sabbath keeping

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"Do you know the most commonly broken of the Ten Commandments?" That question was posed to me soon after I was ordained a priest; like me, if you have ever turned on a TV you may have jumped to the commandments associated with things that get media attention. There are several commandments from which you could create a "reality" TV show. However, the most commonly broken of the Ten Commandments, "Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy."

Strictly speaking, the Sabbath is the seventh day of the week: the day of rest. It is marked in our Creation Story by God taking a whole day of rest after creating all that is. Sabbath, the last day of the week is what we call Saturday, and in a strict interpretation of that commandment, I often break Sabbath. 

Sabbath Keeping can also be understood in a broader sense, as simply carving out time to let yourself rest in God's presence. That can happen on Saturday, or any day of the week. For me, that weekly day of rest comes on Fridays. I lay pretty low on Fridays. It is a day to rest, get exercise,  and recreate. The weekly practice of Sabbath Keeping helps me be the priest God has called me to be. I could always find something to keep me busy on Fridays, there is always more work to be done, but it's my Sabbath. I put things down and trust that they will be there when I return.

Summer is a good time to consider the practice of Sabbath Keeping, because it is when we tend to take vacations. We vacate: we leave things behind so that we can return to them later. At its best, vacation is a practice of setting aside time to give ourselves the time and space away from all our preoccupations, and to be away from our over-scheduled lives. We take time to focus on the more important things of life, like our families. We take rest we need to be healthy and whole. Then when we return to our every day lives, we find that it's all still there! There's also the practical benefit that when we return to work having taken appropriate rest, we can handle that work better than when we left it. Taking rest weekly and annually, in some intentional way, can be a reminder that it is truly God who provides for us. It is okay to set aside our work to rest because it is God who has given us all that we are and all that we have. Sabbath Keeping at its core is a practice of trust. We trust in God to continue to care for us. Or, as A New Zealand Prayer Book puts it, "It is but lost labour that we hast to rise up early, and so late take rest, and eat the bread of anxiety. For those beloved of God are given gifts even while they sleep."

Originally Published in the "Pastor's Pen" column of the South Jetty. 

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