Sabbath Keeping: Living with Pause and Punctuation
Rev Dr Ian Stackhouse, Guildford
Given the centrality of Sabbath in the early campaigning of the Jubilee Centre, I hesitate to venture into this subject. As much as I support the idea of ‘Keep Sunday Special’, I confess I am not a strict Sabbatarian, nor someone who thinks that Sabbath is the same as what we Christians call The Lord’s Day. What I am passionate about, however, is the recovery of a Sabbath rhythm that punctuates our productivity with what in Hebrew is termed menuchot: that is, rest. And the reason I am passionate about this is because, even though Jesus had issue with the Pharisees over their weaponizing of the sabbath, there is no doubt in my mind that he kept Sabbath. Indeed, not only did he keep the fourth commandment, but he also assumed his followers would do likewise. Hence, this short meditation on what to me should have appeared at the end of the first chapter of Genesis as the climax of creation - rather than shoved almost as an afterthought into the beginning of the second chapter - when God blessed the seventh day and made it holy.
In the version of the decalogue in Deuteronomy, the reason given for keeping Sabbath is tied up with Egypt, which is to say that only free people can keep Sabbath. In Exodus, however - by which I mean the ten commandments as they appear in the book of Exodus - keeping Sabbath is about creation; and it is this aspect I would like to reflect upon here: the importance of keeping in step with God’s ordering of the world. What I mean by this is quite basic: namely, that if God didn’t show up at the office on the seventh day, choosing instead to rest from a full-on week of creating, then we should follow suit. Resting, blessing and then sanctifying a Sabbath day is his way of gifting this to us. We can refuse it. Most do. In my neck of the woods people live 24/7. In so doing, however, we not only violate the ‘unforced rhythms of grace’, to borrow a phrase from the Message translation of the Bible, but also, in a most existential way, return the world back to the chaos from which it came. If that sounds a bit dramatic, just observe the burn out that follows from an unpunctuated life. It is truly chaotic, not just for the person pursuing such a reckless path, but also for those living in close proximity. It is like a vortex, even though the busyness has disguised itself as a virtue.
How one cultivates a Sabbath rhythm to a week is an interesting question. I suspect it will require an intentionality that goes beyond mere aspiration. Indeed, given the demonic restlessness of modern consumerism, I think it will require utter ruthlessness in order to pull it off. To stop what one is doing, and to trust that the world will survive a day without us, requires an enormous amount of faith. Nothing in mainstream culture, not even the so-called leisure industry, is encouraging us to do so. And given that a return to the laconic Sundays of my childhood is not going to happen anytime soon, it behoves us as followers of Christ to do the radical thing, not to mention eco-friendly thing, and cultivate a play ethic alongside our work ethic. In doing so, we shall not only appropriate a gift from God but also offer a gift to the world. As Abraham Heschl points out in his classic reflection on Sabbath, we live in a world enamoured by technology, but always this is at the expense of time. Keeping Sabbath rectifies that by hallowing time over space. [1] By forcing us to down tools once a week it reminds us that we are human beings not human doings; that we live by grace and not by works; and that all of life pivots on providence not productivity. To go against this, as Napoleon discovered when he tried to introduce the ten-day week in the new Republic calendar, is as arrogant as it is futile. Days are not units of time; any more than men and women are mere citizens of the state. We are made in the image of God. Our human longing, whether we recognise it or not, is to enter into God’s rest. Sabbath keeping is the way we realise that:
‘In technical civilisation, we expend time to gain space. To enhance our power in the world of space is our main objective. Yet to have more does not mean to be more. The power we attain in the world of space terminates abruptly at the borderline of time. But time is the heart of existence.’ [2]
This is not the first time I have tackled this subject. Nearly two decades ago now I wrote The Day is Yours, which was all about living by rituals rather than schedules. [3] Inevitably, I ended up writing a chapter on Sabbath, making the point as early as I could that Sabbath is not simply a day off by which we recharge our batteries – we call that ‘a bastard Sabbath’ [4] - but an encounter that carries intimations of eternity. I told the story there of a Rabbi who I met in Israel who was a chain smoker, but on Sabbath not only stopped smoking but claimed he didn’t even want to smoke. Later on, I discovered a version of this story in Heschel’s book on Sabbath, so I’m wondering now if the Rabbi was telling me a parable. Either way, it strikes me that freedom from addiction is precisely what Sabbath is about and what the glory will unveil. We live in a compulsive age. Restlessness characterises the way we approach all of life. Sabbath breaks that by healing the anxiety. Of all the commandments, it is the one we sit lightly too. We make a virtue of breaking it. We think Jesus is on our side. What I am wondering is whether the fourth commandment is possibly the most important in our time, and a powerful way of bearing witness to the reign of God in our world.
Lent 2025.
Listen to our episode on Shabbat here.
The views and opinions expressed above are those of the author alone and do not necessarily reflect those of the Jubilee Centre or its trustees.
[1] Abraham Heschel, The Sabbath: It’s Meaning for Modern Man, Boston: Shambala Publications, 2003 [1951], xvii.
[2] Ibid; ix.
[3] Ian Stackhouse, The Day is Yours: Slow Spirituality in a Fast-Moving World, Milton Keynes: Authentic, 2008.
[4] Eugene Peterson, Working the Angles, The Shape of Pastoral Integrity, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 46.
