These are talks we wrote in an effort to improve our understanding of the Sabbath, and have not actually been given in Sacrament meeting.
Saturday is a special day,
It's the day we get ready for Sunday.
We clean the house, and we shop at the store,
So we won't have to work until Monday.
We brush our clothes, and we shine our shoes,
And we call it our get-the-work-done day.
Then we trim our nails, and we shampoo our hair,
So we can be ready for Sunday!
This simple primary song teaches kids what to do on Saturday, implying not to do these things on Sunday to make it a special day. (But does anyone really never shampoo their hair Sunday morning before church?) The list of Sunday don'ts is a good start to helping us make the Sabbath a special day, and I think it's perfectly legitimate to have some personal "I don't do this on Sunday" items, but I want to focus on some dos that go beyond the obvious Sabbath activities, like church attendance and spending time with family. My three "do" suggestions to enhance Sabbath day observance and worship are supported by three passages in the Old Testament. These suggestions are:
1. Reflect on creation
2. Remember our deliverance
3. Look forward to equality and resist materialism
1. Reflecting on creation, at first glance, is probably a more obvious suggestion, since the Sabbath was instituted following the six days that God created the earth.
For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it. (Exodus 20:11)
On the Sabbath, I think it is good to remember the story of God's creation of the earth, but I also think there is great value in reflecting on our own creations. I don't mean only the creation of human beings, because we are not all in a stage of birthing babies or parenting or shaping human life. We all create every single day. The Sabbath invites us to reflect on the creative, efforts of our lives, just as God did. We create attitudes, we create art, we create insights, we create love. We create some things that are good and beautiful, and we create some ugly things as well. That's to be expected because, news flash, we are human.
I think that in reflecting upon our own creations we are demonstrating that we are trying to be like Him, since He rested and reflected on the 7th day. We can reflect on the good and the bad we created each week. This is particularly relevant as we participate in the ordinance of the sacrament. It’s a pretty basic and simple principle that we take a personal spiritual inventory as we sing the sacrament hymn, listen to the sacrament prayer, and take the bread and water, but I like the image of that reflection mirroring God’s first Sabbath when He reflected on what He had accomplished and created.
I love this song from Children of Eden that affirms we take after God and have an innate drive to create:
I've got feeling that the Father who made us
When he was kindling a pulse in my veins
He left a tiny spark of that fire, smoldering inside
The spark of creation, is flickering within me
The spark of creation, is blazing in my blood
A bit of the fire that lit up the stars
And breathed life into the mud, the first inspiration
The spark of creation
Where there was nothing let there be something, something made by me
There's things waiting for me to invent them
There's worlds waiting for me to explore
I am an echo of the eternal cry of
Let there be!
2. Second, the Sabbath is a day where we can remember the liberation that permits new life. In Deuteronomy, Moses reviews the 10 commandments, and when he gets to the Sabbath Day, he writes this:
15 And remember that thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt, and that the Lord thy God brought thee out thence through a mighty hand and by a stretched out arm: therefore the Lord thy God commanded thee to keep the sabbath day. (Deut. 5:15)
This passage juxtaposes the commandment to keep the Sabbath day holy and the deliverance of the children of Israel. What better day than Sunday to think of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ and remember how we have spiritually been delivered?
The sacrament celebrates the spiritual deliverance and rest that God offers to us. The sacrament is a primary part of the Sabbath. We reflect on what we have done during the week, or our creations, in partaking of the sacrament, and we also reflect on the gift of grace made possible by Jesus.
When I was a teenager, I remember trying really hard to focus 100% on Jesus during the sacrament. It was hard to prevent my mind from wandering, so I’d force myself to picture Jesus on the cross, or Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane, and not let that image leave my mind. I got kind of bored with that replay after a while. That sounds terrible, but the scene seemed so far removed from me that it became routine and uninteresting, and therefore I no longer felt touched by the most important gift of all time. I’m not saying that thinking of Jesus suffering for us is a bad idea--just that it might be helpful to think of specific ways Jesus has delivered us personally, beyond the abstract, “He atoned for my sins.” We all know that. But it is so hard to wrap our minds around how that works and why it works, and what that actually means. It’s sometimes too vague, at least for me, to be touched and inspired by.
