If you’re not a Hebrew scholar, this says “Shabbat shalom,” or Sabbath peace.
All of my young life, Sundays weren’t synonymous with peace, per se. More like pure tedium. A test of patience. Endurance was required to go to church and get through the dullness until I had my own time back. One hour felt like an eternity. And if bible classes were being offered, that extra hour was hell itself. Utter boredom unlike any I could dream up on my own.
I think my mom was shocked when I eventually chose Christianity of my own accord when I was 29. After all, she said I was free to choose my own path when I turned 18, and I got 11 whole years of churchless life to sleep in and enjoy Sundays my way. Ultimately, without anyone else’s prodding when I wasn’t finding fulfillment, I went searching for the depth that was in the bible.
But even once I chose Christianity and began excitedly studying everything I could find in the book, I was still plagued by how to live out Sundays – Sabbath days of rest.
Less than a year ago, and 16 years into studying the bible, I wrote a post called How Do I “Do” Sundays? on a blog I have called NavigatingChristianity.com. This is what I wrote…
Before I read the bible, Sundays were duplicate Saturdays. Fun days. Do-anything days.
Ever since reading the bible, Sunday has become my least favorite day of the week once I get home from church. This is why…
The fourth commandment of the Ten Commandments says the following: “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 male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns. 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)
So the obvious answer is that Sundays aren’t for “doing,” they’re for “being.”
So what do you do when you rest? Do you do nothing? Do you lie down all day? Do you make no plans and not be with people if it requires lots of “doing”?
Here’s where I get all messed up. I don’t spend my other six days doing backbreaking work – no heavy cement-block-making, no long hours of pick-axing, no days spent laying railroad ties with only brute strength. I don’t necessarily yearn for physical rest come Sunday.
My days are spent doing things that are pretty tame – raising children, cooking for them, disciplining them, keeping the house neat, and failing at gardening. If there’s anything I’d love, it’s emotional rest – rest from reminding children what to do; rest from hearing sibling spats; rest from hurt feelings when they come up in family life.
Does that mean on Sundays I should go off on an endless walk alone to be completely, emotionally at rest? Hmmm. I don’t know.
If I were to live a Sabbath day the way I want to, it would mean not cooking, being with friends, and eating out for dinner – all of the things I rarely ever do.
But it’s not about my way, it’s about what God thinks is best. So what is God’s definition of rest?
Does resting mean stillness, or does resting mean doing something other than what you normally do the other days?
If the latter, what if you love what you do for a living? Does it mean you should abstain from your beloved activity? Should chefs not cook? Should writers not write? Should pastors set theology aside? Should athletes be still? Should charity workers chill?
If so, what should they do once they’ve put aside what they normally do? Sit down and read the newspaper?
What about people who hate their jobs? Would it mean that all of the people who can’t stand sitting at their desks all day get to “rest” by finally being active, since sitting all Sunday would be frustratingly still again?
Rest is so relative to each person and their daily patterns; is God’s definition of rest subjective depending on the person, or the same for everyone?
I tend to get legalistic on Sundays, if I don’t watch out. No computer use on Sunday – it’s everything but being present. No plans with people on Sunday – I might end up cooking and dishing all day. No shopping for groceries on Sunday – that’s making the “foreigner” in town work for my sake. No anything, come to think of it – because there’s always something questionable about anything. Then my whole family starts to hate Sunday. I do too.
I don’t yet have any good conception of how to “be” on Sundays, so my kids don’t yet have an example for their future adult lives. Sometimes they just see me wander around aimlessly, trying not to “do” much of anything, and hope for something spontaneous to give us all rest.
Ironically, the way churches function these days, Sundays mean everything but rest for many church-goers – pastors are on, music leaders are on, instrumentalists are on, children’s class teachers are on, and people setting up and cleaning up food afterward are on.
If church meant people meeting on a grassy hill, sitting on blankets in the shade with picinic baskets, and sharing all of the things they learned through the week from studying the bible and applying it to daily life, we’d have no need for people preparing and working on Sundays. We would all be each other’s teachers, and we’d be in wonderful community with each other.
The one thing I have realized about all of this Sabbath stuff is that Saturday may be the secret Sabbath day. That dawned on me about a year ago because Saturday is when we’re all at rest, all at peace, and wallowing in every present moment.
Then we force more Sabbathing on Sunday since that’s when we go to church.
I’m so open to any ideas you have about how Sundays should look! Do enlighten me!
Always excited for teaching, digging, enlightenment, and application, I started listening in on my son’s youth group Zooms. Since they can’t meet in person, his youth group pastor has been creating weekly “7th Day” videos (9-15 minutes each) about how to “do” Sabbath day. They watch them during their weekly Zoom hour, which is also filled with fun, catching up, conversation, games, and general enjoyment.
I’m already pretty good at valuing the present moment, not being frantic, and living life to its fullest without the stress of obligation for the pure sake of busy-ness. But I want to be in line with the real meaning of the 7th day and what God’s kind of rest entails.
We have a small house, so in overhearing this video series Jon Hane made, I would catch about every other sentence while making food in the next room, but today after our online church service I decided it was a perfect rainy day for watching the whole series on YouTube.
Ask for enlightenment, Edee, and you shall receive. May you find it as inspiring as I do. I’m only in the third video and had to stop and make a post about it. I love what’s in these and I want to pass them on to you in case you, too, wonder how to live your Sundays.
Thank you Jon and Sarah Hane for all you do to continue filling our children with depth and meaning. It is a parent’s dream when the people your child spends time with impart them with wisdom for their lives. I didn’t grow up with lessons framed in ways that were interesting, and I love that yours are for all of us, not simply watched by the kids for the sake of obligation toward their parents and their church.
The amount of time spent writing, compiling, videoing, editing, and sharing these videos is not lost on me, Jon. And then when you continue to help apply what’s in the videos during the small Zoom “connect groups” a few days later, Sarah, it’s a wonderful thing. In this season of Thanksgiving, we are ever so thankful for both of you…
To learn more about Jon and Sarah Hane, here is a write-up on The Islands’ Sounder website from when they first arrived here. Since then, they have not only been committed to developing meaningful relationships with as many island kids as they can and helping as many adults who need help, they also consistently have multiple irons in the fire in order to make these pandemic times fun and meaningful for all of our kids. I just love who they are and how they live out their lives.
May the wisdom in these videos help you experience שַׁבָּת שָׁלוֹם.
Photo courtesy of The Islands’ Sounder
