I am writing a series of posts on the subject of “living justly” as Christians. My thinking about living justly has been formed from thirteen years of leading a Bible study with college women entitled “Money, Possessions and Charity,” inspired by Craig Blomburg’s book Neither Poverty Nor Riches,. I have seen over the years that one cannot form a Biblical view of helping the needy without also developing a biblical view of work and wealth. To recap a bit – I wrote back in the fall that all humans are made in the image of God, and we should treat all with dignity and care. Part of our human dignity is expressed in our work, whether it is intellectual work or physical work, white collar or blue collar. All work deserves respect and just remuneration.
Today’s post is on the familiar teaching of the rhythm of work and rest, also called a Sabbath.
The rhythm of work and Sabbath has much to teach us about living justly. As you will see from God’s articulation of the commandment to rest on the seventh day, this command addresses ordinary people of God who not only need rest to care for themselves, but also are in positions of power to influence and affect others. Although we may tend to think individualistically about our own rest, the commands in Scripture also invite us to think systemically or structurally about the rest needed by others.
In this post I will share a series of scriptures and discuss how God invites us to follow His example of resting as a way of worshipping Him and caring for others..
The first appearance of Sabbath is in Genesis 2:1-4, which reads:
So the heavens and the earth and everything in them were completed. On the seventh day God had completed his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. God blessed the seventh day and declared it holy, for on it he rested from all his work of creation. (Christian Standard Bible)
In Genesis 2, before the Fall of humanity into sin, God begins a rhythm of work and rest. As I posted before, humans were created to work and have dominion over God’s creation. God works, and his image bearers work as well. Work is good! In chapter one of Genesis, God spends six days creating. In this passage, we see God modeling resting on the seventh day. He declared the seventh day “holy” or “set apart.” He set it apart from the six days of work as a day of rest.
God was not tired! So why did God rest? I believe He rested as an example for us because He knew humans would need to rest. We are not infinite gods. We are dependent and finite. God teaches us to work and rest by modeling work and rest. He does this because He has compassion on us. The Sabbath was not a straightjacket, but a gift. Jesus confirms this when he clashes with the Pharisees for letting his disciples pluck grain as they traveled with him because they were hungry and it was the Sabbath. He says “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” (Mark 2:27) Human need matters to God, whether it is the need for rest or for food.
God tells the Israelites why they are to observe the Sabbath in the Ten Commandments, which we find in Exodus 20.
8 Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy: 9 You are to labor six days and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. You must not do any work—you, your son or daughter, your male or female servant, your livestock, or the resident alien who is within your city gates. 11 For the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and everything in them in six days; then he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and declared it holy. (Christian Standard Bible, Exodus 20:8-11)
Here, God tells the Isrealites they are to observe the Sabbath to identify themselves as God’s people by imitating Him. Imitating God by resting is also an expression of worship. Trying to obey God by imitating Him is an expression of profound respect. It is sinful to try to make ourselves equal to God – that was the original sin. However if God’s creatures admire Him and aspire to emulate Him as humble image bearers, that is appropriate imitative worship.
When I was a child, I worshiped my big brother. I wanted to be exactly like my brother, John. I esteemed him so highly I copied everything I could. John hated to be copied by his little sister, but my mother would tell him “Imitation is the finest form of flattery.” Flattery doesn’t have good connotations to us, so I think the expression should have been “imitation is the finest form of showing respect.”
But there is more to glean from this passage. As part of resting from their individual work, the Isrealites were also called to think communally by protecting household members from work. An Israelite household would have included what we would now consider employees. Therefore, here in Exodus 20, we have labor laws, which are egalitarian in some sense. This law given to the Israelites teaches them to apply the benefit of rest unselfishly and equally to family members, servants or employees, animals and the resident aliens whom they employ. That’s a radical way of life! It requires the Isrealites to organize their personal and corporate lives in such a way that the entire community can rest on the seventh day.
I have already mentioned that Jesus occasionally had conflict with the Pharisees over what they viewed as breaking the Sabbath. For example, a sick person would be brought to Jesus on the Sabbath and He would heal them (Mark 3:1-6). In another passage Jesus let his disciples pluck grain because they had no food (Mark 2:23-28). Since the Sabbath was a compassionate gift from God to promote needed rest for all, some occasional meeting of needs on the Sabbath was not an infraction for Jesus but an outworking of that same compassion for human need. Taking both the Law and these exceptions into consideration leads me to believe we ought to regularly protect rest for ourselves and others and also respond to unforeseen human needs when we come across them.
So after looking at these passages, what are some applications for our lives? The following are some of the ways I am applying these passages to my own life:
- I am to imitate God and have a healthy pattern of work and rest in my life.
- God works, so I should work as he gives me strength.
- God rests, so I should rest and allow others to rest.
- God expressed compassion for humanity by establishing Sabbath rest, so I should be compassionate to others, not just to my family, but to the whole family of humanity (and to animals as well). The rest that God wanted to give to me, He also wants me to give to others. If I am an employer, I need to protect rest for those I employ.
There is a second iteration of the Law of the Sabbath in Deuteronomy 5, which I will leave for the next post. It adds increased meaning to the rhythm of work and rest.