Christians and Sabbath

Come to me and I will give you rest (Matt 11:28)

So today’s post is actually me working through a response to a friend, but I thought it would make for interesting food for thought especially if I get input or well thought out rebuttal from my reader(s). The question  actually came out of a long dialogue about Torah/Law and what Christians should be following, but towards the end our conversation became focused on Sabbath rest. The actual question he left me with was not as simple as “Should Christians obey the Sabbath?” but rather pointedly posed like, “Since Sabbath is a 'commandment' don’t you think it grieves God that Christians do not follow the Sabbath?” 

My thoughts on Torah and Sabbath have been main themes in many of my posts over the years, but I did need to stop and be thoughtful about this response. I believe the Torah was never an arbitrary set of rules for Israel to follow, but in many ways were there to set Israel apart and stand in support of what creation was supposed to be in the midst of a world “hell-bent” on undoing itself.

Sabbath was no different in this regard as it was an economic practice that stopped the practice of making 24/7 producers out of people which is a caustic exploitation of life for the personal gain of a Pharaoh. After the Hebrews got out from under the thumb of such a ruler and allow God to lead them, they find a God who does not need them to produce endlessly, but rather rest in the truth that people are woven into the fabric of the cosmos as reflections of its Creator and participators in the unfolding work of creation.

So, do I think it grieves God that Christians do not obey the Sabbath? No, or at least no more than it grieved God that the Hebrew slaves were not "obeying" it prior to leaving Egypt. What I think grieves God is social structures and economic systems that make people into slaves of production and debt and stops each of us from being what we were meant to be: a people at rest in God’s rest that can embody a neighborly economy and culture.[1]  When we are at rest, we are at peace and can thus give rest and peace not just to ourselves and homes, but to our neighbors and to the larger extent our world.

Because we do not live in such a culture it is not realistic to believe that everyone can participate in Sabbath rest and they are by no means grieving God, but the world of economic inequalities that requires this of anyone, especially weighing down those struggling to live, does live at odds with God. So as Christians if you can participate in the rest that gives rest to others, then by all means do it. But, it is because the nature of acquisition has created an environment that erodes the human essence that becomes the reason that we stand against it. Now this is not just a "social justice" diatribe but is what it means to live in communion with God. Thus we now “work” toward NOT participating in the old ways of greed and exploitation but participate in the new creation where God is provider and the needs of each other are more important than our greed. 

So I will end with this, commandments always need the context of God's Spirit living within the human ethos otherwise they become something to entrap each other with, which is the opposite of their function.

[1] While I don’t believe I quoted anyone directly this whole line of thinking is heavily influenced by Walter Brueggemann and Terence Fretheim. And yes, this dovetails nicely with my last post.

Jesus, Good News, Then There’s What We Have

A few weeks ago I saw something that startled me as I was getting ready for church. I turned on the tv and Joel Osteen was on. Believe it or not that’s not what startled me; I’ll get to the startling part momentarily. My kids began to ask me why I am not a big fan of Joel, so in trying to help them understand I said, well let’s listen to him and as it comes up I will tell you what I disagree with. After his opening monologue and misinformed confession about the Bible, his message then followed something like this:

God wants you to succeed in life and He has a destiny set up for you! And good news, God is in control of it and has carefully orchestrated the good and the bad; nothing randomly ever happens! Not just the good is purposely put there, but also the bad from your (proverbial) “closed doors” to someone doing you wrong, to betrayal, but it is all strategically placed there by God to work for your good! Negative circumstances and negative people are just pawns in the hand of God and they cannot stand in your way! God will use those pawns to push you forward into your destiny! [1]

At this point I had to shut it off because I had more to discuss with my kids than I even anticipated like why each one of them were pawns that God was using to get me somewhere, preferably someplace wealthier. They looked horrified, but I felt pretty good about where this whole thing was going.

