The Sabbath as an Act of Justice

Soaking the Sabbath for all its societal worth

Photo by Kampus Production: https://www.pexels.com/photo/woman-and-a-girl-sleeping-on-bed-6948084/

(A six-minute read.)

I have to admit that, growing up in a family that observed the seventh-day Sabbath from Friday night sundown to Saturday night sundown, I frequently viewed the Sabbath as a “drag.” It was a time when I couldn’t do stuff I normally liked to do. It was a time when it seemed like I had to prove my faithfulness and worthiness to God by making sure I was staying within the proper boundaries.

It was, in short, mostly just a day of “do’s and don’ts.”

For many different reasons, my attitude has shifted dramatically about the Sabbath as I’ve gotten older—and this has never been more true than it has been since we moved to Portland and our lives are approximately 100 times busier than when we lived in Bangor.

Now, the Sabbath is wonderfully a time when I actually have permission to say “no” to obligations that aren’t life-giving and restorative. It’s a time when I can unplug from the normal hustle of life and plug into the divine and plug into the community of the divine.

Yet beyond the personal benefits that I’ve become reacquainted with regarding the Sabbath, there’s another aspect about it that I’ve come to appreciate over the last few years which I never recognized or appreciated before.

It’s simply this: the Sabbath is also a grand and glorious act of societal justice.

It’s an opportunity to say “no” to the consumerism and obsession with productivity that constantly drives western culture, allowing for equal rest and rejuvenation among all segments of society.

We see this in the initial giving of the Ten Commandments themselves, recounted in the book of Exodus. The Israelites had been in captivity in Egypt for 400 years, forced into slave labor. The Pharaohs had constantly ramped up their demands, requiring the Israelites to be more and more productive, apparently fueling the Egyptian economy.

No sooner did the Israelites escape from Egypt, however, than God gave them an interesting command: “You must take a break and rest once a week on the seventh day of the week,” he demanded.

Check this out: unlike the Pharaohs, who were essentially thought of as gods-on-earth, the God of Israel didn’t demand 24/7 productivity. The God of Israel demanded seventh-day rest.

But not only for the Israelites who were in power. But also for the outsiders, the laborers, the working-class, the foreigners. Even the animals!

So concerned was God for the wellbeing and restoration of all peoples that, in the fourth commandment, he actually demanded that they give this rest to their “manservants” and “maidservants” (Exodus 20:10).

In other words, he didn’t want the Israelites lounging in luxury on Sabbath while their servants waited on them hand and foot. Instead, they were to extend this rest even to their slaves.

Not only this, he actually commanded them to extend this rest to their “cattle” and the “foreigner” who was under their roof (see Exodus 20:8-11).

This sort of concern from Israel’s God is repeated throughout the Hebrew Bible, especially in the section of the Hebrew Bible called the Prophets. Perhaps most notably, it’s a sober concern for the prophet Isaiah who, in chapter 58, issues a scathing rebuke, on behalf of God, to those with religious power.

Apparently, according to Isaiah, God’s people were doing all the “right” religious stuff. They were performing fasts, observing feast days, and saying all the right prayers, but these behaviors were apparently worthless, according to God.

Why?

Because they were “exploiting all [their] laborers” and placing heavy burdens upon the oppressed (v. 3). They were ignoring the plight of the hungry, the nakedness of the poor, and the needs of the homeless.

The solution, according to Isaiah, was multifaceted. It included clothing the naked, feeding the hungry, and letting “the oppressed go free” (v. 6).

But it also included another act, perhaps surprising in its direction:

If you turn away your foot from the Sabbath,
From doing your pleasure on My holy day,
And call the Sabbath a delight,
The holy day of the Lord honorable,
And shall honor Him, not doing your own ways,
Nor finding your own pleasure,
Nor speaking your own words,
Then you shall delight yourself in the Lord;
And I will cause you to ride on the high hills of the earth,
And feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father.
The mouth of the Lord has spoken. (Isaiah 58:13-14)

Growing up, this verse was often cited as justification for requiring the avoidance of all sorts of recreational activities on Sabbath—like swimming or playing sports (after all, we were told to “turn away your foot . . . from doing your pleasure on My holy day”).

But textually, the “pleasure” they were invited to turn from was the “pleasure” of “exploiting” their laborers (it’s the same Hebrew word that’s used in v. 3).

In other words, Israel was using the Sabbath as another day of exploitation, trying to extract every last penny they could from their workers.

Instead, God wanted Israel to step into the glorious joy of extending rest to others as a beautiful act of compassion, equality, and justice.

I believe we are invited to do the same.

One of my favorite books I’ve read on this topic is a little book, written by Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann, called The Sabbath As Resistance, which I read about five years ago. Though the connection between Sabbath and justice was one I’d already been cogitating on, Brueggemann’s brief thoughts sealed the deal for me.

Let me just share an extended quote from him on this:

Sabbath is the great day of equality when all are equally at rest. Not all are equal in production. Some perform much more effectively than others. Not all are equal in consumption. Some have greater access to consumer goods. In a society defined by production and consumption, there are huge gradations of performance and, therefore, of worth and significance. In such a social system, everyone is coerced to perform better—produce more, consume more—be a good shopper! Such valuing, of course, creates “haves” and “have-nots,” significant and insignificant, rich and poor, people with access and people denied access.

But Sabbath breaks that gradation caused by coercion. On the Sabbath:

-You do not have to do more.
-You do not have to sell more.
-You do not have to control more.
-You do not have to know more.
-You do not have to have your kids in ballet or soccer.
-You do not have to be younger or more beautiful.
-You do not have to score more.

Because this one day breaks the pattern of coercion, all are like you, equal—equal worth, equal value, equal access, equal rest.

Beautiful! Inspiring! Convicting!

I wonder how the world would be different if everyone simply committed to taking one day off—the same day off together—each week and rested from our constant obsession with consumerism, production, and competition.

I recognize there are some practical challenges with such an idea, of course (e.g., who fixes the power lines when the there’s a power outage in the dead of winter that one day a week?).

And I’m not at all proposing that such a day should be imposed upon us by any government or all world governments (turning back the clock to the days of the “blue laws” here in America). Nor that one’s religious status and standing with God be determined by their ability to perfectly keep the Sabbath.

But what if we just freely chose—of our own volition—to rest from all our normal work, consumerism, and competition from sundown Friday night to sundown Saturday night (following, after all, the example of Jesus, who observed this rest-day on Saturdays) and connect with one another and connect with the divine.

I bet if we did this, society would experience less stress and anxiety, less loneliness, fewer trips to the ER; we’d be less medicated, more happy, and enjoy greater peace. And we’d find that we are less driven by production and consumerism the other six days of the week as well.

To be clear, the Sabbath isn’t a magic elixir, but it does have the potential to pack a lot of punch in its 24 hours!

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Shawn is a pastor in Portland, Maine, whose life, ministry, and writing focus on incarnational expressions of faith. The author of four books and a columnist for Adventist Review, he is also a DPhil (PhD) candidate at the University of Oxford, focusing on nineteenth-century American Christianity. You can follow him on Instagram, and listen to his podcast Mission Lab.