This week, while I was procrastinating writing this sermon, I was on Facebook. You know, I was avoiding life like you do. Anyway, I saw this post in a group that’s called Wenatchee Rants, or something along these lines. This person wrote, “Just a heads up, I just saw someone in the coffee shop with no laptop and no cell phone, just SITTING THERE DRINKING COFFEE like a psychopath.”

It gave me a chuckle for a couple reasons. One, I was avoiding my sermon about Sabbath and rest at the moment I was logged into Facebook and, with this post, the Holy Spirit guided my wandering mind back to the question of rest and Sabbath. Two, this post is just funny. I think we all feel like we should be able to enjoy drinking a cup of coffee without distraction, at a coffee shop, and just have that be enough. But the truth is most of us are so uncomfortable with our thoughts, our bodies, our emotional realities, or whatever that we engage in distraction a lot.

Now, keep in mind, this is not judgement! I am fully in the boat with everyone who struggles with silence, stillness, and time without either distraction or productivity.

Because this is almost universally true, at least in our country, we almost never see someone just sitting with nothing happening. So, it is weird and therefore suspicious. We might wonder about them. Are they OK? Are they on a stakeout, watching for criminals while just pretending to be nonchalant? Are they waiting for a date to show up? Are they contemplating the meaning of life, lost in a stupor of malaise? We wonder, because who just sits still? Who is just happily quiet with their thoughts or lack of thoughts and drinks a cup of coffee … in a coffee shop, no less? I can tell you, as someone who used to own a coffee shop, not many.  And when I did see them, I did wonder and I would go check on them to make sure they were OK.

A lot of us engage in some sort of media from the moment of waking to the moment of sleep, and then sometimes even beyond that. I know folks who can’t fall asleep without the TV being on. I’m sure you do, too. In a way, we consume media like it is oxygen. Unfortunately, though, all our media consumption doesn’t really make our lives better, does it?

There’s something wonderful about the person just sitting at the coffee shop enjoying the moment. My prayer is that they were indeed soaking in the joy of being alive with a cup of coffee in the beautiful town of Wenatchee. My prayer is that they were enjoying a moment of restful, restorative Sabbath, even if it was just for a moment or two.  

The tension in our gospel today is about how we rest and what rest means. As usual, Jesus is pointing us towards a more nuanced and deeper understanding of life and the Law, than is offered by the legalistic leaders who often show up in the gospels to challenge Jesus and his message of grace.

Jesus is telling us that the Sabbath is something deeper than just the absence of work. It’s something more holistic, more healing, more nourishing to us than simply not working. Afterall, I’m sure we’re all very aware of how we can be not working and yet also not resting at the same time. Anyone who has spent time on social media or flipping channels can tell you that. Even though we know this, we are just so not good at deep, restorative, and healing rest.

The way the religious leaders are understanding the Sabbath in our text today is all about the rules. We are not to work on the Sabbath ideally, but how we go about “not working” is important. Do we “not work” in a spirit of control, like these religious leaders? Do we “not work” in the spirit of somehow being showy in our righteousness or flashy in how we rest? (Think social media influencer types, working hard to appear restful.) Or do we “not work” in the spirit of unplugging from reality? Or do we “not work” in ways that enhance our relationships, health, and joy for ourselves and others?

The Deuteronomy text connects the Hebrew history of slavery in Egypt with the Sabbath. So, is Sabbath a way of experiencing and celebrating freedom for us and others? Notice also the Deuteronomy text tells us that that everyone is to rest on the Sabbath, which means we’re not even to be served through someone else’s labor on the Sabbath. All people are given the gift of rest and freedom. And we’re all asked to pay that gift forward to someone else, to hold sacred their time of rest, as well as our own.

To rest in the spirit of Sabbath rest, beyond just the absence of work, is to rest in a way that we remember, experience, and be grateful for our freedom in God. What does that look like? We tend to think of freedom as being free to do what we want. So, if that means spending all day on the couch in our pajamas with Netflix and ice cream, it is our free choice to do that. And that could be just the thing to do. But we should ask the question, is that choice making our time of rest sacred? Is a day of Netflix nourishing? Is it honoring our freedom to abide in Christ in ways that are deeply nourishing? If it is, then go forth and revel in couch time! I certainly do. But if that choice or any choice is a way to distract ourselves from what is real, true, and perhaps painful in our lives, then it is not perhaps rest. The simply absence of work does not make a Sabbath.

There are many ways to take a Sabbath. We can take a digital Sabbath with no screens or phones. We can take a financial Sabbath and not spend any money for a day or a weekend. We can take a Sabbath from productivity and head out to play. We can do all of these things at the same time!

However, what I’m not seeing in these texts is that we are free to take a break from taking good care of each other or ourselves. Real rest, Sabbath rest, includes paying attention to the needs that are present and loving that person enough, even if that person is ourselves, to attend to that need.

It makes me wonder how many lives would be transformed in deep and profound ways if we practiced rest in this way; that we take the time to be still long enough to notice the needs that are present, attend to them with loving care, invite God into those needs with prayer perhaps, and then rest when the needs are attended to as best as we are able. How many of us could close the refrigerator door when we’re not hungry, if we attended to our actual needs? How many of us would set screens aside if we attended to the reasons we want to zone out? What kind of freedom might we experience? How many of us would flourish if we prioritized meaningful relationships? How many of us would have lives transformed through this sort of practice of Sabbath? I’m guessing a lot! That list of folks would include me, I’m sure.

Humans are not made for Sabbath; Sabbath is made for humans. This is about experiencing our freedom. Freedom from the dehumanizing systems of this world. Freedom from pain. Freedom from unreasonable expectations. Freedom from loneliness. When we listen to Jesus’ call to us, we are invited into a world of deeper freedom, relationships, love, and dignity for all. The invitation is to us and to all the world, as we extend the circle of Sabbath care and healing to all those around us.

AMEN