"Taking Delight in the Sabbath" Exodus 20:8-11

Mr. Hermans was my high school economics teacher. He was the teacher who, a month before prom, asked every senior if he or she had a date; if the answer was no, he wrote their name on the chalkboard. Over the coming weeks, as students found dates for the prom, they were allowed to go up and erase their name from the list.

At first we were embarrassed; but as prom got closer, some students started drawing boxes around their names, or adding stars or exclamation points after their names. Mr. Hermans’s list helped quite a few of us find dates for the prom.

In addition to helping us find dates, Mr. Hermans also taught us about supply and demand, Adam Smith, the stock market, and principles of economic theory. I’m pretty sure it was in his class that I heard, for the first time, that a company had to be growing in order to be considered successful. This year’s profits had to be greater than last year’s profits.

Having never really paid much attention to economics, this idea surprised me. If a company made a profit, couldn’t that, in itself, be considered successful? Why did the amount of profit have to increase each year? Why did the company have to grow? Why couldn’t it be content with its current level of success? Why did it always have to pursue even greater success as time went on?

I’ve since learned that this is how the economy works. It is always a relentless, neverending pursuit of growth and improvement. No matter how successful you are today, the pressure is on to be an even greater success tomorrow. Production and consumption must increase!

This idea is present in the Bible. It’s nothing new. You see it first, I think, with Pharaoh.

In the time of Moses, Pharaoh was focused on growing Egypt’s wealth and power. This increase in wealth and power was of prime importance.

In order to achieve this, Pharaoh worked his people hard. There was no rest for them. Knowing that slaves could be worked even harder, made to produce even more, he enslaved the Hebrew people. The result is that instead of a society where the economy served the people, Egypt was a society where the people were made to serve the economy.

The people lived under an oppressive economic system, a system focused on money and achievement, not humanity. Pharaoh’s world was governed by what’s best for economic growth and power, not what’s best for people. So it’s no surprise that Pharaoh did not allow the people to rest. Rest meant a halt to production, and a slowdown in growth!

And it is because of this oppressive economic situation that God intervened. God summoned Moses to rescue the enslaved Hebrews from this oppressive economic situation, and start a new society in which the economy would serve the people, rather than people serve the economy.

It may surprise you, but rescuing people from oppressive economic situations is the number one reason why God intervenes in human history. God intervenes because God’s people were forced to work too hard, without rest, without the opportunity to enjoy the benefits of a successful, thriving economy.

In Egypt, driven by Pharaoh’s greed, the people were given no chance to pause, to take a break, to be still; they were given no chance to enjoy the fruits of their labor. Working all the time, enslaved to Pharaoh and an economy that ploughed forward and onward, they were not living the lives God intended for them. Pharaoh, driven by fear and anxiety, demanded more; what he had was never enough; and the people were enslaved to meet Pharaoh’s insatiable demand for growth and power.

Perhaps we should feel sorry for Pharaoh. He was only doing his best to serve the gods he knew; and the gods he knew – the gods of the Egyptians – were themselves slavedrivers and workaholics. Jesus said “You cannot worship both God and wealth.” Those really are two different gods, and you cannot worship both.

Because the God we worship, as you know, is a God who rested on the seventh day. After six days of work, our God took a break. Our God took a day to be still, to be content.

And God insists that God’s people do the same.

But in an economy like Pharaoh’s, there isn’t time to stop and rest. A day without work is a day without growth. The stockpiles of grain grow no bigger. The pyramids grow no taller. Pharaoh’s power grows no greater.

This was not acceptable to Pharoah.

Centuries later, the Roman Empire set out to build an even greater society than that of ancient Egypt. Rome endlessly pursued new lands, new wealth, new power. And because Rome wanted as much wealth and as much power as possible, it did everything it could to milk the economic productivity of its people.

Heavy, burdensome taxes. Strict, oppressive regulations. The wealth of Rome grew and grew, and yet it was impossible for the average person to improve his or her lot in life.

As Marcus Borg wrote: “The economic, political, and social structures were controlled and shaped by elites of power and wealth to serve their own interests. So thorough was the elites’ control that there was no way of countering their self-serving manipulation of the system.”

Once again, we have a situation where the people are serving the economy, but the economy is not serving them.

Before, when this happened, God sent Moses. Later, when it happened again, God sent prophets.  This time, God sent none other than his own son, to save the world from this de-humanizing regime.

Today, growth is still pursued for its own sake; not because it makes life better for humanity, but simply because we have come to believe that growth is good. Doesn’t matter if it’s sustainable or not. Doesn’t matter if it helps us truly enjoy life more or find happiness or wholeness in life. Doesn’t matter if it brings us wholeness or tears us apart… Growth is good. And in pursuit of growth, we need to work harder, with less rest and fewer breaks.

This is not some minor side-topic in scripture. This is a core message. Again, the imbalance between work and rest is what causes God to intervene in human history: when people are made to work without rest, when their labor is exploited for the sake of the economy, God jumps in and puts an end to the dehumanizing forces that oppress.

I said that Pharaoh was driven by fear and anxiety, and that his fear and anxiety are what led him to always pursue more and more. It’s the same for us today. Not a day goes by that we aren’t bombarded by messages that instill in us that same fear and anxiety. Corporations, advertisers, propagandists use fear and anxiety to sell you an idea and a product, because if you can be convinced that the product will ease your fear and anxiety, you’ll do anything you can to get it.

