Sermons

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Walking by Faith: Resting
February 10, 2002
Fifth in a series on “Walking by Faith”
Pastor Dan Baumgartner

Exodus 16:22-30

This morning we come again to the story of Israel in the book of Exodus, in this series I’ve called “Walking By Faith.” Last week we looked at the story of how God provided manna for the people to eat, and how each person had to go out each day to gather it. This morning, we continue that story of God’s provision for his people, again in chapter 16, verse 22.

I have quoted many times for you from various works of Eugene Peterson’s, whom I consider something of a literary, pastoral and personal mentor. You can imagine my shock and concern, then, as I read this confession that Peterson wrote:

“I got onto it early, and engaged in my sin with gusto. As I developed in the Christian faith, I was examined and instructed in ways to discern, repent of, and defend against the classic sins that interfered with faith and love and hope. When I became a pastor, I was subject to even more rigorous examination. But not once did anyone call me on this sin. Instead, I was - if you can believe it - commended in my lawbreaking. In fact, at one critical point in my life, when I was out-of-control obsessive in my indulgence of this sin, I was rewarded with the largest single annual increase in salary I have ever received. It is the American bargain-basement sin, on sale in virtually every American church. The sin? Sabbath breaking, the willful violation of the fourth commandment.”

The Sabbath. The best thing I can say about Sabbath, perhaps, is nothing more than what the word means: shabbat, in Hebrew. Stop. Cease. Rest.

Israel is just learning about Sabbath here in Exodus 16. Though they had just started out on this journey, both a geographic journey and a faith journey, though they are barely learning to put one foot in front of the other to walk…it is already time for them to learn that an extremely important part of walking by faith…is stopping. Regularly.

Now, I don’t know how well that would have played for the Israelites, just like it might stick in our craws as well. The Israelites were on the move! “Gotta go, gotta get there, gotta keep moving, there’s a promised land in front of us, and who knows if there might be more Egyptians behind us. Gotta move, gotta go, don’t stop. They were, in short…a frothing, foaming at the mouth bunch of Type-A people! “What do you mean stop? What do you mean waste a whole day?”

Rarely do we stop for anything, do we? We live in a 24-hour a day, 7 day a week, activity-oriented, clock-controlled, palm pilot-guided, cell phone-directed society. We thought technology would give us more leisure than any generation in history…and it seems we have less. We seem to refuse any moment we have to be silent, reflective, restful, thoughtful. We will not be still and silent. We refuse. And after we refuse enough, it seems that we become unable to do so. Oh, we pray. We pray that we might hear God. “God, are you saying anything to me? Are you speaking into my life?” How would we know?! We don’t get quiet enough or still enough to hear Him if He did speak.

Years ago when I worked in the auto parts business, we used to take our customers down to the racetrack at Seattle International Raceway. We’d pay for a big open tent so everybody would be right next to the track. We’d have appetizers, and drinks, and a nice lunch. We’d do it to build goodwill, to strengthen our relationships with our customers and vendors, to get to know them as people.

But that was an absurd goal in that setting. You’d just start talking to the person next to you, and a drag race would start. Everyone would pull out their earplugs, and shove them in. As the cars took off down the track, their engines were so loud that, quite literally, your whole insides would begin to shake. Your heart felt like it was beating in rhythm to the motors screaming. You couldn’t have heard the person next to you for all of the money in the world. AND you couldn’t hear again for about 10 minutes, even after you’d taken the earplugs out. Great conversation spot!

“God, will you speak to me? Are you talking to me?” How would we know?

The Sabbath doesn’t just appear from out of nowhere here in Exodus 16. Certainly, it is here given as an instruction to the people, and it will be one of the 10 commandments given in chapter 20…but the idea is grounded in God’s action in creation way back in Genesis 1. “…and God rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done…God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good.” God completed His work, and rested. He sat back and enjoyed the creation he had made. Israel is told to Sabbath. Stop. Cease. Rest.

Last week we saw God provide for these funny people, Israel, with quail and manna appearing from out of nowhere to feed them. Now, remember that what happened with the manna was really interesting. On the sixth day, they go out to gather manna, as they had the previous five days in a row, and they always end up with exactly the right amount. But on that sixth day, they find when they get back…that the amount gathered is twice as much as normal. And the people are a little nervous about that…it hadn’t happened before.

