'After Jesus and his disciples left the synagogue, they entered the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John. Now Simon’s mother-in-law was in bed with a fever, and they told him about her at once. He came and took her by the hand and lifted her up. Then the fever left her, and she began to serve them.
That evening, at sundown, they brought to him all who were sick or possessed with demons. And the whole city was gathered around the door. And he cured many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons; and he would not permit the demons to speak, because they knew him. In the morning, while it was still very dark, he got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed. And Simon and his companions hunted for him. When they found him, they said to him, “Everyone is searching for you.” He answered, “Let us go on to the neighboring towns, so that I may proclaim the message there also; for that is what I came out to do.” And he went throughout Galilee, proclaiming the message in their synagogues and casting out demons.'
-Mark 1: 29-39
Bible pop quiz! How many commandments, or mitzots, are there? If you said 10, you’re wrong; the grand total is 613. Let’s try another one: which is the fourth commandment? “Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy.” For our Jewish siblings this refers back to God’s own sabbath – or shabot, which means “rest” in Hebrew. Genesis, chapter 1 tells us that God rested on the seventh day after the six days of creation, thus the observe of a time of rest from sundown on Friday to sundown on Saturday, because in God’s time a new day begins at dusk, not dawn. This commandment is given in Exodus, chapter 20, verse 8 and again in Deuteronomy, chapter 5, verse 12. It’s not a suggestion, it’s an expectation.
God resting
It is on a Sabbath day that we find Jesus, after having exorcised a demon in the synagogue at Capernaum. This was technically a violation of that commandment because it constituted work, and one isn’t supposed to do any work on the Sabbath day – just ask Walter from The Big Lebowski. As if that’s not enough, Jesus goes to the house of Simon Peter, whose mother-in-law is sick, and Jesus heals her – working again – and in doing so causes her to also break the law when she starts serving food to Jesus and his friends. Such a delinquent Jesus is!
Those who would criticize Jesus for breaking this part of the Jewish law weren’t wrong, though we sometimes vilify them. Sabbath is a commandment, an expectation that is held with as much regard and respect as only worshipping this one God and not cheating on your spouse.
Here's the thing: Jesus doesn’t break the commandment about Sabbath, it’s just that the commandment itself is largely misinterpreted. The Sabbath is not a day. It’s not Saturday, and it sure as heck ain’t not Sunday. Ancient Hebrew has no articles – no “A’s” or “The’s”. The more appropriate way to read the fourth commandment might be “Remember Sabbath day.” No ‘the.’ Remember to keep rest holy.
And this Jesus does, quite often. In today’s Gospel, after being bombarded by people bringing to him folks who were sick in body, mind, and spirit, Jesus gets up while it’s still dark and goes, away to what the Greek calls ἔ¦ρη¦μον τό¦πον, a lonely, solitary, secluded, or deserted, place. He goes off to be by himself, to rest and to pray. This is the first time we see Jesus take his Sabbath, his rest, and it sure won’t be the last.
Sabbath isn’t a specific day, and Jesus understood that better than anyone. Many Christians have been shamed for missing a Sunday morning’s worship because the preacher said that that’s what remembering the Sabbath was about, remembering Sunday, the Lord’s Day, and coming to church, even though Sunday is the first day of the week and not the seventh. But this isn’t what’s at the core of the gift of Sabbath that God gives us. Sabbath is a mindset. Sabbath is intentional, it’s crafting time to rest, maybe to set oneself apart from others, just you and God. It’s a time of being, not doing, and it’s mandatory.
The truth, brothers and sisters, is that we live in a time and in a country that has little use for Sabbath, for rest of any kind: 24/7, 365. We’re all expected to be Waffle House, open for business all the time. This mindset has plagued the Church, especially since the advent of the internet and smart phones. Sure, we can reach more people than ever before, but now clergy and other staff are expected to be “on-call” at all hours, constantly checking texts and emails and providing everything to everyone everywhere all at once. During the pandemic this was especially true because clergy and church staff everywhere felt the increasing anxiety of holding our communities together during that crisis, which resulted in a lot of what clinical and social psychologists call overfunctioning – we used to call it being a workaholoic. The result of that behavior is burnout, and at its root is a lack of rest, of self-care, of Sabbath.
Before 2021 I was a certified overfunctionist. I can remember in my first church job my rector telling me that if she saw me on site on my day off that she would kick me off site! So I often snuck in to my office without her knowledge – it was in a different building. I took St. Paul’s approach from I Corinthians 9: 22, to be all things to all people, so that I could do my part in sharing the Gospel. I suspect Paul was an overfunctionist! It took a pretty hard wakeup call for me to change that, bnow I try to be more diligent in my observance of Sabbath, which is why my email signature says that I won’t be seeing or replying to any messages on Fridays, the day I take off . It’s a spiritual practice to observe Sabbath, and because it’s a practice it’s something we sometimes fail at but that we keep coming back to and trying again and again. Practice, after all, makes perfect.
Brothers and sisters, it is so important to our emotional, mental, and spiritual well-being that we find ways to observe Sabbath rest in our own lives, and as churches it is vital to the health of the community for our clergy and our Vestry members to model Sabbath rest for everyone else, and if they’re not, then for folks to let them know that that is an expectation. Our culture glorifies overfunctioning and calls rest lazy. It puts the whole onus on our shoulders. Sabbath helps us give that burden to God and trust God’s abilities above our own. We might overfunction because we care so much – I can relate - but in order to care for others, we have to care for ourselves first; don’t forget those demonstrations on planes; we put our own mask on first before assisting others.
Jesus understood this, which is why he went away so often to be alone with God, to rest and to pray. Sure, people still found him, like they do in our Gospel today: “Where’ve you been?!” But Jesus doesn’t give in to that anxiety. He keeps that practice. If Jesus could do it, well, what’s our excuse?
It’s not all up to us. Thank God for that! How we make Sabbath looks different to everyone, but it is essential because we’re human beings, not human doings. Remember Sabbath day. Remember rest and keep it holy.
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