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All Saints Lutheran Church
Pastor Raita Neely
The Third Commandment
Exodus 20:8-11; Deut. 5:12-15; Mk. 2:23-28
July 6, 2003
A few weeks ago, on a rainy morning, my friend Kathy was making
a bright colored quilt. She was sewing in the family room while
Katie, her four year old daughter was playing within earshot
of her mother. Pretty soon, Katie ran in to see how mom was
doing with her quilt. Katie spotted bright colored strips in
the waste basket, trimmings from the quilt, and asked if she
might play with them. Permission granted, she took the strips
and her mom could hear her talking to herself in the living
room. In a while, Kathy heard Katie singing Jesus Loves Me.
Kathy looked into the living room. Katie had taken the strips
of quilt and attached them with huge pieces of scotch tape to
a yard stick. She was singing, slowly dancing and waving the
yard stick like a huge banner. She spotted her mom and said,
"Mommy, I'm dancing with Jesus, do you want to dance too?"
No, it was not a Sunday, but as Kathy told me about Katie's
joy, I wondered if that may not be a good image of Sabbath for
each of us - a day to dance with God. In many ways I think that
is what God would want us to do, to experience and enjoy God's
nearness and to celebrate God's love and what God has done for
us.
The Sabbath day has a long history. For the Hebrew people it
was celebrated from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday. As you
heard in our readings there are two very different traditions
about why God gave humanity the gift of Sabbath. In Exodus,
the Sabbath is connected with God's work in creation. God worked,
and God rested. Now humanity is to work, but on the seventh
day we are to rest because it is the Lord's day and it is a
day to praise God for all of creation.
Sometimes it seems that the Sabbath is almost built into our
bodies. Just last week I was talking to a young man who biked
across the United States. He said that he usually biked between
seventy-five and a hundred miles a day for six days. But by
the seventh day, he needed a rest and so he remained in one
place-sleeping, eating bigger meals and visiting with people
in the town where he happened to be.
Notice, that the commandment says that not only adults need
rest, but also children, and even animals. In other words, everyone
needs rest at least once a week.
The Deuteronomy reading refers back to the time when the Hebrew
people were slaves in Egypt. It asks them to remember their
days of slavery when there was no rest, and says rest is essential
for God's people. Here also, the Sabbath is a day to rest, but
it is also a day to keep holy unto the Lord. It is a day to
thank God for release from slavery in their past, and to cherish
their freedom in the present from servitude to human masters.
It emphasizes the freedom of the human soul, the freedom of
mind and body.
Novelist Herman Wouk in his book, "This is My God"
describes the mood of a modern Sabbath in a Jewish home:
The pious Jew on the Sabbath does not travel, or cook, or use
motors or electric appliances, or spend money, or smoke, or
write. The industrial world stops dead for him. Nearly all the
mechanical advantages of civilization drop away. The voice of
the radio is still; the television screen is blank. The movies,
the baseball and football games, the golf courses, the theaters,
the night clubs, the highways, the card tables, the barbecue
pits-indeed most of the things that make up the busy pleasures
of conventional leisure- are not for him. The Jewish Sabbath
is a ceremony that makes steep demands to achieve a decisive
effect. A Jew who undertakes to observe it is, from sundown
Friday, to the end of twilight on Saturday, in a world cut off.
Through the history of Israel, how the day was kept holy, or
set apart to the Lord differed. But by the time of Jesus, it
was common for the people to worship in the temple on the Sabbath
day. The other thing that had happened was that many rules had
grown around the Sabbath day, rules about what you could and
could not do. Many of the rules had to do with daily life, like
cooking and walking and other ordinary activities. Keeping Sabbath
was one of the most sacred duties of Israel. Plucking the heads
of grain as the disciples were doing in our reading from Mark
was considered reaping, one of the thirty-nine activities forbidden
on the Sabbath.
Jesus does not set aside the law. The law is for human good,
but if a greater good is furthered by breaking a law, for instance,
the feeding of the disciples, then the lesser may be broken
to keep the greater. In Jesus' view, the highest good has authority
over the means by which it is to be attained. And so we have
Jesus not only allowing his disciples to pluck grain on the
Sabbath, but Jesus himself healing on the Sabbath and saying
that doing good on the Sabbath is allowed.
