In the previous sermon in this series I shared with you the answer I gave during my teaching career as to whether I believed in evolution. Those asking that question were trying to get me fired, so I was very cagey with my answer. I told them that my only problem with evolution was that if I were an ape I would be offended. That answer was not just a slick move on my part to avoid the snares of the fundamentalists. For 10,000 years many of the civilizations we know about have operated under the assumption that humankind is the goal of creation—the pinnacle of God’s creative efforts. With us creation/evolution came to a wonderful end.
The goal of all that was, is, and ever shall be is the rest God enjoys and is eager to share with all creation.
The opening chapter of Genesis may seem to give that impression, but as with so much of Scripture, first impressions can be misleading. This magnificent litany celebrating creation ends not with humankind but with the Sabbath. The goal of creation is not man or woman. The goal of creation is not even the human community. The goal of creation is the Sabbath. As humans we may be created in God’s image, but all of our pomp, prestige, and power are tempered by the realization that creation is completed not in us but in Sabbath. The goal of all that was, is, and ever shall be is the rest God enjoys and is eager to share with all creation.
And this rest which God enjoys and which creation will one day enter is anticipated during the weekly Sabbath. Every 7th day Israel rests—ceases from all its labor and basks in the presence and grace of God. And in an unexpected way Sabbath brings with it a revolutionary equality in Israelite society. On that day all rest equally, regardless of wealth, power, or need. The king and the slave, the husband and the wife, the landowner and the tenant farmer, lords and ladies, menservants and maidservants, persons of heritage and those who are aliens, those dwelling in ivory-paneled palaces and those homeless and destitute—on the Sabbath they are all the same. All rest in the presence and grace of God. For a brief, shining moment each week one’s worth is not determined by what is accomplished or owned or by one’s pedigree. One’s worth is provided by God’s gracious invitation to a time of refreshing and joyful celebration.
The renewal, healing, and redemption given through Sabbath is not restricted to humanity.
But the renewal, healing, and redemption given through Sabbath is not restricted to humanity. Did you notice the reference to cattle in our Exodus passage? Other accounts of the 10 Commandments include donkeys and oxen in the blessing of the Sabbath. And our passage from Leviticus even includes the land—for an entire year, Israel is to let the land rest. In fact, in these passages one has the impression that the point of Sabbath is not so much our right to rest from our labor as creation’s right to rest from our intervention. Every 7th day and every 7th year Israel is commanded to keep her hands off God’s creation so that creation too can rest. Every Sabbath Israel is reminded that the earth belongs to God. Every 7th day human beings are called to cease their domination, exploitation, and violation of God’s creation. Humankind may be in God’s image, but that dominion is always tempered by the rest provided creation on the Sabbath. That 7th day is a sign—a symbol that the goal of creation is not our domination of the cosmos but the sharing of humankind and the rest of creation in God’s final rest of joyful harmony. Sabbath is a way for God to remind Israel that creation is at most provisionally and conditionally subjected to human hands. Ultimately creation will rest in God and thus has its own rights and claims for being, independent of human uses and intentions. One day a week Israel remembers her place before God in God’s creation.
Idolatry raises its ugly head when we put anyone or anything before God.
Now what would all this have said to those in Exile in faraway Babylon? (Biblical scholars agree that these opening chapters of Genesis came together as we now have them during and/or after the Exile as Jews prepared to return to Jerusalem in 538 BCE. The Exile in Babylon ended when the Persian King Cyrus conquered Babylon and issued the edict that allowed exiles to return to their homeland.) The prophets agreed that the Exile was God’s punishment of Israel for two sins—idolatry and injustice. Idolatry occurs when we forget our place before God–when we seek to manipulate God and to be God or substitute something in the place of God. Idolatry occurs when we make God over into our own image, after our own likeness, and for our own convenience. Idolatry raises its ugly head when we put anyone or anything before God. Israel did that not only as she worshiped other gods like Baal and Asherah—she did so as she defined the true God in ways which served her will instead of reflecting God’s will. The God they chose to believe in wanted what they wanted, supported their notions of their own goodness, and stood behind a national and economic policy which benefited the rich and powerful at the expense of the poor and vulnerable. (Does any of this sound familiar?)
And the sin of injustice was seen as the rich got richer by cheating and oppressing the poor, as the king used his power for corruption and aggrandizement, and as most of the nation worshiped wealth above everything else. (Does any of that sound familiar?)
And the sin of injustice was seen as the rich got richer by cheating and oppressing the poor, as the king used his power for corruption and aggrandizement, and as most of the nation worshiped wealth above everything else. (Does any of that sound familiar?)
The writers of Genesis presented the Sabbath as the goal of creation in part to keep Israel from falling back into the same idolatry and injustice which destroyed them as a nation. The Sabbath was to be a sacred time when Israel contemplated her place before God. She was to stop everything else and rest in the grace and presence of the Lord. This time permitted her to put her priorities in proper order—to stop the rat-race of getting more and more and to think about the deeper purposes of life. And the equality of the Sabbath—it’s for everybody –was to be a living testimony to the justice Israel was to practice the other six days of the week. This “temple in time” was to shape all of time with a holy sense of purpose and identity. A people who properly keep the Sabbath are not likely to fall into the traps of idolatry and injustice. Centered in God and grounded in their place in creation, they will find joy, peace, and harmony without exploiting creation or each other. This was the intention of the writers of Genesis.
