Pastor's Page
I have an acquaintance who once, 15, 20 years ago, worked on a Kibbutz in Israel.
This was a fairly orthodox religious kibbutz, so observation of the Sabbath was taken seriously. Food was prepared the day before, so you would only have put it into your mouth to eat it. Lights were set on timers or with electronic sensors that went on when you entered a room. You wouldn’t have to flip a switch. Elevators had a special Sabbath mode, so they would stop on each floor, no button pushing. Everything was done to make certain that you wouldn’t have any chance of doing work on the Sabbath.
My friend, as the youngest of the “adults” in the Kibbutz, was given the important and tedious task of pre tearing the Toilet paper, so that there would be enough for everyone without needing to tear more, which would be work.
I don’t know what happened if she miscalculated, but she did tell me that they set the light timers wrong once and sat in the dark all evening.
Seems to me this is a pretty pretty good example of how most of us 21st century protestants view the Sabbath, at least as other people observe it. The kind of sabbath observance that is Religious, but not spiritual. A bunch of rules without meaning :
Only Walk this far, no more
Don’t pick up any sticks
Don’t tear the toilet paper
If this is Sabbath, we are better off without it,
Which might explain why we and our children and our grandchildren are so hurried and harried and exhausted. Why our relationships are so strained. Why we don’t have time to get to know each other, let alone God.
Sabbath-- Shabbot-- comes from a hebrew root word meaning do nothing. Since when have we had time to do nothing? Since it is doing nothing, we assume Shabbot is about nothing, but maybe not.
Jesus, sent the Disciples out two by two, with authority, over demons, over disease; and when they got back did they have stories to tell him.
“Oh, Jesus, the things we did, the things we saw, wait till you hear it”.
“Great” said the master, “let’s go out to a deserted place in the wilderness and do nothing.”
I imagine they were a bit under-whelmed. I can really sympathize with them. Years ago, while I was in India, we took a two week drive around the southern tip of the continent. Our leader for the trip was a professor of Church History, Arthur Jaykumar.
It was Long hot trip, 13 people crammed into a dilapidated old van, the only kind they used to have in India. We had a few adventures and a few near misses and a few calamities. As we parted, Arthur stood in the door of our home and said:
“ I have just one last thing to say to you.”
We were hushed, we expected some great wisdom or maybe an affirmation of the importance of our experience together.
Arthur said “Take a bath, you will feel much better”
After all we had been through together, that is all we got, Take a Bath! Talk about a let down-- which is what I’m sure the disciples felt.
But it was the perfect time, because one of the things the Sabbath is about is Humility.
We are all more than a bit like David. We get things in order, the way we like them, and what is our first thought? Better get God into a box, preferably someplace we can keep an eye on the Divine, or else who knows what God may get up to with our lives.
God, has other plans, This is, after all, the lion of Judea, used to roaming the land free, not living in a house.
“I’m the house builder, not you!” Says God and this is exactly what we need to keep in mind, because humility is not about deflecting praise in some way that really draws attention to us. Humility is about knowing where you end, and God begins. God sustains us, even when we are doing nothing.
Well, the people saw Jesus and the disciples leave, so they followed, And when they got to the wilderness, it seems there were more people around than most of the wildernesses I know. The people were all around Jesus and the disciples and doing nothing is not what they had in mind. They wanted healing and miracles. But that is really okay, because Shabbot is about community,
Sabbath is one day everyone is the same. They do the same thing, it costs them all the same amount, it has the same result for everyone. One day a week, they are all bound together by what is the foundation of their community. And that is doing nothing?
Noooo, it is all depending on God- because when all you can do nothing, God is all you have to depend on. That is also the case the rest of the week when we each of us lives out of our own particularity and status and class and wealth- but when you are doing nothing, it is easier to remember.
So, the crowds come, and what else could Jesus and the Disciples do, they start praying, and anointing and healing the people. Not exactly doing nothing, but that is okay, because the Shabbot is about compassion.
If you recall we have talked about this from time to time. How our word compassion means to feel with- but in the greek and Hebrew compassion means to feel way down inside, like when a child moves in the womb (for men the word is to be moved in the bowels, not as good an image.
Shabbot, the day when both rich and poor do nothing, and the rich can feel like the poor and the poor are just like the rich, everyone can know what it is to feel like someone else, deep down in their being. And they can feel compassion for each other as a community. You see the other thing, one more important thing that the sabbath is about, is imagination.
Humans really can’t do nothing, it is just not possible. We aren’t made that way. Here I will show you. Every body here know what a Polar Bear looks like? Okay, please don’t think about what a polar bear looks like. As a matter of fact, don’t think about polar bears at all. And what ever you do, don’t think about a purple polar bear.
See, can’t do it. We are just too imaginative.
And that is what the sabbath is for, imagination.
• How can we have compassion, if we can’t imagine our sister’s or brother’s suffering.
• How can we have community if we don’t imagine what our sister or brother’s life is like and how it is like our own.
• How can we have compassion unless we can imagine how that life is different from mine.
• How can we have Humility unless I can imagine hat my sister and brother bring to the community that I don’t
• How can we have the kingdom of God unless we can imaging what it will be like.
The apostles gathered around Jesus, and told him all that they had done and taught.
6:31 He said to them, "Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while." For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat.
6:32 And they went away in the boat to a deserted place by themselves.
And they did nothing, and it made all the difference, for the rest of the world and the rest of time.
Because what they did the right kind of nothing. They had Shabbot. Amen.
