Newsletter article for 3/26

The Most Ignored Commandment

After my first year in seminary, I accepted a call to be a youth and children's minister to a medium –sized Baptist church in Powers Lake, ND. Powers Lake was a town of 400 people. The whole town was invested in the wheat industry, and sold their wheat to some company that made macaroni noodles. The chair of the deacon board came to me after I was cleaning up after one of the children's programs. "Clint, are you taking a day or two off a week".

"No," I responded "too much work to do."

"You need to take care of yourself. You need to take a day off. It is one of the Ten Commandments you know. You might to drive to Minot or something and just get away. Don't worry about doing that. Things won't fall apart while you are gone."

It is sad but true. As churches and as believers in Jesus we tend to pick and choose our favorite portions of Scripture. Within that, we tend to pick and choose the sins we tolerate in our lives, and what sins we judge most harshly in our life and in the lives of others. We tend to worry about whether people are enmeshed in sexual sin, whether they have addictions to drugs or alcohol, whether they are honest and generous with their money, but we say very little about Sabbath as churches. We should say more about taking at least one day of rest a week. It is one of the Ten Commandments you know.

We should not be legalistic about Sabbath-taking. Jesus confronted the Pharisees about their legalism with the Sabbath. However, Jesus did not do away with the importance of taking a day off. We may not be able to make Sunday our day off in some of our jobs, but we need to have a day of rest. It is the way God made us.

In one account of the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20), the Bible says that we should take a day off because God took a day off on the seventh day after creating the world in six days. We are created in God's image. We are created in such a way that our minds, souls, bodies, and families need us to take one day off a week. We need that day to pray and worship, and to spend time with those we love.

In the other account of the Ten Commandments (Deuteronomy 5), God tells us to remember the Sabbath because of the need to remember the Israelite slavery in Europe. When the Israelites were slaves, they were not allowed a day off. They were only valued for what they could make and produce. And they slaved away under the hot sun until the day they died or escaped. In our time, this reasoning reminds us that we are more than what we do and produce as well. We are valued by God for who we are, not what we accomplish. We are human beings, not human doings. Our value does not come from how much money we make, or anything we can put on a resume or brag about to a neighbor. We are valuable because we are God's children. When we are gone, our contributions that will be most important will be how we cared for our relationships to God, our families, our friends and our neighbors. It takes a day off a week to remember that, and to renew ourselves and refocus.

I also believe God also commands us to take a day off to teach us humility. We need to remember that the whole world is not in our hands, but it is in His. We cannot do everything, but God can do anything. We need to take time to let go, and realize that we cannot accomplish all we would like to, and we cannot be everything to everybody. When we put our whole lives—including having the faith to put our work lives—in God's hands, we will find that he is faithful beyond our wildest imagination to take care of us. But, we must have faith enough to take that day of rest and let Him do his work.