Terry Chapman's - Sabbath Journey

How then shall we live?

 

Reflections following a men's group discusion on the issues that divide.

I believe there are 3 possible responses to brokenness (read: injustice, inequality, etc. . . aka "sin")  on an individual or systemic level (by this I mean both on the side of brokenness and response).  

1. Do nothing.  Either paralyzed by the scale of the brokenness or just plain morally asleep one can hunker down in the supposed safety of one's small world and settle for a good enough life. However, there is a price to pay.  One may gain the whole world but "loose" one's soul.

2.  Do something that makes one feel better about oneself.  Depending on one's inclination one might write a check out of one's perceived surplus without any any threat to one's safety plan or life style.  Churches are really good at providing opportunities for this kind of temporary relief. Or you might piss and moan about all the problems in the world that someone has caused and someone else should fix.  Both of these strategies will provide some temporary relief to one's underlying pool of guilt that occasionally surfaces.  Alternatively, pacifying addictions work well here, anything that can keep the flow of moral morphine pumping through the veins. 

3.  Do what one can, as messed and incomplete as one's efforts are, allowing oneself to be regularly disturbed into some movement out of one's small story and illusion of safety.  This is tricky though.  It is not easy to live in this prophetic tension.  The more one opens to the world the more one is called to open.... the crack in one's egoic armor widens stronger and clearer to the call to open even more.  Living in inconsummation, that is, in a perpetual state of incompleteness, requires a regular conversion of the heart and stretching of the will.  This is a dangerous path that could actually lead to some part of one literally dying. . . to be born again.

On the "Sabbath Journey" the first two choices keep one firmly planted in the trance of ordinary world.  The third is the choice of one who responds to the invitation of adventure. . . it is the hero's journey. It is the path that leads to life. 

 

Sabbath and the Care of Creation

"There are few ideas in the world of thought which contain so much spiritual power as the idea of Sabbath."

Abraham Heschel could not have known in 1951 when he penned these words, how critical it would be for 21st century people to tap into the power of Sabbath.   For it is in the Sabbath that we find the wisdom to face the most challenging question of our day, “How can human beings live as responsible and faithful people in the world without destroying it?”   

First, let’s be clear, the practice or, to use a the biblical term, the “keeping” of Sabbath is not just another lifestyle option or one more thing to check off a list of the top ten things that if done will make one happy, wealthy and wise.  It is an imperative rooted in the very essence of creation.  The keeping of Sabbath is not anthropocentric but cosmocentric.  When we forget or refuse to keep the Sabbath, not only do we suffer, the intricate tapestry of the cosmos begins to unravel as evidenced in the current environmental crisis in which we live.  

Though Sabbath is particular to the Hebrew and Christian traditions, the archetypical rhythm of work and rest is so vital to humanity that it is found in virtually all religions.  In order to be fully human, and for the sake of the Earth, people must find the rhythm of work and rest, creation and completion.  The survival of the planet hinges on our remembering to keep the fourth commandment as a regular, public, disciplined proclamation that production and consumption is not what it means to be human.

One of the Big Ten, the fourth commandment to keep the Sabbath is the only command that is expressed differently in the two versions of the Ten Commandments found in Exodus and Deuteronomy.  It is in these two accounts we find the two core reasons why Sabbath practice is so essential.

In the Exodus account (Ex. 20:8-11) the Sabbath imperative to rest is rooted in and empowered by the divine indicative of rest.  The motivation to keep the Sabbath lies in the remembering of God’s self-disclosure as a God who rests.  Walter Brueggemann notes, “God is not a workaholic; Yahweh has no need to be more secure, more sufficient, more in control, or more noticed.  It is ordained in the very fabric of creation that the world is not a place of endless productivity, ambition, or anxiety.”  When the dominant culture is built on a system of productivity and control as the way to socio-economic well being, Sabbath practice becomes a counter-cultural act that announces an alignment to a different standard, one that is attuned to the God of creation and the creation of God.  When this horizontal and vertical relationship is jarred out of alignment by endless and unsustainable productivity, fueled by greed, all creation groans.  It is only in the regular and rhythmic Sabbath pause which is the cessation of productivity, that an essential cosmic realignment can take place.

The fourth commandment in Deuteronomy (Deut 5:12-15) begins with the command to “keep” or “observe” whereas the Sabbath command in Exodus begins with the imperative “remember.”  In Deuteronomy the motivation to keep the Sabbath lies in the Covenant.  It is in the keeping of Sabbath that we remember God’s redemptive actions.  This memory is a prerequisite to our ability to live as people of the covenant.  When we forget the Sabbath we forget who we are, and the whole cosmos suffers.  This is reflected in such rabbinical sayings as: “More than Israel kept the Sabbath, the Sabbath has kept Israel.”   “The perfect Sabbath rest is the attuning of the heart to the comprehension of God.”

Jurgen Moltmann sums up the centrality of Sabbath, “The goal and completion of every Jewish and Christian doctrine of creation must be the doctrine of the Sabbath; for on the Sabbath and through the Sabbath God ‘completed’ his creation, and on the Sabbath and through it, men and women perceive as God’s creation the reality in which they live and which they themselves are.”

  

Everything depends on human beings embracing these two essential Sabbath truths: God paused for breath and so should we, because when we do, we remember who we are.  When Sabbath is embraced as a core practice in our lives we can face the future as faithful and responsible stewards of creation and participants in God’s plan to complete what God began in creation.

Full of Hope But Not of Optimism

As I read this quote from Margaret Wheatley this morning I felt a strong resonance with her assessment of the state of the world ... and yes the church.

I'll sit for a while in the silence and reflect on what this means for me, for us, for faith, hope and love.

“I need to warn you that I’m not cheerful anymore. I have no interest in being optimistic; I just want us to be together and explore what this time together might be. It’s like we’re on the Titanic. I feel that my own function in this situation is (for I don’t believe that our civilization is strong enough to see us through this time and that this is a time of dissolution and unraveling) to see if we can get more people on the lifeboats.”

taken from a talk given by Margaret Wheatley at the May 10, 2002 Thought Leader Gathering, San Francisco, CA