“Sabbath is the ultimate form of neighborliness“- Walter Brueggemann
Earlier this week, our church held a book study on Walter Brueggemann’s work titled Sabbath as Resistance: Saying No to the Culture of Now, and in this study we found a very timely and providential message on Sabbath which challenges our generation’s culture of “consumption and production,” and transforms our social systems of restlessness and anxiety into a time and space for neighborliness, justice, harmony, and humility freeing all people to live into their own God- likeness by resting from their toil and labor.
In his book, Brueggemann defines Sabbath as a time of two things. First, a time of resistance against the high demands of work and busyness endemic of a society ran by the practices of empire. Practices which treat people as objects, disposing and replacing them the moment they are no longer deemed valuable or useful. Furthermore, practices which view people as cogs in an ever-running machine of production utilizing them for the efficacy and efficiency of the machine.
These same practices are what shape a culture of individualism and “dog eat dog” philosophies that function to bring out the most bestial and primitive inclinations within people. Moreover, they work to transmute sacred flesh into what Kelley Brown Douglass describes in her book Stand Your Ground: Black Bodies and the Justice of God as “sacred commodities,” and it was the commodification of black, brown, and poor white flesh which established systems of chattel slavery and indentured servitude in America synonymous with a Pharaonic system in Egypt which monetizes and dehumanizes an entire nation of people; paying absolutely no regard that they are the people of God.
Likewise, Sabbath is a witness to an alternative way of living and being that does not reinscribe the abominable and heretical practices of Pharaoh or his empire. Instead, Sabbath is “a public statement of a peculiar and counter- cultural identity amid a larger public and mainstream identity.” Sabbath becomes an intentional space where the inherent and inextricable God-likeness of all people supersedes a “culture of now” founded on the tenets of acquisition, scarcity and the will of domination which ultimately guides our lives, our families, our relationships, and our communities toward destruction. Or, in the words of Abraham Joshua Heschel, Sabbath is “a profound conscious harmony of [humanity] and the world, a sympathy for all things and a participation in the spirit that unites [all things].”
- Oklahoma, near Pawhuska Tallgrass Prairie Reserve
Hence, Sabbath is an observance of harmony and holiness which honors the touch of God present in all things. Sabbath is indicative of God’s will for a Kingdom of Heaven to establish serenity and peace on earth so that all people and all creation – regardless of privilege, race, sexuality, gender, socio-economic status, or nation of origin – are made equal in their experience of rest. So, it is in our observance of Sabbath, that we remember the great day of rest and equality where we are liberated (at least for one day) from systems that lead to death and destruction, and we refuse to perpetuate these systems in the new land God is delivering us to enter into on the other side of the Jordan River.
In Deuteronomy 5:12-15 we read about the Hebrew people – standing on the edge of the Jordan River – as they are reminded of God’s commands which they are to carry with them into the Promised Land. Moreover, it is on the edge of the Jordan – on the precipice of freedom – the Hebrew people are preparing to fully and eternally distance themselves from the inhumane and merciless system they experienced under Pharaoh. Making them a nation set apart from other nations as a testament to God’s desire for justice and liberation, and God’s righteous and redeeming presence in their midst.
Oklahoma Wichita Mountains
On the edge of the Jordan is where they prepare themselves to establish a society governed on the tenets of justice and equity so that all nation’s will know these are the people and children of God. Additionally, it is here where they are prepared to fully be freed to distance and detach themselves from any practice that would discredit their claim that they are in fact a people and followers of God.
Likewise, this is the place where Moses reminds the Israelites to honor and observe the Sabbath as a time and space they are to do no work; to do no toil, in order that their children, the working poor, immigrants, and all beasts of burden can enjoy the full privileges of rest and equality not only with each other, but also with those at the top of the Israelite society. Thus, they were to be freed from any practices of Pharaoh that would strive to build an empire on the bent over backs of the poor, and to not take advantage of the working class for the sake of greed and capitalist enterprise.
Thus, they were to be freed from the ideologies and idols of Egypt that would place profits over people and regard money as something worthy to be worshiped and praised. They were to be freed from the land and practices of Egypt that thrives off the production of hurt, harm, and pain for 99 percent of its people in order to shore up wealth for the top 1 percent of the powerful.
Furthermore, they were to be freed from putting against the wall, the backs of those who are the most vulnerable in their communities. Likewise, they were to be freed from the land and death system of Egypt that deceives its people into dishonoring children and the elderly, the poor and the immigrant; to be freed from a way of life that traps us in an ethos of killing violence and encourages us to engage in distortion and deceit for the sake of acquiring power or prestige.
Oklahoma hills in the Fall
Because being freed from the land of Egypt is to be Exodused from the restlessness of “a culture of now;” a culture of competition, a culture of individualism, a culture of self-centeredness; systems of anxiety, coercion, multi-tasking, and death, and to be brought into a newness of life where society is predicated on justice, mercy, and peace so that our past experiences with hurt, pain, and exploitation are not paid forward on anyone.
Hence, the Hebrew people are reminded of God’s commands and ten-point moral agenda which they are to carry with them into the Promised Land. And the only thing God commands for them to bring over from the land of Egypt is the memory that they were once slaves so they will remember their own history of lack, overwork, exclusion, and second class citizenship; of being denied the right to vote, being denied healthcare, being denied living wages, and being told that they had no rights any Egyptian was bound to respect.
