Fr. Tony’s Letter to the Trinitarians
August 2021
Sabbath Rest
“Make a memorial of the sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, But the seventh day is a sabbath to Yahweh your God: you shall not do any work.” (Exod 20:8-9)
“But in the seventh year there shall be a sabbath of complete rest for the land, a sabbath for Yahweh: you shall not sow your field or prune your vineyard.” Lev 25:4
“Then Jesus said to them, “The sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the sabbath.” Mark 2:27
As I enter three months of sabbatical, the idea of the Sabbath, rest, and pursuit of changed endeavors to rebuild and re-creates has been on mind.
Isaiah 58 says,
“If you refrain from trampling the sabbath,
from looking to your own profit on my holy day,
if you call the sabbath a delight
and Yahweh’s holy day honorable,
if you honor it, not going your own ways,
serving your own interests, or pursuing your own schemes;
then it is in Yahweh himself that you shall find delight.”
The commandment to remember the Sabbath day is not just a call for regular down time, periodic torpid rest. The commandment is to remember the seventh day by keeping it holy. This means, as the Prayer Book puts it, a duty “to set aside regular times for worship, prayer, and the study of God’s ways” (p. 847). The key is resting from what usually consumes us.
Yet rest is still at the heart of the commandment. In the Catechism
of the [Roman] Catholic Church, we read, “"[The Sabbath] is a day of
protest against the servitude of work and the worship of money" (para.
2172).
Knowing when to give ourselves and each other the grace of rest, and when to get busy to get good things done, is a trick. No set of external rules can tell us when to tighten up and when to let loose. This art cannot be mastered without an open heart and open hands, without trust in God and benevolence or good will for all. It is rooted the principle that Jesus taught: forgive others that we may be forgiven; treat others as we ourselves would want to be treated. This complex of ideas is covered by what Buddhists call detachment, compassion, and ahimsa, doing no harm.
I usually take a day for rest each week, usually Monday. In my upcoming Sabbatical in August-October, I will rest from parish duties and focus on care-giving for Elena, working on one of the things that gives me the most joy, my translation of the Hebrew and Greek Bible into modern English suitable for public reading, as well as catching up on reading, and working with counselors and spiritual directors to help ground myself all the more.
Jesus said his mission was to announce the “Year of the Lord’s Favor,” to break the bonds, to set the captive loose. He announced the coming of God’s Reign in full power, and acted in ways that show he saw himself as the Year of Jubilee when all debts were forgiven, all wrongs put to right: the Sabbath of Lord, when all could rest and rejoice.
He says, “Come to me, you heavy-laden and exhausted, and I will give you rest… My yoke is easy and my burden, light.” He wants to give us rest. We should let him do that. He calls us to lighten up on ourselves and each other, whether once a week, once every seven years, or each and every day. Let go. Take a Sabbath. Give rest to yourself and to others. I am thankful for Sabbatical, and hope to see you all again, with me renewed and refreshed, in November.
Grace and Peace.
Fr. Tony+
