Subversive Sabbath: The Surprising Power of Rest in a Nonstop World

by A.J. Swoboda

Turn off the television.

Have a Netflix-f...

Aim to spend time out of doors. The average teen spends nine hours a day using media for enjoyment.45 This has led to “Nature-Deficit Disorder.”46 We were not made for screens alone. We were made to get outside.

6 Sabbath and the Marginalized

We are pained by this historical tale—yet we are often like Columbus toward other people. We often treat people with respect and dignity so long as they make sense to us or can soon become like us. Should Christ’s love only be extended to those who make sense to us or who look like us? Never. We are sent to love without question. Being a Christian means being a blessing to the whole world.

“Love one another,” said Jesus, “as I have loved you” (John 13:34). Therefore, no blessing from God should be bottled up. The church is a conduit, mediating generously that which it has received. This means that the litmus test for true Christian ethics is how those who follow Christ love and serve and bless those who do not.

If social media has accomplished anything, it is this: sin and evil are not figments of our imagination. We can see them. We have the videos. Sin and evil are real. And not just systems of evil—Satan himself is personal and real. And the devil does not Sabbath. Scripture refuses to mince words about the power of darkness and its tireless work in our world. Satan, in the piercing words of Paul, is the “god of this age” (2 Cor. 4:4) and “the ruler of the kingdom of the air” (Eph. 2:2). John further asserts that “the whole world is under the control of the evil one” (1 John 5:19). Control. That is a strong word, is it not? Theologically speaking, Jesus has not yet fully entered his rule in this domain, as he soon will in the coming age. The kingdom of Christ is both here and not yet. Satan controls this present world and asserts his power to destroy God’s dreams for the world. But God is still sovereign and ultimately the one who will have his way. In God’s sovereignty, he actually grants freedom to Satan, his allies, and our dark world to exercise autonomy until the reconciliation of all things. Satan’s control is dependent and limited.

As a pastor, I find this awareness of Satan’s authority to be extremely helpful in responding to those who wrestle with questions about how God can be simultaneously good and in control of a world in which there is evil. While being sovereign, God is not fully in control of this world. Satan controls the world—for now. God was sovereign during the Holocaust. That is a disturbing paradox for a Christian to deal with. God has willingly given freedom to humans to do the destructive things they do. The truth remains that this is a world ruled by powers of darkness and oppression at present until Christ comes to rule again. Evil exists because God is not yet fully occupying the throne of human authority. That will change. For now, however, we must remember that all the evil and sin in the world is not God’s fault. The devil has his way in this world. Blame for suffering is on his shoulders, not God’s. The world we now see is a world where Satan has his way. No one can say with a straight face that this world looks like a world where God is in control. Rather, this is a world that looks like humanity has abdicated its authority to Satan.

Do not misunderstand this: sin is not atoned for by a day of rest. Nor is discrimination on the basis of age, disability, race, sex, or marital status a result merely of a lack of Sabbath in our culture. But our unwillingness to rest and find respite in Christ is negatively affecting the way we treat each other. I would strongly argue that the Sabbath commandment is one step forward in undoing systemic evils that our world has been enslaved by since the fall. I know this: I can best serve, love, forgive, embrace, and welcome others when I am at peace in my heart and my own body.

In Luke 6:1–11, Jesus and his disciples walk through grainfields on a Sabbath. To the consternation of the Jewish leaders who look on, Jesus and his disciples pick and eat the grain. Is Jesus stealing? Why can they eat grain that is not theirs? But in Jewish culture the outside layer of one’s grainfield was to go unharvested so that the poor had something to eat, a practice called “gleaning.” The lesson is profound: Jesus gleaned from someone else’s field. Even Jesus reaped the rewards of a farmer honoring God’s commands. Everyone, even Jesus, benefits from biblical living.

For Jesus, however, the greatest commandment was summed up not in one command but two: love God and neighbor. The way of Jesus is that one cannot worship God properly without loving one’s neighbor. Likewise, one cannot love a neighbor appropriately if one is not loving God. Love of God and love of neighbor are never mutually exclusive.

Paul writes, “Whoever loves others has fulfilled the law” (Rom. 13:8). Thus, the totality of Old Testament law is beautifully fulfilled in the actions of loving the neighbor. Look at the Ten Commandments. Some, particularly the first three, detail ways we love God—worship, rejecting idols, not taking God’s name in vain. The last six, however, concern themselves with love of neighbor—no stealing, no murder, no adultery, honor your parents, no lying, and no jealousy. Yet one command remains unclear as to its purpose—the Sabbath. Is the Sabbath about loving God, or is it about loving the neighbor? This is why it has been called “the bridge commandment.” For tradition holds that it is the one command explicitly concerned with loving God and neighbor simultaneously. When one enters the Sabbath, it is as though we are loving God and those around us.

