In Jesus' brief ministry, he was repeatedly running into the requirements generated by this commandment. While he was often at odds with the religious authorities over how this commandment was to be observed, he did not discount its religious value. In the passage of scripture we are dealing with, Jesus attempts to balance the validity of sacred scripture with human necessity. In that balance there are lessons for us.
The first thing this passage says to me is that religious people tend to get focused on regulations. Consider the Jewish people of Jesus' day. The Sabbath was very special to them. One reason for this is that according to the teachings of Israel, the day was ordained by God to provide for the rest and refreshment of humans. It is interesting to note that the prohibition against killing takes only four words, but the commandment about the Sabbath takes 94 words. The requirement to observe the Sabbath is so contrary to human activity that it required an extensive explanation. One explanation given is that God created the idea of rest on the seventh day of creation. Therefore, a Sabbath rest is built into the very structure of the universe; there is a basic rhythm of activity and rest in all of life.
André Gide tells about an incident that took place some years ago when he made a journey into the interior of the Belgian Congo. His party had been pushing ahead at a fast pace for a number of days, and one morning when the Europeans were ready to set out, their native bearers, who carried the food and equipment, were found sitting about, making no preparation for the new day's trek. Upon being questioned, they said quite simply that they had been traveling so fast in the last few days that they had gotten ahead of their souls and were going to stay quietly in camp for the day in order that their souls could catch up with them. In their primitive way they were describing the need for a rhythm in life between activity and rest.
But for Israel in particular, the Sabbath was a sign of their unique relationship with God. The Sabbath became a weekly reminder of the Passover, the time when God had delivered the Israelites from slavery in Egypt and made them his people. In his book, East River, Sholem Asch quotes the words of an old Jew, Moshe Wolf, in regard to observing the Sabbath. Wolf says, "When people labor, not for a livelihood, but to accumulate wealth, they become slaves. For this reason God granted the Sabbath. For it is by the Sabbath that we are taught that we are not working animals, born to eat and to labor. We are humans. It is the Sabbath which is our goal, not labor...."
Unfortunately, as with everything in which people are involved, the Sabbath had the possibility of excess within it. The sincere dread of profaning a day called "holy" began to haunt the Israelites. All kinds of petty regulations were set up to safeguard the Sabbath. Ultimately, the day became the important thing, not the people for whom it was created.
By the time of Jesus, the Sabbath had become a burden, not a blessing. Strict rabbis had drawn up a lot of rules over the years, regulating everything. Some were ridiculous. For example, it was taught that there could be no work on the Sabbath, so a person must be still; he must not shave or ride horseback; if his ox fell in a ditch, he could pull the ox out; if he fell in a ditch, he had to stay there. Eggs laid on the Sabbath could not be eaten; the hens had been working. If a flea bit a person on the Sabbath, he must not scratch it, but let it bite in peace, for to try to catch the flea would be hunting on the Sabbath. Once fire broke out in Jerusalem on the Sabbath. The Jews, afraid to work on that day, let it burn, and three people were killed. The day became more important than the persons it was designed to serve. But when Jesus came, he reversed the idea, reminding people that human life was more important than rules or regulations or days. For this they sought his life.
Christians, too, have been tempted to focus on regulations. Requirements about the observation of the Sabbath were eventually attached to Sunday. The early Christians were responsible for some of the change. They had no special day of worship at first; so they observed the Sabbath along with the Jews. But as the resurrection of Jesus assumed increasing significance among them, it seemed appropriate to have a day to remember that distinctly Christian happening. Therefore, the disciples chose the first day of the week rather than the seventh day, so that they might have a weekly reminder of Easter. In 321 A.D., Constantine made Sunday an official day of rest for the Empire, and with that there began to develop an increasing series of rules to regulate that rest.
Subsequently, Sunday observance followed the pattern of the Jewish Sabbath before it. Strict laws were set up for its observance. In England, in 1653, a law was passed saying that any person above the age of seven caught walking in the streets on Sunday would be whipped and fined. In one of our American colonies a law said that a woman could not wear a red dress on Sunday. A sea captain returned to his home in Massachusetts after many months at sea. His wife met him at the gate and he kissed her. But it was Sunday, and it was illegal to kiss one's wife on Sunday, so the captain was jailed.