So they tell Moses, and Moses affirms, this is exactly what God intended. They are to get twice as much as normal. And keep part of it for the next day. “But,” they may well have exclaimed, “We’re not supposed to! It goes bad.”

“No,” Moses says, “This is exactly the way that God set it up. Tomorrow is a day of solemn rest, a Sabbath to the Lord.” They aren’t to gather at all. And the next day, indeed, the leftovers were edible, and Moses says, “Eat it today, for today is a Sabbath to the Lord; today you will not find it in the field. Six days you shall gather it; but on the seventh day, which is a Sabbath, there will be none.” They’ve been told several times now. You see, the Sabbath is the one great exception to the daily gathering. Okay, great.

No, not so great. Why? Because the people don’t listen! That seventh day, sure enough a few ninnies go out to gather! They head right back out to work! They couldn’t take the idea of a set-apart day, a holy-day, a hol-I-day…and guess what?? THEY DON”T FIND ANY MANNA!” And God can’t really believe it. It’s not getting through! He’s said it and said it and said it…He must feel like…like…like a parent! So He says it again, and now I can almost hear Him getting impatient: “LOOKIT! I have given you the Sabbath…therefore on the sixth day you get food for two days; so each of you STAY WHERE YOU ARE…DO NOT LEAVE YOUR PLACE ON THE SEVENTH DAY!"

And finally…they get it. They rested. Stopped, ceased.

Fast-forward with me now. By Jesus’ day, however, things had gotten downright silly. The Sabbath was not only being observed…it was being defined and defined and redefined. What was work? What had to be avoided?

In the story from Mark that I read earlier, Jesus is jumped on by the Pharisees, who note that his disciples are plucking a few heads of grain as they pass through a field. And you know what? These sincere, religious Pharisees were absolutely right! By the time people had finished defining what work was, there were 39 categories listing over 600 laws to guide people into what was work and what wasn’t.

Gathering grain was definitely on the list. In fact, healing work was on the list as well…and in the next story after the one I read, the Pharisees want to talk with Jesus about that as well. “The nerve of that guy…healing a withered hand on the Sabbath!”

Jesus says, in words that sound very similar to God’s voice here in Exodus 16, “You are not getting it, not at all. Is it lawful to do good, to save life…on the Sabbath? The Sabbath came into being for the sake of human beings...human beings weren’t created to serve the Sabbath.” Jesus, as usual…did not abolish the law…he went back to the reason it existed in the first place.

In my mind, it is no accident that this story of the Sabbath for the people Israel on their journey…is surrounded by manna. The Sabbath appears in the middle of the manna story where God is trying to convince Israel that they need to trust him, that he will provide for them. They can depend on him. Sabbath is as much a story of God’s provision as manna is. God looks around, and says, “My people need…to rest.” Sabbath is a gift. It is an unbelievable gift.

And before we get too busy criticizing the Israelites for ignoring what God wants to do for them…we’d better check our track record on this same gift. And I don’t think I need to speculate much to say that for most of us in this room, the Sabbath is a gift…which we have not really opened. It is, in fact, a great big shiny package, dropped off by the UPS driver, sitting there on the front porch, unopened. The phone rings, and it’s God on the other end, and He says “What do you think? I made it just for you, after a lot of careful thought. Do you love it?” Long pause. “Well, I haven’t exactly opened it yet.”

Sabbath. Stop. Cease. Rest. Most of us have a hard time with an unplanned 10 minutes. A half an hour without turning on the TV, or checking the e-mails or talking on the cell phone…is practically frightening. And the idea of a day, an entire day…that is a DIFFERENT kind of day…is not even on the radar screen. But can you imagine…what a gift it would be? What would it do? It would change our lives. Stop. Cease. Rest. What is it we would stop? How would we rest?

What If: We stopped working for one day? No e-mails, calls, work brought home.

What if we didn’t start down the list of home improvement projects? What if we didn’t drive to the soccer game? What if any church committee meeting was canceled? What if we stopped doing anything that would make us feel productive, make us feel that we had a successful day? What if we stopped worrying about problems, anxieties, put them off for just one day? What if we didn’t do things that were accomplishments?

You see, at its worst, our busyness is a statement that we are independent, self-made people. And God reminds us, in Sabbath...that we are dependent people.

