Sabbath for Everyone

Perhaps it’s no surprise, but my social media feed has a lot of content about mental health. I’m sure it’s partially due to the fact that I take my own mental health seriously and the internet has picked up on that. But I suspect it’s also because the algorithm assumes a significant overlap in mental healthcare and pastoral care. Now, most of the time I reject this assumption. I am trained to be present and offer prayer in a crisis, but I have zero medical training, unless you count all of the ER I watched in the 90’s.

But every once in a while, I come across a headline or video about mental health that affirms or is affirmed by an aspect of my faith life. For example, I recently caught a clip of an interview about trauma. The two panelists were discussing some of the leading theories about trauma from the past decade, and how so many of them have been debunked at worst, or at least, heavily criticized. They commented that a catch phrase in a lot of modern mental health research is “if therapy and medication work, why is the mental health crisis getting worse?”

At first I bristled. I am a proud champion for both therapy and medication when it comes to mental health. But then the interview took a surprising turn. The panelists agreed that while both methods are valuable, they are missing a key component necessary for human thriving. In order for us to be our best selves, so to speak, we can’t focus solely on “inner work.” We also have to focus outward, on the people around us and the communities we live in. I was taken aback. These may be two psychologists, I thought to myself, but that’s good theology.

Finding the right balance between caring for ourselves and caring for others is one of the most difficult challenges of our faith life. Thankfully, Jesus gives us some clarifying instructions in the 13th chapter of Luke. There we meet Jesus teaching in the synagogue on the Sabbath. His attention is caught by a woman, whom we learn is chronically ill. Jesus interrupts the community’s Sabbath routine to heal her, and the Pharisees aren’t having it.

I tend to be generous towards the Pharisees, because they were faithful religious leaders in their time, just like I try to be today. Their argument is that there is a time and a place for healing and the Sabbath isn’t it. Essentially, for the good of the whole, holy boundaries must be held. In theory, I agree wholeheartedly. In non-emergencies, you’ll be hard pressed to get me to respond to an email after hours.

But what Jesus sees that the Pharisees don’t, is that everyone present is enjoying their Sabbath day at the expense of a member of their community who cannot. With one swift act of healing, the chronically ill woman is finally able to observe a fuller expression of her Sabbath after being ignored for almost two decades. And in turn, the whole synagogue’s Sabbath observance is elevated.The Pharisee’s argument is strong, but Jesus’ mercy is stronger. As preaching scholar Jared Alcántara says, “if you don’t see other people, Jesus will confront you.”

Modern Christians have a slightly different theology of Sabbath than our ancestors in the faith, one that focuses less on Old Testament law and more on New Testament teaching. But, we can be just as guilty of co-opting this holy practice as the Pharisees in Luke’s Gospel. In the same social media stream that feeds me mental health content, I see endless wellness culture posts that promote sabbath as time in retreat away from the world, as something we deserve because we’ve worked really hard, and as an opportunity to protect our peace. In short, sabbath is advertised as “me time.” I worry that Moses is rolling over in his grave, wherever it may be.

The origin story of sabbath is glorious. It came to us as part of the Ten Commandments that Moses brought down from Mount Sinai to the recently-delivered Israelites. I find it helpful to frame the Ten Commandments as a gift rather than a mandate. God’s people had been enslaved for generations. The only way of life they knew was one in which slave masters were gods, their time was not their own, and they very rarely experienced any kindness at all.

Once they crossed the Red Sea, they had the opportunity to create a new society based on totally different values. But it’s hard to create what you’ve never seen. So God gave the Ten Commandments to show that their old life was over, and this is how they'd live now, and not just live but thrive.

Now these commandments weren’t just about individual behaviors. God is interested in the salvation of all the Israelites, not just the good rule followers. The commandments are life-giving when they are honored by all the people. They must worship God and only God together. They must observe the Sabbath as a communal spiritual practice. They must protect themselves and one another from the temptation to slip back into their old way of life, one rife with violence and abuse.

Sabbath rest is a gift that we do not earn or deserve. It is a holy practice that is just as important as our work. It is not a reward for labor, nor should it be overlooked when the demands of our labor are high. It is not solely an act of self-care or self-preservation, it is also an act of community service. And in order to receive the benefits of the Sabbath - joy, rejuvenation and closeness with God - we cannot observe it at the expense of others. To treat it too rigidly like the Pharisees in our Gospel passage, or to consider it “me time” as is popular these days, would be to limit its scope and impact in detrimental ways.

As my friends and I like to say, if you want a village, you have to be a villager. Sometimes that means resting in our homes so that we can be nice to people tomorrow, but sometimes it means getting back in our cars when we’re tired to show up for the people we love, so that they have access to Sabbath too. Sabbath is rest that serves the whole community, not just the person who observes it.

In just a few minutes, we’re going to baptize sweet and perfect baby Henry into the Body of Christ and into the Christ Church family. Throughout his life, the world will instill in him both the value of hard work and the necessity of self-care. It is my hope that as his worship community, we can remind him of the value of true Sabbath rest, and of Christ’s call to never ignore those who are suffering right in front of us. He will be part of our village, and we will show up for him, even when it’s hard.

So to recap, I am not a mental health professional, and I cannot guarantee that a faithful Sabbath practice will solve all mental health problems. But I know it can’t hurt. Because faithful Sabbath helps us navigate how to care for ourselves while also caring for our community. It brings us joy and rest and it also holds us accountable to those who may need our help in order to participate fully in the gift. Sabbath equips us to engage with a daunting world, and it makes the world a little less daunting. It is the very epitome of the gift that keeps on giving. Amen.