Okay, what I was really thinking was do I talk to them about freewill vs. determinism and what is in our realm of personal responsibility? Or why this does not logically work out if this is true of what God does for everybody? Or perhaps I should do damage control on why God is not a monster that propelled the Jews into concentration camps for their “destiny,” or explain that this whole message is a self-centered and self-maximizing look at the world that comes at the expense of others.

Then the startling moment hit me, this is not Christianity at all, it is capitalism. It was startling not just because Osteen is viewed by billions of impressionable people every week, but because capitalism in Christian clothing has been more pervasive than I noticed. And it is not just in the health, wealth and prosperity teachings, but also in the practice of our wealthy consumer industries made up of Christian advertisement, high selling worship music, theologically flawed and shallow books, merchandise and teaching sets of endless promises that it can never live up to and some that shouldn’t even be for sale in the first place (Acts 8:18-20).

Now this is not to say that economics and Christianity should be separate, but rather all the scriptural concern about Sabbath, Jubilee, caring for the underclass and God forgiving our debts as we forgive our debtors carries its own economic practices that stand decisively against western capitalism. Capitalism requires greed from its consumers to sustain itself to the point that it would be catastrophic if the majority became satisfied with their current possessions. This in part is why advertisers set out to make you feel inadequate or left out for not owning their product, or they go the direction of nurturing our giving into impulsive desires and cravings. In doing this it has linked itself directly to human desire.

However, in reality if the (roughly) 60% of Americans that claimed Christianity stood against greed and were content with what they had thereby restraining themselves from buying in excess (food, homes, cars, clothes, shoes, endless electronic devices and service plans etc…) we could bankrupt the economy in under a year. So to my point, the modern Christian industries (especially televangelists) participate in and perpetuate this by simple fact that we are a big help to the economy.

What undergirds such economics (and Osteen sermons) is an ideology in which one can and should pursue their ideas of affluence, comfort and freedom without any discernment over the desire itself. But this is opposite to the way of the cross; the way of dying to a self enslaved to desires and passions of the flesh. This is exactly why Christian life is formed with the help of ascetic practices, primarily having periods of concentrated abstinence from what entangles us (food, sex, or binge consumption of most kinds).

Nevertheless, just as capitalist economics is directly linked to fulfilling our desires, so is the particular brand of Christian teaching that floods the Church and media in which God becomes some sugar daddy in the sky that is there to make sure your desires are met in exchange for loyalty, but that is Mammon not YHWH.

Christianity is about communion with God in such a way that the desires of upward mobility get sent packing so that our life can be found in God. Then we become sustained by God instead of our desires, which are really just an attempt to ease the pain of our brokenness and mortality. Yet, we must hold despair and hope together.  We are to remain sober and attentive to the very real anguish that impairs our world, but we also tell a new story that stands against our present despair by living an ethical economic practice that values each other, our ecology and all of life.

As I was saying in a recent post on church as a microcosm, church is the coming together of heaven and earth in its liturgy through the “holy mysteries” of sacrament revealing this New World. As Alexander Schmemann observes, “The early Christians realized that in order to become the temple of the Holy Spirit they must ‘ascend to heaven’ where Christ ascended… For there in heaven they were immersed in the new life of the Kingdom; and when, after this ‘liturgy of ascension,’ they returned into the world, their faces reflected the light of ‘joy and peace’ of that Kingdom and they were truly its witnesses… In church today, we so often find the old world, not Christ and His Kingdom. We do not realize that we never get anywhere because we never leave any place behind.”[2] 

Thus, if you walk into a church that reflects the world you are walking away from, though they may put on an impressive show of music, self-help catch phrases and “you” centered messages, they are still a wasteland of death that have really not done the work of dying to the old world or to self and therefore have no way of discipling others in any Christlike way. Ultimately we are looking for hope in all the wrong places and it forsakes the way of Love and stands against our transcendent Creator. So if your church does not bear witness to a new hope and new world and well a Christlike God, then it might be time to find a new church.

 [1] Somewhat paraphrased, but here's a link to the message #762 titled "It's a Setup".

[2] Alexander Schmemann. For the Life of the World (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir Press) p. 28.