And "What If" instead: one day, 1 out of 7…We met for worship. We prayed. You went for a walk at Discovery Park. You read a book curled up on the couch. You wrote a poem, or painted a picture, or planted in the garden. You listened to some soft music. You lit some candles. You journaled. You took a nap. You organized the neighborhood kids into a pickup softball game. You went to a museum. You prayed. You rode a bike.

In short, what if, as Eugene Peterson suggests, Sabbath boils down to simply PRAYING (that is, attending to God) and PLAYING (resting, enjoying others). What if one day out of seven was devoted to just those things? I know what we would find. We would find it to be the greatest gift that we have ever received. Our spirits would receive peace, our minds would clear, our bodies would recuperate. Our relationship with God would be more attentive. Our other 6 days would be more productive. I know this is the case. I know it is because in the last 3 or 4 years, I’ve tried to gradually reclaim my Sabbath, and our family’s Sabbath. And you know what? It’s hard WORK! And hard as it is to be consistent or disciplined enough to clear out the schedule…when it happens, I am filled with this immense gratitude. There is no sense of legalism, no sense of “Oh, I guess I SHOULD do this, or HAVE to do it.” No…I GET to do it. Sabbath is a gift…which we so often ignore.

I’ve invited you all to read a book with me during this Lent…that’s what this insert is in the bulletin. C.S. Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters is an absolute classic. Some of you have read it, but it yields many rich readings. In the book, there is a senior devil, Screwtape, who writes letters to his nephew, the junior devil Wormwood. And in the second chapter, Screwtape writes:

“My dear Wormwood, I note with grave displeasure that your patient has become a Christian. Do not indulge the hope that you will escape the usual penalties…In the meantime we must make the best of the situation. There is no need for despair; hundreds of these adult converts have been reclaimed after a brief sojourn in the Enemy’s (God’s) camp and are now with us. All the habits of the patient, both mental and bodily, are still in our favor.”

One of those habits…is to make our seven days all look basically alike. Fill them all up, be productive, leave no empty space, no listening moment.

That’s our doing, not God’s. That’s not the way God made us, not the way he designed us. We function best, in the image of God, when we are renewed, rested and brought close to God and those around us…in a Sabbath. Stop. Cease. Rest.

The gospel of Mark tells us Jesus is the Lord of the Sabbath. Jesus, in fact, is the Lord of all things. AND He is Lord even over the Sabbath. And Jesus is most concerned, in the New Testament, not with abolishing the Sabbath, but with bringing it back to its purpose. And if Jesus is the Lord of my life…then I want to honor what he has for the Sabbath. And what I find is, when I gird up to work at it…lo and behold…it’s for me. It’s a provision he has given to sustain us, to bring us the abundant life that he promised.

The older I get, the more I believe that if we are living faithfully…our lives will be radically counter-cultural. If we are following Jesus Christ, not just a religion, our lives will look differently than if we aren't. And I honestly believe that, in this culture, perhaps the most counter-cultural way we could live…would be as a Sabbath-keeping people.

When you stop the 24-7, electronically plugged life…willingly…you are taking a big step. And how we communicate that…can make such a difference. If we tell our friends with a long face, “Oh, I can’t do that. It’s Sabbath, I’m not allowed, my church says no, my pastor forbids it,” then we’re no different than the Pharisees, or no different than fundamentalist Christians who have made an ironclad, lifeless rule out of the Sabbath.

But if our face lights up, and we get a glint in our eye, and we say, “You know, that’s when I keep my Sabbath. And I don’t want to work then. But how would you like to go take a walk with me?” Or maybe they say, “Well, what do you do on the Sabbath?” And you say “I pray…and I play…and that’s all.” They’re going to start to wonder. They might wonder what is wrong with you. Or they might wonder how anyone could live that way. Or better yet, WHY you live that way.

In the ritual celebration which begins the Jewish Sabbath, there is a one-line prayer which reminds them of the danger of not keeping the Sabbath. It goes like this: “Days pass, years vanish, and we walk sightless among miracles.” But if we are to be people who walk through life with our eyes open, to look at God’s face, to appreciate the cross of Christ, to see God in the people and world around us…If we are the people of Jesus Christ, the Lord of the Sabbath…we’ll have to go back to what it was meant to be. We’ll have to accept the gift. Open it. And Stop. Cease. Rest.

Amen.