7/6/03 - Honor The Sabbath

Ask Tom, our favorite mechanic & small engine guru about how you keep a car, how you keep a car going, Tom’ll give you a one word answer: maintenance.

Last summer, seeing as how our 1983 VW rabbit was literally on its last legs & being the cheapskates we generally are, Wayne and sent away for the Click & Clack Brothers Cartalk brochure on how to buy the cheapest car, and we found out that the least expensive car to buy & keep is not a new one, not a really old one, but a gently used -three year old car which you keep & keep & keep. So we found a good small used car & then we go to Tom, the mechanic & we said, Tom, we’d like to keep this car going 150,…, 200,… hey, 300,000 miles would be really great to get out of this car. How do we do that?”

And that’s when Tom looked at us & gave us that one word answer: Maintenance. Regular maintenance. Then he expanded his advice & said “Actually, the number one thing you gotta do is change your oil every 4,000 miles.”

Well, if you look in the handy-dandy instruction manual that comes with your car you will find that happens to be -- using a lot more words & illustrations of course, exactly the advice given by your car’s manufacturer. Regular maintenance, & above all changing the oil regularly -- before any warning lights or sounds come on in your car.

Well it just so happens that we human beings have what you could call an owner’s manual too. It’s called the Bible, and specifically, within the Bible we find a very clear “Essential Maintenance List” called the Ten Commandments. One way of looking at the 10 commandments is that they provide an easy reference guide to the care and feeding of human beings: If you do this, you will live! Says the Lord God of Israel,

“You must follow exactly the path that the LORD your God has commanded you, so that you may live, and that it may go well with you, and that you may live long in the land that you are to possess.” (in Dt. 5: 33)

Interestingly enough, in our summer series on the 10 Commandments, we have now come to the commandment which in our society almost everybody, openly, flagrantly, unapologetically breaks. I break it, you break it, children break it, church leaders break it, the President of the United States breaks it. And most of the time we brag about breaking it.

Now at this point some of you may be feeling a little edgy, What’s she talking about, she doesn’t know what my life is like 24/7 round the clock, pastors have pretty cushy hours, here’s another out of touch sermon just trying to make people feel guilty again.

Are we really expected to take this commandment all that seriously in modern life?

I told Tom the mechanic that I was going to be speaking about the Sabbath using the analogy of car maintenance, and he called me back all the way from Michigan where he is spending a little sabbath time: (PHONE)

“You know,” he said, “don’t make people feel all guilty about this, Maintenance is not that big of a deal. If you don’t maintain things on your car, pretty much everything can be fixed, you see, but it’s the changing oil part that’s so important. It’s such a simple thing but people gotta do it regularly, every 4,000 miles. Kinda like going to church every Sunday .”

We need lubrication, we need fresh perspectives, we need rest, we need recreation, (re-creation), we need time to develop relationships instead of working on achievements all the time. we need the Sabbath every 7 days.

6 days you shall labor and do all your work, But the 7^th is a Sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work”

Honoring the Sabbath is not a way out of work, and it’s not a grim religious duty like the early Puritans who couldn’t sing or play or do anything except read the Bible and sit very, very still all Sunday long. Honoring the Sabbath biblically simply establishes a healthy ratio of work -- to rest, recreation, and relationships, including foremost our relationship with God. 6 days you shall labor. Six days you shall work at your jobs, chauffer your kids, mop the floor, balance the checkbook, manage your employees, return your e-mails, and do all that knowing that God is always with you & beside you & in you, as a Christian out in the world. But once a week you ask God to help you take time off from “work”.

This summer you might see me out in my garden on a Sunday afternoon, pulling weeds. For me that’s not work. That’s my recreation, re-creation after having been renewed in worship on Saturday night and Sunday morning. And I know others who have the same feeling about playing a Sunday ballgame, fixing a lamp, or taking a 30 mile bike ride. For THEM, it’s not work, (sounds like work to me, for you it might not!) it’s a 7^th day refreshing change of pace which deepens your relationships with your Creator & with other people

6 days you shall labor and the 7^th day you shall not do any work and why? Because our Creator knows us & loves us & wants what’s best for us. “Take some regular time off” God says, - and maybe he’s not shouting at all, he’s speaking ever so kindly & tenderly to us, because he’s our Creator and he’s our Father and because he loves you & me – NOT ultimately for what we do, but for who we ARE, his own precious creation & re- creation.

In Genesis we are told that God created the whole world in 6 days, and then made the 7^th day holy , he blessed it, and he set it apart as a special day of focusing on BE-ing instead of on Doing.

Six days you shall labor. Six days you shall do & do & do. Do your best. DO work hard. DO plan, implement, and achieve. But on the 7^th day you shall simply BE.

Of COURSE if an emergency comes up, you take care of it. Of Course if your neighbor needs you to help out on a Sunday afternoon you do it. That’s why Jesus was free to heal on the Sabbath & let his disciples pick up some fast food in a farmer’s field on a Sabbath day. The godly life NEVER puts general rules before individual commonsense & kindness to people. Of course if your kid needs that new swimming suit for camp and you don’t realize it til Sunday afternoon, you go to the mall & buy the thing. But watch out for when the exceptions start becoming the habits, crowding out your family’s & your personal day of rest, recreation & relationships, including your relationship with the Living Lord..

Remember the Sabbath & keep it Holy. This commandment, like each of the commandments, can be a pain in the neck rule, or it can be, is meant to be, a gift of grace

Through Jesus who himself said “I have come not to abolish the law, but to fulfill it” through Jesus, this commandment can become for us a gift for living the good life.

“Honor the Sabbath & Keep it Holy”