Sabbath

 In the Five Books of Moses where also known as the? (Pentateuch) What was the last thing written of the Pentateuch, the last story? Hint: it was a poem. (The First Creation Story) The Seven Day Creation Story was put in its final form, the first time it was written down was while the people of Israel were in the diaspora spread throughout the Babylonian Empire in the sixth century BCE. It became widely shared because the prophet Jeremiah told the people to marry amongst the people wherever they were at and to settle in. Yes one day, they would return to the towns and Jerusalem, but for now, continue to live. The people of the nation of Judah were there for about seventy years, so there were a couple of generations happening and their children and grandchildren were forgetting their language, their heritage, and their God. Then, the poem about God creating the world in seven days was used as a reminder, a balm, and a way to remember who and whose they were. It centered on the sabbath, that God had rested after creating the world and all that is in it, after creating man and woman in their own image, telling all life to be fruitful and multiply, and proclaiming that everything and everyone was good and blessed. Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel explained it this way,

“Menuha which we usually render with ‘rest’ means here much more than withdrawal from labor and exertion, more than freedom from toil and strain or activity of any kind. Menuha is not a negative concept but something real and intrinsically positive...‘What was created on the seventh day? Tranquility, serenity, peace, and repose.’ (Genesis)...To the biblical mind menuha is the same as happiness and stillness, as peace and harmony...In later times menuha became a synonym for the life in the world to come, for eternal life.” – Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Sabbath

Taking the Sabbath allowed the Jews to separate themselves from the Babylonian culture and remember their roots and tell their stories and look forward to the day when they would be back in their homeland. It helped them separate from the grind culture of slavery which they were a part of in Babylon. 

Some five hundred years later, when Romans ruled the world around the Mediterranean Sea. The Jews had spent that time working and refining what was and what wasn't allowed on the Sabbath. Judaism isn't a religion of believe, orthodoxy, but a religion of practice, orthopraxy. It was and is about what you do that is most important. So, on this day of Sabbath, which starts when? (Friday night sundown because the day  begins in the First Creation story there was an evening and there was a morning, the first, second, third, day) On this day of Sabbath, the Jews had five hundred years of debate, proposals, and tweaking about what was and what wasn't allowed on the Sabbath. To say it became a little 'legalistic' would be an understatement. How can one, as Abraham Joshua Heschel put it, have menuha, have tranquility, serenity, peace, and repose if one was hungry as Jesus and the disciples were when they 'harvested' the grain to eat because they were traveling and were hungry? How can one have tranquility, serenity, peace, and repose if one's hand was withered? Jesus responds to criticism and humans weren't made for the laws of Sabbath, but the Sabbath was made for man. And the purpose of sabbath, as Sister Thea Bowman put it, "Remembering who and whose we are." 

“Loving ourselves and each other deepens our disruption of the dominant systems. They want us unwell, fearful, exhausted, and without deep self-love because you are easier to manipulate when you are distracted by what is not real or true.”
― Tricia Hersey, Rest Is Resistance: A Manifesto

At the heart of a just peace church, at the heart of any Christian church should be the promise of menuha for anyone and everything, a healthy body and full stomach, a tranquil mind, a serene soul, and a peaceful neighborhood and nation. At the heart of an Open and Affirming church, should be the welcoming of all, not matter who they are or where they are on life's journey. Let us rest, practice sabbath, and the oppose the continuing grind culture that tells us that our worth is tied up in wealth and work and status. Let us together discover the deep, deep love of God that is for us, for all, and for the world. Amen