Now the question is, “Does any of this have anything to say to us?” In other words, do we need Sabbath? Do we need a time when we are reminded that our worth is not determined by our pedigree or by what we accomplish or own? Do we need a time when we can take joy in just being without the necessity of doing? Do we need a time when the renewal of contemplation and the magic of imagination can free us from the treadmills of our habitual if not addictive routines? Do we need a time when we can all come equally before God and one another regardless of our age, sex, wealth, power, health, intelligence, ethnic background, and piety and be blessed and liberated by the experience that in this sacred time we all belong—we all have worth—we all are beautiful because we all have been invited to share with God in the joyful rest of uncommon communion?
And then there is a second cluster of questions: Do we need a time when we remember our place in God’s creation? Do we need a time when we realize that creation has ultimate worth and value to God apart from our presence and involvement? Do we need a time when we stop our intervention and domination, our exploitation and violation, and let this exquisite creation simply be? Do we need a time when we can tune our ears to listen to the music of the spheres and to hear the laughter and the groans of this good earth? Do we need a time when we are in harmony/in sync with the wisdom and rhythms of nature? Do we need a time when we rediscover that our humanity is inextricably tied to this earth and we compromise ourselves and creation when we forget or neglect so vital a connection?
If ever there was a people who needed to rest from intervention in creation so that creation can heal, we are that people.
I would venture to guess that virtually anyone who has any spiritual and ethical sensitivity would answer “yes” to both clusters of questions. In our more honest and reflective moments, we know that the competitive, wasteful, exploiting lifestyles of our society are destroying both our humanity and God’s creation. And who among us can applaud and affirm the ways we deal with our environment—with God’s good creation? If ever there was a people who needed to rest from intervention in creation so that creation can heal, we are that people. The only realistic hope for saving our planet is not the occasional recycling of paper, metals and plastics or the almost negligible changes in emission standards for our factories and cars. In a society where economic growth (which of necessity means the continual exploitation and pollution of nature) is the reigning idol, such measures are like putting Band-Aids on cancer.
The only lasting hope for saving our planet and our own humanity is a change deep in our consciousness and in our souls—a repentance that acknowledges the worth of plants and animals, of the land, air, and sea to God—a repentance which thinks in terms of creation’s right to rest and to be renewed—a repentance which allows us to find our places in the harmony of God’s good creation. And that kind of change will not come by simply wishing it or by piously affirming the need for change without taking the steps necessary to bring it about. That would be like wishing to lose weight but continuing to eat as we are accustomed to eating and refusing to exercise.
Creative minds and noble hearts will have to think of new ways to appropriate the wisdom of Sabbath for our day.
Perhaps a modest starting place for such a change in consciousness and soul is a retrieval of Sabbath as that sacred time which affirms our and creation’s worth before God and the right and necessity of both to share in the rest of God. The regular, habitual observance of such a Sabbath could begin the redemption of our collective consciousness. No doubt because of the seriousness of the human and ecological conditions in our industrialized societies, the insights of Sabbath will have to inform our actions on all days and not just on the Sabbath day. Three thousand years ago the earth could be renewed by a rest of one day in seven days and one year in seven years. But we are no longer an agrarian society with limited impact on our environment. Creative minds and noble hearts will have to think of new ways to appropriate the wisdom of Sabbath for our day. (Please understand that I am not talking about some “Blue Law” legalistic Sunday ritual which becomes a meaningless burden.) But the rediscovery of Sabbath in all if its splendid wisdom and grace could mark a beginning point for the changes necessary in the deepest levels of our consciousness and souls.
Of course, our temptation is to say we don’t have time for such a Sabbath—we can’t stop and rest and let be and allow others and creation to enjoy the same blessing. But that response reminds me of one of the most often heard statements in marital counseling sessions. The husband or wife or sometimes both will say, “But we don’t have time to nurture our relationship.” My response is always the same: “Then you are too busy. Revise your priorities.” If we don’t have time to rest and to be and to let be as intended by Sabbath, then we are too busy (probably too busy with what doesn’t matter anyway), because what is at stake here is not some legalistic observance of a day of worship—what is at stake is the nature and destiny of creation. And what we haven’t figured out yet is that that includes us. So, for God’s sake, for creation’s sake, and for our own sake, may we become open to the blessings of a “good Sabbath.”
Communion
This table is another place where our worth is not determined by our pedigree or by what we have accomplished or what we own. We are here because Jesus invites us to share in his righteousness and love. The revolutionary equality envisioned by Sabbath is deepened in the sharing of this bread and wine. At the foot of the cross we are all equal, all sinners, and all precious in the sight of God. Here God’s unconditional love judges and redeems us as we celebrate God’s radical Kingdom community.
Commission
The love we have experienced at this table is not just for us. God’s target for such love is the world. And the Sabbath is not just for the church. The Sabbath is God’s gift of rest and re-creation for all creation. As we go in the name of Jesus, may our hearts continually expand to match the infinite heart of our Maker.