Some of us know the blue laws which governed Sunday activities as we were growing up. The enforced piety which made Sundays so long and dull was enough to turn any healthy child from religion. Moreover, the implication was that being a Christian was equated with keeping the rules. It was that kind of legalism that Jesus was challenging in this passage.
The second thing this passage says to me is that human beings are more important than regulations. In the first situation that is described, the religious leaders fault Jesus' disciples for pulling off handfuls of grain as they passed through a field on the Sabbath and popping the grain into their mouths. They contended that this amounted to working on the Sabbath. Jesus justified his disciples' actions by reminding his hearers that when David was fleeing for his life, he and his men went to the tabernacle at Nob and asked for food. They were told that there was no food except for bread which had been offered as a sacrifice to God, and which was to be eaten only by the priests. Nevertheless, David, who was looked upon as Israel's great hero, took the bread, ate it, and shared it with his men. The implication is clear that in time of need, human necessity takes precedence over the requirements of law.
In the other situation described in this passage, Jesus is in a synagogue on the Sabbath. A man comes in who has a paralyzed hand. Jesus seizes the initiative and invites the man to step forward. He then asks the religious authorities whether it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath. When they refuse to answer him, he heals the man. The religious authorities interpret this as work, are convinced that Jesus has willingly broken the commandment, and seek to kill him. Again, the implication is clear: human life is more important than rules. The religious leaders have lost sight of this because, for them, religion is keeping the rules.
In spite of Jesus' statement that "the Sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the Sabbath," the Christian church, too, has attempted to regulate how the Sabbath is to be observed. Over the centuries, Sunday has been identified with the Sabbath and the church has sought to apply Sabbath restrictions to Sunday activities. Over the years this had the effect of forcing people to go to church. And they might as well, for there was nothing else to do. If they did find something else to do, the church prevented them from enjoying it by heaping up guilt over desecrating the Sabbath. As Christians have become more affluent, however, they have managed to acquire more of life's amenities: vans, trailers, motor homes, boats, cabins, leisure. Weekends, of course, are the logical times to enjoy these amenities. The church has been reluctant to acknowledge this because it might seem to give people permission to stay away from church, and if they stay away they will get out of the habit of going to church, and the church will be weakened. So it has served the interest of the church to interpret statements about keeping the Sabbath holy as meaning, "Thou shalt attend church on Sunday." The Bible does not require that. And people eventually get tired of being made to feel guilty and they stay away anyway. There are numerous valid reasons for Christian people to gather for worship, but the requirement to keep the Sabbath holy, is not one of them.
Having said all that, the third thing that occurs to me as I consider this passage is that there are, nevertheless, some principles involved in Sabbath observance that are important for us to keep in mind. One of those principles is rest. Dr. William Dement, a Stanford psychiatrist, says that our cultural demands push us so hard that we are creating a "national sleep deficit." More than half the workers he surveyed admitted to falling asleep on the job. They get sick, lose productivity, have serious accidents, become depressed, and make bad decisions because they haven't provided themselves with adequate rest. This is dangerous for everyone. He points out that the nuclear disasters at Chernobyl and Three Mile Island both occurred in early morning hours, in the middle of overnight shifts, when workers were at a mental low. The Challenger shuttle disaster followed an all-night discussion by exhausted launch officials. Pennsylvania's Peach Bottom nuclear power plant was shut down a few years ago after the Nuclear Regulatory Commission inspectors found shift workers dozing. Some of this problem Dement attributes to Thomas Edison. Before the light bulb was developed, people went to sleep when it got dark. Moreover, Edison didn't help matters any by giving his own opinion that a good night's sleep was a waste of time.
Too many people act as though a day of rest will lessen their return from life. I read an epitaph once which someone had written for a person who worked himself to death. It said, "Born a man, he died a grocer."
Actually, a time of rest enhances our ability to enjoy the remainder of life. Winston Churchill stayed rested and alert during the difficult days of World War II by scheduling cabinet meetings around his naps. Albert Einstein believed that regular naps refreshed his mind and stimulated his creativity. The recurrent Sabbath reminds us that the rhythm of activity and rest are built into the scheme of things.
