus uses the vine and branches metaphor. (After having toured a winery on vacation, I particularly like this metaphor.) “I am the vine, you are the branches,” he tells the disciples. This metaphor and the life envisioned in it stands in striking contrast to the life that our world teaches. The world’s life is a life of individualism, of privatism, and of success that is based on individual accomplishment. A life well lived in the eyes of the world is based on the “survival of the fittest” ideal - where it’s all about me. And about what I do. About what is good for me. It’s a life where we are always in competition with each other. Seeking to be better and more productive than everyone so that we can be viewed in the world’s eyes as “successful.” The best. The biggest. The richest. The most powerful.

How easily we can be trapped into this view of life!

But, the life envisioned in this metaphor used by Jesus stands radically in opposition to that of the world’s vision. This life assumes social interrelationship and accountability. Where we are only as fruitful as we are abiding with others in Jesus’ love. Where we are responsible, not only for ourselves, but for each member of our community of faith. And for our neighbor. And our enemy. For every citizen and for every immigrant, whether documented or not. “This is my commandment,” Jesus says to his disciples and to us. “Love one another as I have loved you.”

This is why Sabbath rest is so important. Because our rest, our renewal, is found in God. As we abide in God each week, we remember who God is. As we hear God’s word and receive the sacrament, we remember who God is. And we remember who we are. A people created by God, invited to abide in Jesus. To cling to the faith of Christ in God. And to find a renewed life. A life that belongs to God and is a gift of God. Life that trusts in God absolutely. And a life that is absolute mutual care and connection to others.

This is what the gift of the Sabbath is to look like. That we Stop! And Rest! And find life and joy in God’s presence and love.

We are made for this love. We are made to live in this love. We are made to share this love. Amen.

Preached July 21, 2019, at Grace & Glory Lutheran Church, Goshen, KY.
Sixth Sunday after Pentecost
Readings: Genesis 2:1-3, John 15:9-15

Keeping the Sabbath: Stop!

Observe the sabbath day and keep it holy, as the Lord your God commanded you. For six days you shall labour and do all your work. But the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work—you, or your son or your daughter, or your male or female slave, or your ox or your donkey, or any of your livestock, or the resident alien in your towns, so that your male and female slave may rest as well as you. Remember that you were a slave in the land of 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.  Deuteronomy 5:12-15 NRSV

‘Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.’

At that time Jesus went through the cornfields on the sabbath; his disciples were hungry, and they began to pluck heads of grain and to eat. When the Pharisees saw it, they said to him, ‘Look, your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the sabbath.’ He said to them, ‘Have you not read what David did when he and his companions were hungry? He entered the house of God and ate the bread of the Presence, which it was not lawful for him or his companions to eat, but only for the priests. Or have you not read in the law that on the sabbath the priests in the temple break the sabbath and yet are guiltless? I tell you, something greater than the temple is here. But if you had known what this means, “I desire mercy and not sacrifice”, you would not have condemned the guiltless. For the Son of Man is lord of the sabbath.’ Matthew 11:28-30 NRSV

Grace and peace to you from God, our Father, and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Last week, I shared with you pieces of my vacation with my brother and sister-in-law, and an old friend. I mentioned that we very easily fell into the custom of the afternoon siesta. Each afternoon, around 2 o’clock, most of the shopkeepers and restaurants would close down to go home for a late lunch and to rest during the hottest part of the day. Then, around 6 or 7 pm, they would return to their shops and restaurants, re-open them, and remain open until around 9 p.m. each day. This was a long-standing custom in Orvieto - the more rural village in central Italy, where we spent our first week. 

It was interesting, however, to note that, when my friend and I arrived in Rome for the second week, this tradition was nowhere to be found in this large, bustling city. Even so, we still continued the restful pattern we had experienced that first week in rural Italy - the time of rest in the middle of the day in a cooler space. To nap, if we were tired. To read, if we weren’t. And, particularly, to be together.

Because, after the first few days, that’s eventually what began to happen naturally. While we might disappear into our rooms for a short period at the beginning of our siesta time, we inevitably found ourselves gathering together in the living area. And, then, with the setting sun, moving onto the covered patio with a glass of wine. To catch up on our lives. To share our joys. And our challenges. And, yes, to sometimes irritate each other (as my brother and I occasionally do). To simply stop. And to be human. And to find rest.

Today, we begin three weeks learning about and living into what it means to keep the Sabbath. Sabbath, or Shabbat, in the Hebrew. A word that simply means to stop. To cease. To be at a standstill. This word that is at the center of the Fourth Commandment. And not only at the center of the commandment, but at the center - the hinge - of the Ten Commandments. The hinge between the commandments that address our relationship with God and those that address our relationship with each other.

