Sabbath (or) Holy Non-profitability, part XVIII
Richard M. Wright
Are you “profitable for the kingdom of God”? Are we even supposed to ask such a question?
Last weekend [RW - back in March 2007] we enjoyed the gift of Donald Miller coming to speak twice on Saturday, once on Sunday morning. During his first talk (Saturday afternoon) he outlined key shifts in the relationship between the church and the (dominant surrounding) culture. One of which was the Industrial Revolution. The rise of the “corporation”. The church begins to think about the kingdom of God in terms of productivity. Churches begin to look like conference centers. Preaching and teaching often addresses how we can be “profitable for the kingdom of God”. As if the good news of Jesus Christ is a product that we sell for the Corporation (rather than the kingdom) of God.
And after the Industrial Revolution came the Entertainment Revolution. Three thousand commercial messages per day that proclaim (1) we are not happy, and (2) we will become happy if only we buy this product. Better get busy buying and using!
Sitting in the balcony I immediately thought of the relevance of Sabbath. When we enter Sabbath we enter a realm in which for a time(?) we are free from the Corporation and Commercialism. For this one day out of seven it does not matter what we produce or if we are “profitable”. It does not matter what we buy or use – in fact it is a time in which we can without guilt choose not to buy or use anything.
In her book Keeping the Sabbath Wholly Marva Dawn writes,
One of the ugliest things about our culture is that we usually assess a person’s worth on the basis of his or her productivity and accomplishments… Most of our inferiority complexes derive from the fact that we haven’t done everything we wish to do or that we haven’t been as productive as someone else. (17)
(Does that remind you of what Donald Miller offered during his second talk? About Genesis 3 and the significance of being “naked”? About our need for a constant outpouring of affirmation and love from someone outside of ourselves – most of all from God?)
Sabbath is that “palace in time” in which we can most open ourselves (and our families) to the unconditional love of God who says “you are valuable just because of who you are, because I delight in you, not because of what you do, produce, buy, or use”. Marva Dawn adds,
If we can give up our need to produce and to judge others [RW – and ourselves?] similarly by their accomplishments, we can be freed to value those particular gifts that others bring into our world. Thus, our Sabbath ceasing from productivity [RW – and commercialism] can bring great healing into our own lives as well as into the lives of those around us. (21)
Perhaps we need to ask “how can we be non-profitable for the kingdom of God?”
