Sabbath (or) Holy(?) Questions, part XXI
Richard M. Wright
Whatever happened to Sunday as a day of rest?”
Which someone said in my presence last Sunday afternoon. Someone who is one of the most faithful, committed, involved, active-in-half-a-dozen-ministries persons I know in this congregation. Not the only person I have heard voice out loud a question along those lines.
Here is a dangerous question. To what extent does the church hinder or help Sabbath keeping? (By “church” I mean either the “church” in general – however one defines that – or this local church/congregation known as University Baptist Church.)
Get here around nine o’clock in the morning. Get a few things ready for morning worship. Drive the church bus. Teach a Bible study. Preach and lead worship. Drive the church bus. An hour at home. An area leadership meeting. Get a few things ready for Evensong. Drive the church van. Help lead Evensong. Drive the church van. Home at seven thirty in the evening.
To put it in very crass terms, “At least [I] get paid for it”. There are plenty of people in University Baptist Church whose Sundays look like this – or more – and it is all volunteer. They (almost) never complain. But occasionally I (over)hear comments along the lines of, “I don’t want (my kids) to spend all day at church” or “It was nice to have Sunday night off”.
Do not misunderstand me. It is not my place to criticize the typical Sunday schedule at this or any other Christian community. But we must – how can I put this? – wrestle with the question. Does this (local) church make it easier or harder for individuals and families to keep Sabbath? To what extent do we turn Sunday (not to get into Sabbath/Sunday? and so on) into a day of work and exhaustion – rather than a day of play and rest as well as a day of prayer and worship? If – for the sake of argument – Sunday is our primary day for practicing Sabbath, how much does this church empower and encourage people to play and rest? hang out as a family? practice hospitality? spend a quiet hour praying and eating (sic!) the Bible?
Often I observe how good (Baptist) Christians implicitly or explicitly assume that being busy at church all day is precisely how one shows “commitment” and “faithfulness”. Too often such assumptions seem more rooted in nostalgia, tradition, or culture than in sound theology or exegesis. Would Jesus say to us, “You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe your own traditions! Thus you nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down” (Mark 7:9, 13)?
I don’t have any easy answers in mind. Sunday is a logical? convenient? day for much of what we do. And Isaiah 58 seems to argue that Sabbath/Sunday is the perfect day for some kinds of ministry that otherwise might be considered work (“Sabbath (or) Holy Justice, part XX”, The Window, October 19, 2007). But does some of our Sunday busy-ness set aside what happens to be the longest commandment? that holds in balance our relationship to God and to neighbor?