I think we have a really hard time with the idea of a Sabbath. In our 24/7 world, where we are constantly busy. Where technology keeps us constantly connected to work. Where the average American checks his or her phone 80 times a day while on vacation, where parents are hiring coaches to help them raise “phone-free” children. The idea of keeping the Sabbath seems foreign to us. Perhaps, even ridiculous.

Yet, it is this commandment that is the longest and most descriptive of the ten. It is a command that is on the level of the command not to murder. This fourth commandment is not a throw-away comment by God. Given to Israel, first by God at Sinai and then, in our Deuteronomy text today, repeated by Moses to Israel as they were about to enter the Promised Land. It is this commandment - this practice - that God insists we do. Regularly. Why? Because God knows it is the hardest lesson - the hardest practice - for us to do. 

It was for Israel. They had been enslaved in Egypt for some 400 years. It had been deeply ingrained in their psyche that their worth was determined by what they produced. Their value was defined by their output. They were measured with each other based upon it. They compared themselves with each other, striving to produce more and more so that they would be viewed as valuable and important to their slave masters. Their lives literally depended upon what they did.

But, they are no longer slaves. They are no longer owned by a master or locked into a system that dictates their worth based on their production. They’re now free. The will need to learn how free people live. Alongside other free people. With God as their master, rather than Pharaoh.

This why this commandment is so important. Because, while the other commandments take the people out of slavery. It is the Sabbath command that takes the slavery out of the people. So that they may truly be free.

This was a hard lesson for Israel to absorb. It is a hard lesson for us to absorb. Because we forget this most of the time. This is why, God tells us, we have to do it regularly. We have to keep the Sabbath regularly. To step out of the mindset and activity of the world around us. The measuring, the comparing, the competing, the striving, the producing, the consuming. We have to regularly stop doing and practice just being. Because neither our value, nor our worth are to be defined by the values and worth of the world.

All the other creatures and the earth itself already does this. We, too, are commanded by God to succumb to the cycles of rest and renewal that God built into the fabric of all existence. Cycles that we are determined to transcend. 

One day in seven - the commandment says - we are to remember that we are not God. On purpose. That we are neither better, nor worse, than anyone around us. That we are all connected and belong to God and to each other.

After all, isn’t it this what it means to be human? Isn’t it this what it means to be free?

But, again, we forget this most of the time. Even as we seek to find meaning in our lives, there are forces around us that shape how we do this. Our 24/7 connectivity saturates us with messages that strip us of our freedom. And our humanity. They suck us into a relentless comparison and division. A ranking and a judging. A striving and a measuring. And we begin to believe - and to act - that the world can’t run without us. 

Sure, spirituality is nice. God, of course, is real. But, do we really need God? We’ve pretty much got it all together, don’t we? 

Yet, in the meantime, we’re so disconnected from our true selves that we can barely handle it when emotion of any kind arises. It throws us off balance. We chronically over-commit, under-resource, and exhaust ourselves. Who in the world even has time for Sabbath? If we step off our spinning carousel, it will all fall apart. We’ll never be able to put it back together again. Plus taking a Sabbath is self-indulgent. Shouldn’t rest a reward for a job well done? Isn’t this part of the Protestant work ethic in our country? We wear it like a badge of honor. “How are you?” someone asks us. “Busy!” we reply, as if it is our busy-ness that is proof of a well-lived life. Look at what we’re doing! Look at how well we’re producing and consuming! We’re not going to waste any time with a Sabbath!

And do we really need God?

Unless we regularly stop, sisters and brothers, we forget that God is God. And that we are not God. We forget that we are creatures. With bodies and minds and hearts that need to be tended. That are dependent upon the love and care of a creator who is ready to meet us when, or if, we simply stop moving long enough to be met. And we forget that we are in this together. Alongside everyone else. That we need one another, because life isn’t meant to be done alone. And, finally, human beings who forget their humanity are arguably the most destructive force in the universe.

So, stop! And, then, “come,” Jesus calls. “Come. You who are weary. You who are tired of toiling. Of striving. Of struggling. You, who have lost heart. Come. Find your life again. Find your humanity. Find your soul. Let go of the world’s yoke and take on mine. For it is light. Because it is a yoke of grace. Practice this. Each week. Take on the life I desire for you. A life of obedience and righteousness. So that you, like Israel, might learn to let go of that which enslaves you. Of that which binds you up. Of that which reduces your humanity.”

Stop! Keep the Sabbath. And live. Live into this commandment that gives life. And relationship. With others. And with God. Who frees you. Who loves you. Just because you are you.

Amen.