Session 5

Session 5: An Invitation to Sabbath Rest

PDF of Audio – Based on chapter five of Soul Feast, pp. 69-80.

For Christians, Sabbath is the first day of the week because the Resurrection of Jesus on the first day of the week inaugurates the new creation story—God has re-created the world in the Resurrection of Jesus.

When we hear the word, Sabbath we may think of the traditional day associated with church for Christians. However, the full meaning of Sabbath is much broader than Sunday.

Sabbath is the profoundly joyful refreshment from which new effort arises, the deep well from which we draw strength, the eternal newness at the root of all creativity. Therefore, Sabbath is a primary experience of grace. It is more than absence of work, or a day off to catch up on errands. Sabbath is the presence of something that arises when we listen to what is most deeply beautiful, nourishing, or true. It has a power that can heal and refresh us.

However, today, in our culture, we have lost the necessity of holy leisure, and have developed a secular rhythm to life in direct contrast to the ancient sacred pattern. The secular rhythm begins with work and moves to vacation. It starts in a mode driven by achievement and production (we seem to be always catching up). By contrast, the sacred rhythm of life begins with Sabbath rest and moves to vocation. Vocation has more to do with understanding your life and lifestyle as a call from God. It has a sacred purpose. Sabbath starts in a mode rooted in freedom and gratitude.

For us who live in today’s world, the idea of Sabbath rest, of giving pause to the busyness that marks our days when we can hardly catch up, may seem unrealistic (and understandable given our many commitments). However, people who make Sabbath an important aspect of their spiritual lives, if even only in small ways, speak to the value of adding a “Sabbath rhythm” to their lives.

Challenging us to recognize and receive the gift of Sabbath as a place of refuge, renewal and peace, spiritual writer and best-selling author Wayne Muller, in his book, Sabbath: Finding Rest, Renewal, and Delight in Our Busy Lives says:

“When we live without listening to the timing of things, when we live and work in twenty-four-hour shifts without rest – we are on war time, mobilized for battle. Yes, we are strong and capable people, we can work without stopping, faster and faster, electric lights making artificial day so the whole machine can labor without ceasing. But remember: No living thing lives likes this. There are greater rhythms, seasons and cycles and sunsets and moonrises and great movements of seas and stars. We are part of the creation story, subject to all its laws and rhythms.”

When we receive Sabbath as gift and grow into the earthy, essential rhythms of life, we can enhance our journey, our relationships, with God, self, others, and all Creation. Doing so, however, requires us to create space in our lives so that we can receive the gift of Sabbath. Some suggestions to help us do that include developing a “Sabbath attitude” from which to live your days, being more intentional and preparing for Sunday worship, finding Sabbath time on a different day of the week than Sunday (if Sunday is a workday), enjoying a family-style meal, taking up the practice of spiritual reading, doing physical recreation, or practicing hospitality, to name more than a few. Whatever you do, don’t make this into a spiritual achievement. It is not a thing we get. It’s more of a movement, a space that we live into and from which we experience the goodness of life, and the goodness of God.