Rancho Bernardo Community Presbyterian Church

Mark 2:23-28, Exodus 20:8-11

Only 22 shopping days left until Christmas. No time to waste! Too much to do, too little time. So, what are we doing in church? For most of us, coming to church is somehow connected in our minds to the fourth commandment—remember the Sabbath day. What does it mean to keep the Sabbath holy?

The birth of Benjamin Franklin was a matter of embarrassment to his family. He was born on a Sunday. In Puritan New England, it was believed that a baby born on a Sunday must have also been conceived on a Sunday. For the Puritans, marital relations were a breaking of the Sabbath.

Yet, the rabbis of ancient Israel considered marital relations one of the activities blessed on the Sabbath day. However, other things were considered wrong. The Pharisees of Jesus’ day believed the disciples broke the Sabbath commandment when they picked grain in a field. Some considered it wrong for Jesus to heal on the Sabbath.

Today we smile at the idea of judging either marital relations or the picking of grain as wrong on the Sabbath. If Sabbath rules are no more than cultural taboos, do we still need this fourth commandment at all?

Jesus said the Sabbath was created for people, not people for the Sabbath. Is this really something good that God has given us? In our modern lifestyle with fast food chains and shopping malls, do we really need a day to pause and reflect, a day of re-creation?

Ten years ago an article appeared in the Audubon magazine regarding our biological rhythms. The author noted that “All living things have biological rhythms. An elephant’s heartbeat is 25 times a minute; a blue-throated hummingbird’s is 1,260 times a minute. Fiddler crabs are so tuned to a tidal clock that they are active on a 24-hour/50-minute cycle, even inside windowless rooms.”

The writer, Peter Steinhart, continues by applying this idea to humans. “Human rhythms are no less profound. There are rhythms to heartbeat, sleep, and wakefulness. Body temperature rises in the evening and falls by morning.” He comments that hormone levels shift morning to evening and brainwave frequencies are linked to the rhythms of speech. Then he suggests that one of the main problems with our modern society is that we no longer pay heed to our biological rhythms. We force our bodies to conform to an alien time, which lacks flexibility. Instead of allowing ourselves to sleep a little extra in the winter months and a little less during the summer, we maintain the same appointments with our watches and alarm clocks. Could it be that our inattention to our own biological rhythms is hurting us more than we realize?

Remember 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 the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your animals, nor the alien within your gates. For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

Exodus 20: 8-11

A hillbilly went to the doctor for a physical. He complained to the doctor that he was not feeling too well. The doctor could find nothing wrong. Appetite was normal. Weight was average. The doctor asked the patient how he was sleeping. The hillbilly responded, “Maybe that is the problem, Doc.” The physician questioned, “You’re not sleeping well?” The man explained, “Well, I sleep good at night and not bad in the morning, but you know, I just toss and turn all afternoon.”

We would all agree that we need a healthy balance of work and rest. This rhythm to our lives is rooted deeply in our biology. Perhaps the idea of a Sabbath is rooted in biology more than we tend to admit.

If we decided to do away with the idea of Sabbath altogether, it would not be the first time a society tried to do this. One of the acts of the French revolutionaries in the 1790’s was the attempt to rid the culture of the traditional Sabbath. Believing the Roman Catholic Church held too strong a grip on the people, the revolutionaries in France changed the calendar from a seven-day to a ten-day workweek. One day off would be given at the end of nine days of work. Saint’s days and Sabbaths were eliminated from the French calendar. This calendar change only lasted thirteen years. The people never fully adopted it. Napoleon reinstated the traditional seven-day week.

In the 1920’s the Russian Soviet Revolutionary Party decided – as part of the Russian Revolution – to do away with the traditional seven-day week. They felt it related too much to Christianity. As part of their cultural changes, they shifted from a seven-day week to a five-day week. Six weeks made a month. At the end of four days of work, the people were given a day of rest. This new calendar lasted just over ten years. In 1940, the government rescinded it. It was not working.

Why one in seven? Why not one in five or one in ten? It is as though our bodies are created with an internal calibration that benefits us from one day of rest for every six days of work. Could it be that we are created with a need for this rhythm of work and rest? In fact, might we actually be more productive and healthy by keeping the Sabbath rhythm each week?

Thomas Jefferson was neither a Christian nor a Sabbatarian. However, he did appreciate the need for rest as well as work. His most famous work, of course, was his writing the Declaration of Independence. He wrote this famous document during the month of June 1776. How does one get ready to pen an historic document that surveys the key historic principles for liberty? Careful study of his journal reveals an interesting piece of information about how he nurtured the creative juices.

