Into Great Silence

Sunday at the Duke Youth Academy presents an opportunity to teach our kids something about the importance of Sabbath in the Christian life.

I admit that it is a lesson I find hard to practice myself. But it is a precious gift from God - one that Jesus cared enough about to argue over repeatedly with his opponents. God the Father's desire for his creation to enjoy rest is the very reason Jesus found it acceptable to heal on the Sabbath. And it's the reason he let his disciples pluck those heads of grain.

We can only really have rest when we are whole, whether that means being healed of disease, healed of hunger, or healed of sin. And the Sabbath was made for humankind, not humankind for the Sabbath.

My own contribution to DYA's practice of Sabbath over the past two years has been to organize a showing of the 2006 documentary, Into Great Silence. Produced by German filmmaker Philip Groning, Into Great Silence is a 2 hour and 40 minute foray into the life of the Carthusian monks at the Monastery of the Grande Chartreuse in southeastern France. And it is a remarkable thing - both for the insight it offers into a rare and austere form of monasticism, and for the ways in which it can help us think about Sabbath.

Check this film out if you get a chance. It's not even that expensive to purchase. Over two-and-a-half hours of watching monks at work and prayer might not seem like you're idea of a good time. But the experience is riveting. And restful.

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Our Sabbath ended with Vespers, and the closing Scripture passage was one of my favorites:

"The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy.

"For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.

"Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. But now he has reconciled you by Christ's physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation - if you continue in your faith, established and firm, and do not move from the hope held out in the gospel.

"This is the gospel that you heard and that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven, and of which I, Paul, have become a servant" (Colossians 1:15-23).

Sabbath-keeping

You know, we take most of the Ten Commandments with a high degree of seriousness. We're not into idol-worshiping, we try to refrain from stealing, and we know adultery is wrong. So why have we lost our commitment to "Remember the Sabbath, and keep it holy?" (Exodus 20:8).

This question was brought home to me on a recent Sunday, which I recount in my current UM Reporter column.

When you look at the Sabbath command in both Exodus 20:8-11 and Deuteronomy 5:12-15, you find these points made about Sabbath observance:

-- It is a way to remember and honor God's work of creation.
-- It is a way to remember our deliverance from slavery to Pharaoh in Egypt.
-- It provides rest from our labors at least one day per week.
-- It ensures rest for subservient members of society, such as children, slaves, and animals.

In addition to these points, we might also note that in the Deuteronomy version, there are more words devoted to the Sabbath command than any of the other 9 commandments: 129 in the NRSV translation (and 89 in the Exodus version), as opposed to only 4 words for the command not to murder.

The real reason to observe Sabbath is not because of some cost-benefit analysis about what it provides us, but rather because God commands it. But I'll tell you you, it's not easy. I started thinking about this seriously when I had the encounter I describe in my column - an attempt to eat lasagna on a recent Sunday thwarted by the owner's of Pino's Italian Restaurant in Henderson, NC, who closes every Sunday for "God, family, and friends" (as it says on the sign he hangs on his door). So I wrote the column and then committed to a Sabbath observance of my own: only worship, rest, and play from now on.

The big question for me became, "What is work?" Clearly, anything associated with worship cannot be considered work. Even though I am the pastor of my congregation and receive financial compensation for my leadership of the church, worship is properly understood as celebration. But is reading work, if it is reading that pertains to my graduate studies? That's a significant question for me. If you have ideas or advice, I'd like to hear them.

Another big issue centers around engaging in commerce. When you shop or go out to eat on Sunday, you are forcing others to work. And it seems to me that a part of our Sabbath witness should be to allow the kind of rest to laborers that the biblical command is talking about. I've stopped going out to eat on Sundays, and I actually had to catch myself from swinging by Blockbuster on my way home from church yesterday. I'm going to try hard not to engage in any commerce at all on the Sabbath.

Ultimately, I think Sabbath-keeping is a way for Christians to reclaim their distinct identity as the people of God. In that way, I think Sabbath-keeping can only finally be sustained in a community. Individual observance will tend to fail when opposed by a culture that cares nothing for Sabbath (Chik-Fil-A excepted, of course!). So if anyone would like to share ideas about Sabbath, I would love to do that.

[End note: I'm aware that the actual, biblical Sabbath is talking about Saturday rather than Sunday. But in the early church, the fact that Jesus' resurrection - "the Lord's day" - occurred on the first day of the week meant that Christians began to center their worship lives on Sunday rather than Saturday. For centuries, that has meant that Christians identify their Sabbath with Sunday.]