By the time the Gospels were written, the Sabbath was no longer
the last day of the week, but Christians celebrated the first
day of the week, our Sunday. Some of the thinking that changed
the day was that on the first day of the week, God had created
light and Jesus was the light of the world that God sent to
give us light. God also raised Jesus from the grave on the first
day of the week, giving the people another reason to celebrate
Sunday.
In the sixteenth century, Martin Luther wrote in his small catechism:
Remember the Sabbath to keep it holy. Luther writes in his explanation
to the commandment: "We are to fear and love God so that
we do not neglect God's word and the preaching of it, but regard
it as holy and gladly hear and learn it."
For Luther, Sunday had two purposes: rest for the sake of our
bodies and worship for the sake of hearing and discussing God's
Word followed by praising God with song and prayer. When it
came to any kind of work on Sunday, Luther said, "The observance
of rest should not be so narrow as to forbid incidental and
unavoidable work." When asked exactly what it meant to
him to keep the day holy he said, "Devote Sunday to holy
words, holy works and a holy life."
Luther said that God's Word is the treasure that makes all things
holy. By God's Word all the saints are being made holy. At whatever
time God's Word is taught, preached, heard, read, or pondered,
there the person, the day, and the work are made holy by the
Word, not because you are doing the work, but because of the
Word itself which keeps molding us into saints. Accordingly,
Luther constantly repeated that all our life and work must be
guided by God's Word if they are to be God-pleasing or holy.
When and where that happens the commandment to remember the
Sabbath Day to keep it holy is in force and is fulfilled."
- Luther wanted people not only to hear the Word but also to
learn it, retain it, honor it and do it. Luther said, "When
we seriously ponder God's Word, hear it and put it to use, such
is the power of the Word that it never departs without fruit.
It always awakens new understanding, new pleasure, and a new
spirit of devotion and it constantly cleanses the heart and
its meditations. " Moreover, Luther believed that we should
worship daily, starting and ending each day with the Lord's
Prayer, the Ten Commandments, and the Apostle's Creed followed
by reading of Scripture.
I am sure some of you remember not so long ago when stores were
closed on Sundays. When most people did not work on Sundays.
When sports programs for children were not run on Sundays. I
don't know how many people used that time to study God's word-
but I do know that families did not have to make a choice between
shopping or sports events and church.
In fact, there are still businesses, especially in small towns
who advertise the fact that they are closed on Sunday, including
a statement such as : "We are closed on Sunday, we prefer
to see you in church."
More than recovering some of what Sunday has meant or been in
the past, I think we need to recover in our lives the Bible's
and Luther's idea of how God's Word acts in our lives. The writer
of Hebrews says that God's word is "living and active,
sharper than any two-edged sword. " In other words, God's
word is a powerhouse, bristling, snapping and teeming with energy
and life. When God speaks, the word goes right to work. By God's
Word, Jesus healed the sick, drove out demons, made the deaf
hear, the mute talk, the blind see. And it's also with God's
word , that God is making not only a new you, but a brand new
world.
The promise of God's new creation coming is written all over
the New Testament.
We hear it as Jesus proclaims the coming of God's rule. (Mk
1:15) We hear it as Paul sings about how Christ will destroy
all of God's enemies, including death. (I Cor. 15:21-26). We
read in Revelation, "God will dwell with us, wiping away
every tear." (Rev. 21:4)
The Bible is clear, when God speaks all things are made new.
Our story will end not with the cold stillness of the grave
but with the joy of hearing God's voice break the silence. Then
we will have the greatest rest of all, resting safe and secure
with our creator. That will be the new day God has promised.
Sunday is the day when many of us live most closely to God's
word. On Sunday, we take time to listen to what God has done
and is doing in our lives. It is a day to listen closely to
what God is saying to each of us personally. Gathering for worship
isn't just getting together to hear some nice words about Jesus.
It is gathering together with our friends and neighbors to hear
what Christ himself has to say to us in his Word, in the hymns,
the prayers and in the Sacraments.
Sunday is a very special day, it is an entirely different day;
a day of rest to hear the word, a rest stop on the way to God's
new day. This week as we celebrate our Independence Day, surely
one of the freedoms we treasure is our religious freedom - to
worship God. In the spirit of that freedom on this Lord's day,
I wonder, what does your dance with God look like?
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© 2000 - 2008, All Saints Lutheran Church, Minnetonka, Minnesota, USA
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