A second principle involved in the observance of the Sabbath is the reminder that we are human. One of the biblical reasons given for observing the Sabbath is that God himself rested from his creative activity. If God rested, who then are we, that we should attempt to go on day after day, from one activity to another without pause? A few years ago The New York Times carried an article about a chess Olympiad which was being held in Germany. It mentioned a certain change in the schedule of play which would be helpful to two players, Fischer and Reshevsky, because neither would play on Friday night or Saturday. Fischer was a member of a strict Christian sect and Reshevsky was an orthodox Jew. Both observed the Sabbath. Here were two people involved in an international competition, who were saying to the rest of the world, "Time out, while I observe the Sabbath." They were demonstrating their freedom to choose how they would conduct their lives. They were free to choose activity, but instead they sought stillness. They were free to keep right on competing, but they chose to take an upward look. The Sabbath principle involves remembering that we are creatures, not gods; we cannot do everything, nor ought we to expect ourselves to, for that smacks of pride, and we do better humbly to recognize our limitations.
A third Sabbath principle is worship. Ralph Sockman once wrote, "Six days a week we sit at the loom. On the seventh day God calls us to come look at the design." Difficult as it is for me to say it, not all worship takes place in a church, and not all that takes place in a church contributes to worship. A young boy, coming reluctantly into the sanctuary of his church, noticed a plaque on the church wall. "What's that?" he asked his father. "That was put up in memory of all the brave people who died in the service," said the father. "Which service," asked the boy, "8:30 or 10 o'clock?"
The Sabbath principle is that when people get quiet, they begin to think seriously about God, about life, and about God's purpose for that life. Wherever that takes place it becomes worship. Marcus Bach, in his book The Power of Perception, tells about a Sunday when his father defied his strongly conservative mother and cut church to take young Marcus fishing. It was a glorious spring day, but Marcus' joy in it was marred by thoughts of a wrathful God. As they bicycled past the cemetery, with its awesome reminders of mortality, his pleasure in the outing seemed to ebb completely. But then, out in the country, it came back again. "A flash of secret wisdom told me I knew things," he writes, "that even my preacher uncle did not know. I knew them because I felt them on this beautiful spring morning. God liked fishing. Jesus liked fishermen. God liked this Sunday morning world ... God's world was life and freedom. God's world was the open road and the farmyards and the young corn coming up in clean, cultivated fields. God's world was the man-sized bike and the legs that made the wheels go round. God's world was Dad and I and Lodi's Mill. God's world included people going to church or going fishing, just as long as they really loved the Lord." Later, as the boy stood by the pond, watching the green flakes of algae, the shimmering lily pads, the beds of watercress, the silent mill wheel, and the other fishermen standing around the bank, an old hymn started ringing in his mind:
Come, Thou Almighty King,Help us thy name to sing,
Help us to praise!
Father all glorious,
O'er all victorious
Come, and reign over us....
Oh, that those gathering in church could have a worship experience half so authentic!
As meaningful as such a private worship experience may be, it is in worship with others that most of us find our faith encouraged, challenged, and disciplined. Someone has pointed out that private worship is like singing an aria in the shower; family worship is like the same selection sung together around the piano; public worship is like singing that aria in a choir at a concert. All enrich, all supplement, all are needed.
I am aware that the experience of worshiping together may not always be stimulating. A preacher was visiting one of his shut-ins, an elderly lady, who was bemoaning the fact that she could not come to church to hear his sermons. The preacher, trying to console her, said "Mrs. Jones, you aren't missing anything." "Yes," she replied, "that's what everybody tells me." Well, even if the sermon sometimes misses the mark, somehow the fellowship of like-minded persons can provide us with strength for the long haul, inward reinforcement, clearer vision of duty, and restored faith and courage.
I read recently about a strange custom in the British Navy. If there is a disaster aboard ship, "the still" is blown. The particular "still" is not a place where whiskey is made, but rather, a whistle which calls the crew to a moment of silence in a time of crisis. When the still is blown, every person knows that it means "Prepare to do the wise thing." That moment of calm, it is said, has helped to avert many catastrophes and kept people from foolish actions. The principle of the Sabbath is the blowing of the still. It is a reminder that God said, "Be still, and know that I am God."