The Forgotten Commandment

I spent last week in western New York state in a lakeside community that is only full nine weeks out of the year. A very few people are year round residents. I was there for a new clergy program and spent the week hearing lectures and good preaching every day, alongside talented colleagues also in their first years of ministry. Nights brought opera, ballet, concerts, and front porch gatherings.

There, among Victorian houses complete with brick walking paths, there was an intentional presence of a bygone era. For those of us who were guests who applied to a program rather than guests who paid for their time there, we had plenty of discussions of privilege and what it meant to walk on those grounds. Retired people could more easily visit than those still working. Those who rented homes and brought their children with them to this place were well above the middle of the middle class. The community was less diverse in race and class than the places we call home.

Even for us, it was a place of leisure, as it was for the other guests. We had wonderful, engaged conversations. "Continuing education" wasn't a misnomer. Yet, I walked along the lake between lectures and the dinner that someone else was preparing. I sat with new friends in the cool of the evening air, talking. (They drink beer; my drink of choice was not available.) Meals brought plenty of laughter and conversation, too. In church world, that sort of re-creation is normally called Sabbath.

In that place of such privilege, I couldn't ignore the privilege of leisure time. I knew before that days off are a privilege not granted to many. Of course I knew that vacations, especially ones away from home, are something many people cannot afford. Then, there are those of us who have jobs that allow us time away and enough money to fund time away, but still feel we can't afford to take it. Leisure always has a not so pretty economic side to it.

But the truth is, it always has. I had to memorize the Ten Commandments in various forms throughout my life. Yes, we covered both numbering systems. Sometimes I had to recite them verbatim, other times I just had to provide the gist.

Among those commandments (which I shall refrain from numbering), the commandment to keep Sabbath has the most explanation--several sentences more explanation than any other, actually. Here's the whole thing, "Observe the sabbath and keep it holy, as the Lord your God commanded you. Six days shall you labor 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."

 And still, we choose slavery. We choose not to rest. We create and support economic systems that do not allow other people to rest. We enslave ourselves and others, thereby denying God's claim on our life.

Part of the week was joining a Jewish community for their service welcoming the Sabbath--bowing, singing, eating, all out celebrating God's gift of a time of rest. May we all one day celebrate the gift of Sabbath rest.