Thomas Jefferson kept detailed records of his expenditures. In May 1776, his expenses included the purchase of fiddle strings, a doll, and some toys. His entry for June 1, 1776 records the fact that he spent money to purchase some paper. He was ready to begin writing the historic document. Did he immediately sit down and write, “When in the course of human events…”? Like most of us, he probably needed to gather his thoughts and organize them. He attended the debates of the Continental Congress for several months. Perhaps he had writer’s block. How does one prepare to write a declaration of independence? Thomas Jefferson spent “one shilling to see a monkey.”

Can you imagine that day in the Continental Congress? “Where is the delegate from Virginia?” Someone rises and responds, “Tom took the day off to go watch a monkey.” In the midst of a revolution? With the birth of a nation hanging in the balance? He goes and watches a monkey?

Here is the truth: We all need time off. We need a Sabbath for rest and renewal. However, we need it for more than biological reasons. “Remember the Sabbath day” is only the first half of the commandment. What does the phrase, “…and keep it holy” mean?

God gives us the Sabbath to meet our spiritual as well as our physical needs. We need to recalibrate our lives to the rhythms of God’s heartbeat. The truth is that God’s heartbeat is closer to the pace of an elephant, but we live our lives at the pace of a hummingbird. Sabbath is the day to slow down and enjoy the simple things of life. Sabbath is the invitation to take a deep breath and slow down our heartbeat to God’s rhythm. It is the day to be with God and enjoy Jesus’ smile.

I did not used to be a Sabbatarian. I grew up in a home where my father was clearly a workaholic. While our family business was a wholesale operation, my dad worked most weekends. After church on Sundays, he would go to the office to do a few hours of work at his desk, uninterrupted by the phone. He did not seem to need a Sabbath. I did not think I needed one either.

I was in Seminary the first time someone genuinely challenged me to consider taking a Sabbath every week. I argued I could not keep up with the demands of graduate studies unless I studied and worked on my papers through the weekend. A fellow student suggested that I could never preach what I was unwilling to practice in my own life. The conversation ended with this student suggesting that I experiment with the Sabbath.

I tried it more as an experiment than an act of faith. My second year of Seminary, I tried putting my books away on Saturday evening at 6 o’clock and I did not touch them again until Sunday evening at 6 o’clock. I used that first twenty-four hour Sabbath, to be with my Kate, to relax, go for a walk, and simply enjoy a day of rest with God and family.

When I returned to my books, I was sure I would be so far behind that I would never catch up. However, I discovered that I had a greater intensity and efficiency in my studies the other six days after I had taken a Sabbath rest. Thus, I experimented with Sabbath rest over the next few months. By the time I graduated from Seminary I was a confirmed Sabbatarian, believing this is the rhythm God gave us for our benefit.

Now, I am not legalistic about the Sabbath. I am not ready to argue that Sunday is the only possible day on which people can practice the Sabbath. For the first few years of my ministry I took my Sabbath on Mondays. For several years, on Fridays. More recently, my Sabbath has been on Thursdays. Yours may be Saturday or Sunday. For some of us who sit behind a desk most of the week, the Sabbath may involve going for a walk or gardening in the backyard. It may include a picnic or game night with the children. Our family often orders food delivered so nobody in the house has to cook on our Sabbath. Which day is chosen and how to practice the Sabbath is between each person and God. The key is taking the time to recalibrate our lives to God’s heartbeat.

A year ago, I developed a new weekend eating pattern. After Saturday evening service, I would swing through the local Taco Bell on my way home. My order at the drive-thru was always the same, “Fiesta Taco Salad.” One evening the voice on the other end responded, “Would you like something to drink with that Pastor Bruce?” I was stunned. How did the person at the window know me? He turned out to be one of the high school students active in our church. It became a regular Saturday evening thing for me to order my taco salad then he would greet me at the window. One week I shifted my schedule and saved my weekly taco salad until after I had finished my Sunday morning preaching.

That Sunday afternoon the same young man took my order, but then as I pulled up to the window he commented, “Pastor Bruce, I’m surprised you are here on the Sabbath. Shame on you. It’s because people give this company business on the Sabbath that my manager keeps me from church and makes me work on Sundays.”

Now I could easily have defended my actions, explaining that my Sabbath is not on Sunday but Thursday. Yet, his words intrigued me. I like that this young Christian man understands his own need for Sabbath as the way to keep his life calibrated to God’s heartbeat.

How are we doing at keeping our hearts tuned to God’s heartbeat?