In hesed love, God says to us, “If you want to love and serve me, do it through your neighbor; he needs your help, I don’t.”10

In most cases, the rich must take the first step to use their power, resources, and influence to provide Sabbath on others’ behalf. In the end, if the rich do not Sabbath, neither can the poor. A society’s most well off have a disproportionate responsibility to keep Sabbath so that the poor might also.

When I first began teaching on the Sabbath, I was struck that those who resisted the most were mothers with children. Ultimately, their concern was that we were inviting people into something that was not practical or possible for them. Many of those mothers felt shamed for staying at home and caring for a family and then, on top of it, felt shamed for not having a Sabbath in place in their home. Sabbath is not honored through shame or guilt. Put simply, shame is work—tedious work to be exact. Shame and rest are mutually exclusive realities.14 If Sabbath becomes about heaping shame on anyone else, then we have failed to practice the rich grace of the Sabbath. If we feel shameful about keeping a Sabbath, we are not understanding it properly.

We must embody a Sabbath way that, first, makes Sabbath possible for all and, second, never forces it on anyone. The words of Nelson Mandela ring true: “For to be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.”15 One’s Sabbath, one’s freedom, must extend to all for it to be considered real freedom. For the Jewish people, this is reflected in the principle of kavod habriyot—that we have a duty to honor every living being. For the way in which we treat the least in our society is how we treat God. Sabbath for the poor, the underemployed, and the stay-at-home mom becomes a litmus test of the health and justice of a society.

Simultaneously, God has ideals that he expects of and desires for us, and God knows we cannot meet them and so he seeks to meet us in the moments that we try to keep his ideals, even imperfectly. As it relates to the poor, the stay-at-home dad, the person in prison, the disabled, or any person who is in a place of life where Sabbath is excruciatingly problematic, what matters most is not that they do a Sabbath perfectly but that they try their best in whatever context they find themselves in. While the ideal is to rest one day a week, some simply cannot. And for the person who risks to take a four-hour window of rest, the Lord will be present with him or her in the midst of the attempt. For the stay-at-home mom who can give one hour of quiet and solitude to God after putting her children down to sleep, God will meet her in her intentional rest.

God never intended what he gave to us as a gift to become a tool of shame or guilt. The Sabbath is for us. We are not for the Sabbath. And in that reality we can experience freedom and joy. Remember Paul’s words: “Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day” (Col. 2:16). Do not be judged, friend. Remember, no one has ever, save Jesus, kept a Sabbath perfectly. There is grace. Endless grace. All we have to do is “make every effort” to enter the Sabbath.

Laura Ruth Yordy once wrote, “Human sinfulness, unfortunately, proves highly resistant to cognitive cures.”20 Her point? Sin is not fixed through mere cognitive education. Sabbath is not an education issue; it is an obedience issue. The results of the Sabbath affect so many people and places. We can be aware of this, and yet the thing that matters is not whether we have that knowledge in our heads. What is important is that we take action, that we practice it, that we try it, that we give it a shot.

“God’s kindness is intended to lead you to repentance,” Paul writes in Romans 2:4. Guilt trips do not lead to repentance. Neither does shame. Or more information. Repentance is the result of God’s sheer grace and mercy alone—nothing else. When you know you are loved even if you never change, then true change is possible.

7 Sabbath and Creation

Can you imagine, for a brief moment, what our planet would look like if we no longer had water? Or light? Or food? What if we decided trees were unnecessary and cut them all down? In the end, remove any of these elements from creation and assuredly creation would not continue as a place suitable for life. The world would start to fall apart. So why do we think we can have a world without Sabbath and all will be well and fine? In creation, everything is affected by everything else because the perfect Creator knew what he was doing when he made the planet. By ignoring the Sabbath, the world suffers tragic consequences. Creation suffers great pains because of what we have essentially cut out. The Sabbath is as integral to the sustaining of our planet as water, light, and all the green things. Without the Sabbath, the world would begin to crumble.

While God made each part of creation “good,” creation was not complete—or “very good” (Gen. 1:31)—until all parts of the ecosystem were finished and worked in harmony with one another.

A world with no Sabbath is a genetically modified world.