Of course, once you do get it, there will always be something else. Because the pursuit of growth is never-ending. And you become a slave to the message of society, which is the same message as the one preached by Pharaoh and by Caesar.

According to Walter Brueggeman, a biblical scholar who wrote a magnificent book on the Sabbath: “The liturgy of consumerism in the service of market theology always offers one more product for purchase, one more car, one more deodorant, one more prescription drug, one more cell phone, one more beer.” What you have now is always “inadequate and incomplete.” Advertisements push you to work harder and earn more, so you can always be ready to buy the next “new and improved” product.

Those ads are today’s slavedrivers, with whips in their hands. They are Pharaoh. They are Caesar. They will not let you rest.

Brueggeman writes: “Into this arena of restlessness comes the God of rest who offers relief from that anxiety-producing system.”

God commands us to observe the Sabbath. God commands us to take a day of rest. The purpose is to stop the mindless pursuit of “more,” turn society around, to have the economy serve humanity as it is supposed to.  According to Brueggeman: “Sabbath is an act of resistance because it insists that our lives are not defined by the production and consumption of commodity goods.”

The Sabbath is a day for not seeking what you do not have.

The Sabbath is a day for not making improvements to your house, your income, your wardrobe.

Instead of constantly seeking improvements… instead of always striving for a better, new-and-improved tomorrow… we are commanded to spend one day being content with what is.

Contentment and happiness will never come to you if all you do is worry about tomorrow, if all you do is seek improvements to your life. Seeking to improve your life, to make tomorrow better than today, is good, but only if you are able to pause now and then and appreciate life as it is.

Two verses in Isaiah 58 talk about the Sabbath, and the thing that strikes me here is that the word “delight” appears not once, but twice. Have you ever associated delight with the Sabbath?

Listen to this: “If you stop trampling the Sabbath, stop doing whatever you want on my holy day, and consider the Sabbath a delight, sacred to the Lord, honored, and honor it instead of doing things your way, seeking what you want and doing business as usual, then you will take delight in the Lord. I will let you ride on the heights of the earth; I will sustain you with the heritage of your ancestor Jacob.”

What else does Isaiah talk about in that chapter? Isaiah talks about helping the poor, feeding the hungry. The Sabbath, in other words, is not a day to pursue improvements to your own life, but it is a day on which you can help improve the situation of those less fortunate than you. With gratitude and joy, you can work on the Sabbath to lift others up. It is an interruption in growing your own fortune, pursuing things you don’t have.

In thinking about the Sabbath – what one can do and what one can’t do, if one is to follow the Biblical command – the question often comes up: “What is or is not allowed on the Sabbath?”

This is a question that Jesus faced often. He healed on the Sabbath; many of his fellow religious leaders believed that was against the Sabbath laws. But Jesus knew: the Sabbath was created for humans; humans weren’t created for the Sabbath [Mark 2:27]. This is what’s wrong with the economy: it’s supposed to serve humans, but instead, humans end up serving the economy. The Sabbath is a correction to that.

So if I ask myself: am I allowed to do the dishes on the Sabbath? If I can do the dishes without resentment, then sure. If I can do the dishes with gratitude… If I can devote my whole mind to the task and find joy in it…

When Brother Lawrence, a 17^th century monk in France, was assigned chores of cooking and cleaning in the monastery kitchen, he learned over time to find joy in the task, to find God in the washing of dishes. He trained his mind to not long for other activities, but to be content with his present contribution to the monastery in the kitchen.

If I can do the dishes like that, mindfully, fully present, then it can be a holy task worthy of the Sabbath.

But if I am resentful… and if I have the radio on, listening to ads that fill my mind with longing for products I don’t have, and I’m grumbling as I do the dishes, then no.

Can I shop on the Sabbath? That one’s harder, at least for me. When I shop, what is my mind focused on? It’s focused on acquiring something I don’t presently have. There is no gratitude in one’s mind if the focus is on acquiring something one doesn’t have. Plus, even if you are determined to get just one item and leave, you can’t shop for that one item without seeing something else that you want, wishing you could buy that too. A shopping trip always focuses your attention on what you don’t have. It does not allow you to be content with what you do have.

We are slaves to the economy. We are slaves to a society that does not allow us to rest or be still. We are slaves to an endless pursuit of what’s new-and-improved.

It is vital that we take time on a regular basis to stop this endless pursuit. It is vital that we be still. It is vital that we just be.

We should find contentment and happiness with what we have; otherwise, we will never be content or happy no matter how much we have. We should stop worshiping the gods of growth, the gods of the Egyptians, the gods of Rome, and start worshiping the God who rests on the seventh day, the God who takes delight in the Sabbath, the God who takes delight in life itself.

In a world that pushes us to keep going, to not stop in the pursuit of greater prosperity, it really is an act of resistance to stop, and breathe, and be. And maybe even smile a little bit.

Some of you might think I’m crazy for even suggesting such a thing. Mr. Hermans might say that the idea undermines our whole economic system. Yet I know that my God commands it, and my wellbeing depends on it.