Stephen
Terry, Director
Living in a 24-7 Society
Commentary
for the July 3, 2021, Sabbath School Lesson
"God saw all that he
had made, and it was very good."
Genesis 1:31a, NIV
We live in a time when
much of the world's population lives in cities. They often do so to find
employment at higher wages and for the social life that those higher wages can
afford. As a result, many do not experience idyllic scenes like the picture of
the gently flowing stream accompanying this commentary. Such settings may still
be enjoyed by those who are able to grow up and live in smaller towns and rural
areas. But often, even then, it can become hard to find the peace such scenes
offer as myriads, perhaps seeking what they have lost from their past, stream
from the cities to the country, bringing city traffic and city anxieties with
them. Even though, as the aphorism states, you can never step in the same
stream twice, they may seek the peace and rest they once felt from former days.
But the root of those memories may go further back than they realize.
When I look at such vistas, something within me responds. I feel calm and
filled with peace and joy. Nature seems designed for that purpose. Far from the
jarring, man-made noises of the city, in the country, bird songs and floral
fragrances waft through the air. I can feel the tension of city life flowing
out of my body. My spirit feels lifted on the breeze like the butterflies
flitting about. Even the steady drone of the bees greeting each wildflower and
blessing it with a kiss seems to say to me, "Rest and enjoy the beauty of the
day."
Rest eludes so many of
us anymore. It seems that since the invention of the lightbulb, we have slept
less and less as we burn up the hours of night in an artificial glow. In a more
agrarian time, when most went to bed with the livestock and rose with them the
next day, sleep and rest were orchestrated by those natural rhythms. Now, even
the onset of darkness cannot gently urge us to rest. Television and the
internet have replaced sleep as a nighttime activity for many. Sometimes it
seems we have become a race of insomniacs with the hours before and after
midnight often being the busiest on social media. Repeating this day after day
leaves so many so exhausted that when the weekend finally comes, they find it
hard to muster the energy to get out into nature where they might find rest and
relaxation. For some of those that do manage to find enough caffeine-fueled
energy to do something, even if they get out into nature, they try to fit so
much into so few hours that they end up starting the week just as exhausted as when
they ended it the week before. It reminds me of a conversation between Patrick
Swayze and Sam Elliott in the movie "Roadhouse." Swayze tells Elliott to get
more sleep, and Elliott responds, "I'll get all the sleep I need when I'm
dead." But it was never meant to be that way.
When we look at the first
chapters of Genesis, we find a lot of wonderful things happening. Each day God
creates goodness. But it is not goodness for his benefit. God can create
anything and owns everything. He transcends time and space. What is one more
planet compared to that? He was creating all that goodness for someone who would
genuinely benefit from it, mankind. Man's powers to
care for all that goodness would be godlike.[i] Then creating man in the
image of God, he turned everything over to him. But the greatest gift was yet
to come. He created and gifted to man the Sabbath.[ii]
In many fantasy novels
and role-playing games, when the protagonist steps forward from the mind of his
creator, they are given magical weaponry or armor to set them apart from others
and enhance their ability to prevail in whatever task they are charged with. To
create tension within the storyline, the hero will often lose their magical
items and sink back into normalcy until the item is recovered. But they never
forget the importance of that weaponry for carrying out their mission. The rest
of the Sabbath may be similar. Man's first mission was likely physically demanding
as he cared for the Earth and particularly, his Edenic home.[iii] The weekly rest was restorative
that mankind might function at their highest level with the attributes they had
unimpaired. But like the fantasy hero, as time passed, the special gift was
lost. We know this because at Mount Sinai, when Moses was given the Decalogue
from the hand of God, the Fourth Commandment, the one about the Sabbath rest,
is the only one that begins with the word "remember."[iv] The Israelites had become enslaved
to the Egyptians, living in Egypt for four hundred years. Their lives were no longer
their own. They were seen as the property of Pharoah.[v] The Sabbath had been
forgotten and the people had lost with it an understanding of who they were. Instead
of the identity God had given them, they accepted the one the Egyptians imposed
upon them, an identity that served Pharoah instead of God. Even Moses, leader
of the Exodus had to spend forty years relearning who he was and who God was
before deliverance could take place.
Like Moses, the Israelites
also needed forty years in the wilderness to relearn these things. During that
time, God reinforced the importance of the Sabbath through the gift of the
Manna, the heavenly food provided daily for their journey, with the exception that
it was not provided on Sabbath. Instead, a double portion was supplied the day
before to last through the hours of the Sabbath.[vi] This allowed them that
weekly rest that God had gifted to man in the beginning. God had no desire to
lead an exhausted band of ex-slaves into the Promised Land. He wanted them at
their best. But it was hard to change from the 24-7 expectations the Egyptians
had placed on them. Working every day had become the way of life in Egypt. But
the 24-7 work week meant they were owned, not by God who created them, but by
the Egyptians who stole them from their Creator.
Some might question whether
the Sabbath is still the same day as at Creation since the Israelites obviously
forgot the day, possibly for centuries. But two things nail down securely what
day is the Sabbath. First, the forty years of Sabbaths in the wilderness where
God did not supply the Manna for the people. There is no record of them
forgetting what day was the Sabbath after that. To this day, an observant Jew
can positively name which day is the Sabbath. The other nail that fastens this
down is Jesus. He also recognized which day was the Sabbath and attended synagogue
on that day as was his habit.[vii] While some might say that
the Apostles must have changed it, the New Testament has references to Paul,
arguably the most active of the Apostles, as keeping eighty-four Sabbaths.
Some have said that
grace means the Sabbath had been done away with, but why would that be when
they do not make the same argument for any of the other commandments of the
Decalogue? No one argues that grace has made us indifferent to adultery and
murder. The Sabbath Commandment is the linchpin of the Decalogue. The first
three commandments are based on loving God.[viii] The last six are based on
loving others.[ix]
The Fourth Commandment, the Sabbath Commandment, has elements of both. Keeping
the Sabbath honors God who gave the Sabbath gift to us, and when we observe
Sabbath, granting the Sabbath rest to others is loving them as we would love
ourselves.
We live in a time not
unlike the period of enslavement of the Israelites to the Egyptians. Many have
been financially enslaved to others through debt created by easily obtained
credit. A seemingly endless supply of consumer goods are offered us with the
idea that these things will enrich our lives. We reason that we should take
advantage of the easy credit to have now what took earlier generations their
entire lives to accumulate. Our eyes aglow with the wonderful new thing we can
add to our lives, we do not see the golden chains being fastened about our wrists
as we sign away years, even decades, of our lives. In all too many cases, the
debt outlasts the thing bought. Then when the newness is over or the item
breaks, we finance even more debt to replace it. Like the Israelite slaves
before us, we become willing to work whatever hours are necessary to service the
debt we have willingly taken on. Even the Sabbath is forced to give way.
The enslavement
complete, the never-ending round of exhaustion sets in. But just as the Sabbath
remains,[x] so also does the Lord of the
Sabbath.[xi] and he continues to offer
the same rest offered long ago in the Sinai wilderness. He says, "Come to me,
all you who are weary and burdened, 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." (Matthew
11:28-30, NIV)