In the wake of impending prosperity and joy, God commands that they are to remember Egypt so that they will not withhold access to the same benefits of prosperity and joy to others in their new society. Thus, they are to remember so that they hold fast knowing that it was God Who liberated them with a mighty hand and Who delivered them with an outstretched arm. For God knew “prosperity breeds amnesia;” thus, privilege and power has a way of causing memory loss and revisionist history.
Therefore, in the demand to observe the Sabbath and keep it holy, God is offering the Hebrew people a timeless and invaluable lesson that is necessary for every person, at every age, regardless of their background, and despite their previous dispositions to learn. It is a lesson that has followed me from the red dirt of Oklahoma to the bluegrass of Kentucky, through the mountains in North Carolina, and into Boston’s land of molasses and baked beans. It is a lesson I hear in the tenor of my grandfather’s voice: “never forget where you come from.”
Red Dirt Road in Oklahoma from Pinterest
In the memories and places we come from, we pull the lessons to shape a world for countless generations after us to be freed to live unrestricted by what we were unfortunate to experience. It is in the places where we come from that we learn lessons of what to do as much as what not to do so that when we are Exodused from that place and brought to our own promised land – we will till it, subdue it, and shape it for the wellness and wellbeing of others.
Thus, this is why God commands God’s people to observe and honor the Sabbath so that we make room, time, and space for proper remembering. Because when we get a taste of power and privilege we get comfortable. And when we get comfortable, and get a bit of distance between ourselves and our past, we often re-enact the same types of injustices that were enacted on us.
Because the lack of a proper memory is how leaders who are the descendants of immigrants make laws to dehumanize and ostracize other immigrants. Forgetting where you come from is how legislation gets passed not honoring our mothers and fathers by withholding from them access to health insurance.
Moreover, forgetting where you come from is how individuals begin to horde all the privileges of their success to themselves, and act like it would be a threat to their new position to reach back and attempt to pull some people forward along with them. They get a little arrogant, become a little self-centered, believing that their success story should be the model for everybody’s success story, and that just because they were able to do the impossible by “pulling themselves up by their own bootstraps” then everybody everywhere should be able to do it the same way they did!
CEOs who say that they and they alone are responsible for the success of their multi-billion dollar business, and not the workers they prevent to unionize and the money they save by not paying a living wage. A President who celebrates the taming and subjugation of a continent and its native people, while forgetting that those who came here were also immigrants doing so because they once were a tamed and subjugated group themselves. These are the fruits of a faulty remembrance.
Forgetting where you come from and having an improper memory is how powerful people become detached from common folk which enables them to say stupid things such as: slavery was choice. Additionally, this is how you get people who act as if everything they have was acquired by them and them alone, and that they received no guidance or no leg up from anybody or anything and that they are success story all by themselves.
Picture of Greenwood neighborhood in Tulsa, Oklahoma June 1, 1921
Forgetting where you come from is the impetus of grotesque ideas of American exceptionalism and “Make America Great Again” slogans which attempt to erase a not so great history of Native American genocide, African enslavement, women’s disenfranchisement, Japanese internment camps, and the targeted destruction of progressive movements who lost blood, sweat, and tears to shape this country into a more perfect union. Lastly, a lack of proper remembrance is how you fail to memorialize the 95th anniversary of the US government’s targeted attack against its own black citizens in Tulsa, Oklahoma that killed 300 black American citizens on June 1, 1921.
Thus, Sabbath is a time to remember that you did not just get where you are today by yourself! You did not get to where you are in life independent of a helping hand! Sabbath is a time of humility remembering that you did not get your salvation by yourself, but through loved ones, friends, acquaintances, or by the sheer might and grace of God did you arrive where you find yourself today.
Anything contrary to a proper remembrance is a Fake Sabbath, thus we do not honor God nor keep what God commands of us when we fail to observe or honor the Sabbath. For True Sabbath is a time and space to acknowledge the blessings of our past, and in so doing we are compelled to cast off of our privilege that prevents others from sharing in the blessings of liberty the same as us!
In other words, Sabbath is a time and space for all people to rest – to rest not worried if they will have a safe place to live; to rest not worried if their right to vote will be stripped away; to rest not worried if they’ll be dehumanized by police; to rest in schools not worried about being victimized by guns; to rest not worried if who they love or how they identify themselves will result in their murder or assault; to rest not worried about their child having enough food to eat so they can focus dreaming dreams of a child instead of having those dreams distracted by hunger; to rest not worried if the deterioration of our environment will leave our descendants without a viable planet to live. Thus, in honoring our obligation to God, Sabbath is a time to ensure the right of all people to rest – and to rest as well as you!
Therefore, we observe the Sabbath and keep it holy so that we can create and shape a new way of living during a seventh day that will carry over into days one through six throughout our week. So that the ways we live everyday will be guided by a will to do good for the least of these and to bring healing to a world desperately in need.
Shot from Turner Falls in Oklahoma
This is what Jesus meant when He said “the Sabbath was made for humanity” (Mark 2:27) because Sabbath is intended to be a hallowed time of rest which emphasizes the Imago Dei in all people since it was God who rested first. And God established rest in heaven so that we all may find rest on earth together resisting any systems of anxiety, coercion, exclusion, and death, and in their place make time and space for peace, tranquility, justice and compassion. Establishing Sabbath, in the words of Abraham Heschel, as “the fountainhead of eternity, the well from which heaven or the life of the world takes its place.”
My Thinking Deeper 