So sometimes I try to think about how God has delivered or liberated me personally, like when I felt His love envelop me unexpectedly as I hiked the ridge of a mountain, just after I had been chattering to Him inside my head about my current thoughts, concerns and worries. Or like when He helped me to overcome postpartum depression. Sometimes it is something simpler, like asking for and receiving help finding my lost keys, but I think that still counts.
It's easy to forget these personal deliverances. The Sabbath, a day of rest and reflection, invites remembrance of these events that turn us to God.
3. This last suggestion has two facets, the first of which I borrowed from a Christian scholar named Walter Brueggemann: the Sabbath encourages us to look forward to a day of equality, love, and peace. It also helps us to resist materialism.
Brueggemann quoted a verse in Amos, which reads:
4 ¶Hear this, O ye that swallow up the needy, even to make the poor of the land to fail,
5 Saying, When will the new moon be gone, that we may sell corn? and the sabbath, that we may set forth wheat, making the ephah small, and the shekel great, and falsifying the balances by deceit?
6 That we may buy the poor for silver, and the needy for a pair of shoes; yea, and sell the refuse of the wheat? (Amos 8:4-6)
He argues, based on this passage, that ‘the Sabbath is a day when commercial activity stops, when the routines of the exploited are brought to a halt’. It reminds me of how in the temple, we are all dressed similarly and there are very few to no signs of socioeconomic status. The Sabbath is like an equalizer and a unifier. Ideally, everyone would take a break from work, from purchasing, from being entertained, and instead have the common purpose to worship God and work together to become more like Him. The sacrament memorializes the day when all shall have bread and water to drink. It anticipates the end of economic inequality.
Our goal is to be Zion: unified, with no poor among us.
18 And the Lord called his people Zion, because they were of one heart and one mind, and dwelt in righteousness; and there was no poor among them. (Moses 7:18)
We have been counseled with some Sabbath don’ts by our prophets in recent years, such as avoiding shopping, entertainment, and work. These activities are not inherently unworthy or bad, but they are signs of our relative wealth, and the focus is on materialism and our own gain, rather than helping others. We are distracted by fun and remain self absorbed. We forget the poor and our cause to establish Zion.
By abstaining from at least some of our usual "fun" or affluent activities on Sunday, we are more likely to remember those who don't have what we have. We are more likely to recognize that we in no way deserve what we have. The Sabbath is a day to practice selflessness and gratitude.
President James E. Faust taught that as we avoid worldly distractions on the Sabbath day, we are blessed with protection from obsession with worldly things. “In this day of increasing access to and preoccupation with materialism, there is a sure protection for ourselves and our children against the plagues of our day. The key to that sure protection surprisingly can be found in Sabbath observance” (“The Lord’s Day,” Oct. 1991 general conference).
I work as a contractor and am paid based on the amount of work I do, rather than a salary or hourly wage. Sometimes when I don’t have much going on on Sunday, I am tempted to work and earn a few more bucks. I don't need to do it then; I just want to, and I'm motivated by greed, a want for more money. Sundays are not a day to get ahead in the world, to keep up with the Joneses. It’s a day to learn to see each other as equals and sisters and brothers, not competitors.
CONCLUSION
So I did mention some Sunday don’ts in my talk after all, didn’t I. The Hebrew word for Sabbath actually means “cease,” so I presume that that is appropriate. But I think actively trying to think of these three things: reflecting on creation, remembering our deliverance, and resisting materialism in an effort to be unified with our sisters and brothers will enhance our Sabbath day worship.
No comments:
Post a Comment