Disciples, Apostles, and Saints!
When we learn about Sabbath, most of us are taught that it is one day out of the week. We learn about the restrictions and the motivations; perhaps mostly that we keep it as one of the Ten Commandments.
In the Hebrew Scriptures, Sabbath is offered as something far more than a day of the week: it is a pattern. Sabbath is a day and a practice and an ordering of existence. It is also a year and a collection of years. The seventh day, the seventh year, and the seventh of a seven year cycle is a Jubilee.
The pattern serves to remind us that we are too overwhelmed with work, control, and power. That we exploit ourselves, our people, our neighbors—and more!—our slaves, livestock, fields. We can add to that our children, our land, our communities, our food, our resources, our very planet.
And the pattern isn’t just to rest, either. It is to free one another from work and commerce. Farmers are to give food away so we can all eat. They have control over a resource we all need, so the Sabbath reminds us not to starve people for profit.
Summer in the Midwest functions as a partial Sabbath Season. Many of us take time away, some travel, and some simply enjoy how the weather offers a change of routine. Even a freedom from having to go to a gym for exercise! We can simply walk out our front door!
Imagine if we went all the way! And embraced the true nature of the Sabbath pattern. We might reflect the freeing, loving, relaxing nature of God—an offering of restoration for all.
With love,
Drew