“Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all their multitude. And on the seventh day God finished the work that God had done, and God rested on the seventh day from all the work that God had done. So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all the work that God had done in creation.” Genesis 2:1-3

“Remember the Sabbath day, and keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work – you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; there fore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and consecrated it.”Exodus 20:8-11 

At what point was it that the decision was made to give up ‘time to rest’ in order to be more productive? Who made the decision that the Gross Domestic Product affords no value for the labors of a mother’s care for her child, but estimates the value of a drive-by shooting at approximately $20,000 because of the goods and services that will be needed to deal with the situation (and nearly $100,000 if someone dies!)? Where was it established that time spent in prayer, visiting, laughing with family, dining with friends, worship and quiet long walks, is time lost for productivity and success? When was it that our souls were offered up on the butcher block of ‘having enough to make me happy’? How is it that more and more people cry out for peace and justice, while nations squander both human and earthly resource in the race to achieve ‘first nation’ status?

The author of Genesis puts all of the debate in perspective early in the story of creation: God stopped. God rested. God who creates everything stands back and appreciates the labor and the outcome. God makes sacred a day for creation in the cycle of life, sets the example early, establishes the pattern before there are analysts to assess its validity: Stop. Take time. Rest. What is done is sacred. Where you are is sacred. Time to reflect, renew, and recharge is sacred. Don’t work yourself to death. Rest yourself into new life.

Is it not a wonder that the Fourth Commandment takes such great pains to be clear to a people who have known little more than work every day of their lives? “Remember.” In a way you are not accustomed to doing, remember. Remember the Sabbath day. Remember everything that God has done and is doing and, yet, God chooses a day to rest. Why shouldn’t you? Remember. Remember that by the lips of God’s own mouth the time of Sabbath is holy. Remember, you will not live long enough to get everything done, so work for six days and rest on the seventh. Remember, you can continue in life’s cycle of busyness tomorrow, if tomorrow is yours to enjoy, but today, on this Sabbath, stop and rest.

As Jesus has said it to those who challenged him concerning the behavior of his disciples on the Sabbath: “The Sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the Sabbath; so the Son of Man is lord even of the Sabbath.” (Mark 2:27-28) In declaring the seventh day holy, in stopping from all that God was in the midst of doing, in fully participating in the act of ‘rest’, God establishes for all of creation time to be still, time to appreciate what is done, time to ponder the shared community of God who is in the midst of our journey, time to celebrate the lives of those with whom we share special and loving ties, time to be loving and special to those with whom we share life, and time . . . not to keep a commandment, but to remember the Spirit in which the Sabbath is given: Stop, rest, appreciate, pray, be silent, go for a walk, sing, love, worship, be renewed. The Sabbath is a gift of time to breathe, given by the One whose breath gives time. 

It should not be lost on us, then, that the Pilgrims in 1621, after a winter of great starvation and privation, and after a difficult growing year for their first crops, stopped and gave thanks. The ones who had tended to them and helped them in their wilderness journey, the Wampanoag, who outnumbered them mightily, contributed food and joined them for the three day celebration. They remembered. They stopped. They rested. They gave thanks. They feasted. They celebrated. They told stories. They laughed. They refreshed their souls. They found delight in each other. They pondered the sacred in the midst of the memories of those who no longer sat at their tables. They renewed their strength, as on wings of eagles, for the work which was ahead. The Pilgrims received of the Sabbath what God intends Sabbath to be for all creation: a blessing. God blessed the Sabbath that it be a blessing to those who observed it and the Pilgrims received of that blessing as they, the resident aliens in a foreign land, shared with the Wampanoag what Wampanoag spirituality knew already: it is a sacred journey we are on. If we leave the sacred moments to just one day or just one place, then we make of everything else a profanity. The Pilgrims celebrated with the Wampanoag the sacredness of all life and took this special Sabbath time to step back and give thanks.

The intentional setting aside of time for Sabbath reveals another truth as well: It restores in our soul the value God places in us from the beginning. Imagine it! You are of such value to God that God calls you to do as God, stopping to rest and be restored in heart and mind on the journey. You are worth more than all the Gross Domestic Product of all the nations of all the universes God has spun into being. No amount of work, no amount of productivity, no amount of worthwhile ongoing non-stop mission can increase your value in God’s eyes, yet failure to ‘remember’, unwillingness to cease activity, reluctance to be stopped while on the way towards our goals – decreases the value of God in our living and sacrifices personal value for that which we strive to obtain. That which we value is that for which we have time.

God is no less holy. God is no less sacred. God is no less powerful. God is no less loving. God is no less merciful. Yet, an unwillingness to remember the Sabbath, to be immersed in the holy, to ponder the sacred, to be in awe of the powerful, to receive of the loving, to be grateful for the merciful, utters the profanity of self-abasement and Godlessness in our living. We are created to be ‘just a little lower than the angels’ and, in our living, choose too often to dwell little higher than the devil: our soul sacrificed for ‘getting more done’.

This Thanksgiving: “Remember”. Stop what you are doing, stand back, observe God’s goodness, give thanks for the blessings you receive, dwell in the value of being blessed, sit at table with family, tell stories, laugh, take a walk, be with whomever is family to you, and celebrate being God’s family together: Be valued, rested, restored, and ready to serve in faithfulness of heart. Such is the essence of Sabbath. Such is the nature of Thanksgiving. Such is the truth of our dwelling in God.