Remember the Sabbath

I’ve actually been stewing on this blog for over a week. Sometime last week I picked up a book I’ve been “reading” for awhile. (I used quotation marks because I’ve been mostly ignoring it for the better part of a month because I got tired of thinking so much.) Anyway, last week I was reading a chapter in Barbara Brown Taylor’s book Leaving Church in which she writes very candidly about the Sabbath. “How long had it been since I had remembered the Sabbath?” the former Episcopal priest wrote. “I had even declared Friday my Sabbath instead of my day off, but on that day, as on every other day of the week, I stayed very busy.” She went on to talk about all the things that she thought had to get accomplished on her Sabbath and the concept many of us have that if we really stop for a whole day, we’re really going to disappoint God because we won’t be doing His work.

After I read that chapter, I sat and stared at the pages of the book for awhile. If you had asked me seconds before reading those words, I would have told you that I remembered the Sabbath and kept it holy. But after reading them, I couldn’t make the same claim. Sure, I go to church on Sundays. And Life Group. And meetings. And Sunday night church, usually. But that really isn’t keeping the Sabbath, is it? It’s just obeying all the rules and expectations we’ve set up for ourselves about what it means to be a Christian.

Sure, I’ve had moments of Sabbath on those Sundays. Moments during songs, sermons, prayers, afternoon naps, movies, books. But as a whole, I haven’t stopped to consider much on Sundays, much less remember the God who created me and what it means to be His creation. The Sabbath, whether I celebrate it on Monday, Saturday, or Sunday, shouldn’t be just one of my days off. It should be the day that I spend acknowledging who I am in Christ and who God is. Nothing more. Nothing less.

So this Sunday, I attempted to put this idea into practice. Things were going OK for awhile. I ate food I’d prepared the day before and went to a restaurant. I let the dishes sit in the sink. I sat in my comfy chair with the ottoman and read a book all afternoon, ignoring the laundry that was folded and needed to be put away. I attempted to step away from the clock, eat when I was hungry not when I thought I should and stop all the rushing. Things were good until about 5 p.m. when I let expectations get the best of me. I ate supper, even though I wasn’t hungry, but knew I would be by the time evening service was over. I didn’t want to get out in the cold and go all the way back to church, but I was expected. . . .and Mindy would be there and she needed me to sit by her. I had to go. It’s what good Christians do, right? We go to church every time the door is open.

Seriously, when you don’t want to go as badly as I did, you shouldn’t go. Your heart will not be in the right place for worship. You’ll mumble through some songs and hope that you sound convincing. You’ll worry too much about what people are thinking about you to actually focus on God and who you are in Him. You’ll time the pastor’s sermon on your cell phone. And when you’re leaving that service, you’ll see how far from remembering the Sabbath and keeping it holy you’ve been.

It was a striking lesson I had this week, one that I’ll continue to ponder as I attempt to figure out what it really means to remember the Sabbath and keep it holy.