In recalling the Ten Commandments in our lesson from the Hebrew scriptures today, we hear: “Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy.” Sabbath in Hebrew means rest. To keep the sabbath holy, we are called to follow God’s example in the Genesis creation story (Gen.2:2) and rest from our labors, to give up work for one day a week, every seventh day. For Jews the sabbath is celebrated the last day of the week following the Genesis tradition. Christians, wanting to celebrate Christ’s resurrection that occurred on the first day of the week, established early on their own sabbath tradition on Sunday. For folks required to work on the traditional sabbath, it remains important to set aside sabbath time to focus on resting in the Divine to keep our lives in balance.

Keeping sabbath is not meant to be burdensome, but rather a joy and a delight. Originally it was a reminder that the people were no longer slaves in Egypt, having to work seven days a week. They were free to rest with the Divine, to celebrate their freedom by doing nothing practical. Of course, being human, the Israelites soon forgot the love of God demonstrated in the gift of sabbath and began to make rules about just what constituted work and what might be considered rest. Things were so out of hand by the time Jesus arrived on the scene, he had to remind them “The sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the sabbath.” (Mk.2:27) Time passed, and folks continued to look for security in rules that would keep them on the straight and narrow; witness the Sunday “blue laws” in this country that, not so very long ago, regulated what stores could be open on Sunday and what those stores could sell. The pendulum has swung in the opposite direction today, and now our world lauds productivity 24/7. We again find ourselves slaves to oppressive taskmasters as we try to keep up with our culture’s stressful demands.

What would happen if we were to begin to take a mini-vacation from our labors once a week, giving up a whole day to rest in God, to abide in the Divine Presence? We may set aside an hour or two on Sunday morning for consecrating the day to the Holy One, but how many of us rest for the remainder of the day? Try it, and discover what God has in store for you.