Sabbath and the Rhythm of Trust
I have the pleasure of driving a 2004 Buick LeSabre. My car, like a quaint, old house, has endearing features to it. The air conditioning does not work. One of the doors does not open from the inside and one of the windows does not go down. But it’s paid for, it runs, and did I mention it’s paid for?
And then there are the unique features seen on the instrument panel that I look at daily: the fuel gauge does not work, and a ‘check engine’ light is always illuminated as is the tire pressure indicator.
I’ve learned how to manage around these particular indicators: I refuel every 200 miles and pray a lot. I ignore the check engine light and I check the pressure of my tires when they look oblongish. These indicators no longer serve as warning signs - they are either broken or I have determined that it is just too expensive to have the real issue resolved.
May I be honest with you, my pastoral colleagues? I worry about us. I worry about our health. I have seen far too many pastoral cars stall out in unexpected seasons. In normal, non-pandemic times, we either don’t know what indicator lights to look for or we ignore the illuminated ones because it will cost too much to resolve the root issue. And now in these pandemic months, my concern grows that we, as a community of clergy, will lose more than what we ever intended to.
In Genesis 25, Esau was overworked. The text says that he was “famished.” That word is the same that David used in Psalm 63:1, “O God, you are my God, I seek you, my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.” Esau works in the field all day and upon smelling and seeing Jacob’s lentil stew, he proclaims, “let me eat some of that red stuff, for I am famished.” Jacob, the deceiver, makes Esau a deal, asking for Esau’s birthright, to which Esau responds, "I am about to die; of what use is a birthright to me?"
Esau’s famished-ness creates an environment where he is willing to sell something time honored for something temporary. Esau makes a poor decision because of something lacking in his life. You might even be able to say that because of being overworked, he is vulnerable to unwise compromise. And for what? Lentils?
When one is tired, one is vulnerable. We have a deceiver who has a coordinated plan to steal, kill, and destroy the work of God in us and through us. In my years of ministry I found that he most often stands in the kitchen with a bowl of temptation in the moments I’ve ignored the indicator lights.
When researching clergy burnout I noticed there are at least four indicator lights that are designed to help keep us on the road. Pursuing satisfaction in the Father, prioritizing physical health and developing non-competitive relationships are the first three. The fourth indicator light, healthy work/rest rhythm, is one that has been lit for so long that we either think it is broken or we think it is too costly to repair.
Indicator Light - Healthy Rhythm
Just as every car needs regular tune ups and oil changes so too does a healthy pastor require regular maintenance. The Spirit of God invites us to consider practicing a rhythm of engagement and disengagement. Mark 1:35-39 says, “Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed. Simon and his companions went to look for him, and when they found him, they exclaimed: “Everyone is looking for you!” Jesus replied, “Let us go somewhere else” (emphasis mine).
This passage is profound. Just before this, Jesus was healing people and casting out many demons. Then he gets up early, gets away by himself and prays before Simon finds him. Simon tells Jesus, “Everyone is looking for you” to which Jesus responds, “Let us go somewhere else.” Get this: Jesus walks away from need, need that he already demonstrated he can meet! Why? How?
I wonder if in his time of solitude and prayer, his Father whispered to him, “It’s time to move on to the surrounding towns.” The time of disengagement clarified and directed how he was to engage.
The gospels contain story after story of Jesus’ rhythm of engagement and disengagement. Jesus’ life produces a rhythm that, like good music, has a combination of beats played and spaces of rest.
Indicator questions to invite the Spirit of God into:
What might the soundtrack of my work/rest rhythm sound like?
What is it in me that drives my pace?
How much rest time did I take last year?
Invitation: Practice Sabbath as a Gift
God sees you in your striving and God invites you to consider a new gift for your soul. Maybe the one thing that seems the most difficult to do in the midst of the pandemic is the thing that your soul and body most desperately need. In Mark 2:27, Jesus says, “The sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath.” Sabbath is a gift to humankind - not a set of rules divorced from their purpose of finding and celebrating life in God. Sabbath is a twenty-four-hour day in which one stops and rests and celebrates life in God. Jesus speaks to sabbath’s purpose even in his violation of its legalistic rules. He broke sabbath to heal, to feed his followers, and to restore. Sabbath is a gift that births life!
It was always to be that way. In the two accounts of the Decalogue, sabbath’s gift was commanded for two different reasons. These reasons illumine why sabbath can be a gift for us still today:
You are a child of God. (Deuteronomy 5:15) - Sabbath was commanded so that the people of God would no longer identify themselves by their slave relationship to pharaoh. Slaves cannot take a day off of work but free people can. We are no longer identified or defined by our productivity or our strength. The weakest and most fragile among us has the same value as the strongest and most productive. Our identity is confirmed in our baptism and sealed by the Holy Spirit as a child of God. I am free to take a sabbath because my productivity does not define me. I’ve found that when I practice sabbath I also tell my parish, my family, and myself that I am human, I have limits and I am not God.
God has a rhythm (Exodus 20:11) - God ceased on the 7th day. He rested. As such, the people of God are invited to live in the same rhythm of the Creator. We are called to work. But our work, our co-creation with God, frames and is framed by this culturally subversive gift of sabbath where we pause and take inventory of the space in which God so graciously invites us to dwell.
To live in this rhythm of engagement and disengagement takes trust.
If we are honest with ourselves, THAT is what drives our unwillingness to sabbath. We either don’t trust God to provide enough if we stop working (we say things like, “there is too much work to do”) OR, like my check engine light, we don’t trust that when we stop and rest we will be able to handle the expense of the real issues behind the indicator light.
The people of God in the wilderness learned to trust God for daily manna. And the daily manna was only good for that day. If the people of God tried to collect more than one day’s share, the manna would spoil. But on the 6th day, they were to collect two days’ worth so that the people of God did not have to scurry for food on the sabbath. Magically, mysteriously, the seventh-day manna did not spoil after the first twenty-four hours. I imagine the first time Israel collected two shares of manna that some woke on the seventh morning anxious to see if God could be trusted to provide good manna on the day when they did nothing to obtain it.
To live in a healthy work/rest rhythm, to practice the gift sabbath, is to say to God, “I trust you. I will take these twenty-four hours and trust that you’ll hold together all the broken parts of my work, all the misplaced things in my office, all the undone to-do list items. I trust that you are working and I will rest.” When culture (especially church culture) says busyness is a badge of honor, to practice sabbath is to live subversively. I encourage all to begin a sabbath in the evening, making one of the first acts of sabbath an act of trust - going to sleep - an act that says, “I’m beginning this day reminding myself that I am not holding it all together. You are God. I’m going to bed.”
I sketched out a sabbath prayer a few years that begins my sabbath and reminds me to trust.
Lord, come quickly to save me.
While I rest:
Fix that which I have broken
Do that which I left undone.
Hold together all that I am tempted to control.
Protect me from distractions within and distractions outside.
Remind me of your love.
Prepare me to serve you faithfully.
Envelop my loved ones in your grace and kindness.
Do what only you can do, especially for the vulnerable.
Come quickly, Lord, to save me.
To practice sabbath is to also trust in God as Sanctifier. When we sabbath, when we live into healthier work/rest rhythms, things surface that need sanctification.
A few years ago I drove a moving truck from Flint Michigan to Jackson Mississippi in one day. The truck was just barely in better condition than my current car. It shook when it drove and the air conditioning did not work. After 19 hours on the road, I collapsed onto the hotel room bed, begging for rest. The more I lay still on the bed, the more I realized that the shaking of the truck also shook my insides. The truck was parked but my internal world was still in motion.
When we are not accustomed to stopping, stopping feels like trauma. Things that busyness and hurry suppress will fight to be dealt with when you stop. The inner shaking is felt. The unseen wounds cry out. Yes, things will need to be dealt with when we stop and rest. But I take comfort in John’s reminder that “perfect love casts out all fear.” The good news is that God will not reveal anything that God does not intend to heal. To stop is to say to God, “I trust you to heal and to fix that which surfaces when I no longer live at the pace of the prior 6 days. Come and sanctify me.”
Sabbath Suggestions
Create an off ramp to begin sabbath and an on ramp when the day is done.
Off Ramp Ideas: write a sabbath prayer, create a to-do-after-sabbath list, turn off your phone, light a candle
On Ramp Ideas: Enjoy a meal in community, pray with your spouse or a good friend, journal about the day’s gifts
Stop whatever is work to you.
Play
Nap
Read a novel
Paint
Enjoy God’s presence
Pastor Rich Villodas summarizes my prayer for us as we live into a new rhythm. “Sabbath is the gospel--for on this day I do nothing, yet God loves me.” May it be so.
Rev. Dr. Dan Gildner is an ordained elder in the United Methodist Church. He currently serves as the senior pastor of Grace Church in Perrysburg, Ohio.