This sermon was preached by Dan Harper at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley, in Kensington, California. As usual, the sermon below is a reading text. The actual sermon as preached contained ad libs, interjections, and other improvisation. Sermon and story copyright (c) 2004 Daniel Harper.
Story
Once upon a time, many years ago, there lived a great rabbi. This rabbi was a wise and particularly religious man. He observed the sabbath each and every week — precisely at sundown on Friday evening, teh beginning of the Jewish sabbath day, he lit the candels and said the blessings and began to observe the sabbath. But perhaps that was not all that remarkable — after all, many people observe a sabbath day each and every week.
Ah, but this wise and very religious rabbi did more than just observe the sabbath. He did more than think of the sabbath as a blessing. In fact, he did much more — he prayed for an hour each and every day. That’s how religious he was.
A man and a woman in his shul were most impressed with their rabbi, especially that he prayed for an hour each day. But, at the same time, they didn’t quite believe that the rabbi really prayed for a whole hour each and every day. So one day, when they met him in the street, they went up to him and asked him: “Rabbi, is it true that you pray for an hour each and every day?” asked the woman.
“Yes,” said the rabbi. “It is true.”
“Why do you do that, rabbi?” asked the man, very respectfully.
“To pray is a blessing,”said the rabbi, surprised that anyone would ask. “God has given us the blessing or religion, which includes prayer, and the sabbath, and so on. Why would I not accept such a blessing?”
The man and the woman were silent for a moment, and then the man spoke again. “But rabbi,” he said, “when you are particularly busy, when you have too much to do and not enough time to do it in, when you are feeling frazzled and overworked, surely then you do not pray for an hour on busy day like that?”
“Oh, no,” said the rabbi, “on those days, I pray for two hours.”
SERMON — On Keeping a Sabbath
The first reading today comes from the Book of Exodus, in the collection of Jewish scriptures known as the Torah:
“For six years you shall sow your land and gather in its yield; but the seventh year you shall let it rest and lie fallow, so that the poor of your people may eat; and what they leave the wild animals may eat. You shall do the same with your vineyard, and with your olive orchard.
“Six days shall you do your work, but on the seventh day you shall rest, so that your ox and your donkey may have relief, and your … slave and the resident alien may be refreshed….” [Exodus 23.10-12, trans. New Revised Standard Version]
The second reading comes from the Christian scriptures, from one of the letters written by Paul to early Christian communities; in this case, to the community of early Christians at Rome:
Some believe in eating anything, while [others] eat only vegetables. Those who eat must not despise those who abstain, and those who abstain must not pass judgment on those who eat; for God has welcomed them….
Some judge one day to be better than another, while others judge all days to be alike. Let all be fully convinced in their minds…. [Romans 14.2-3, 5; trans. New Revised Standard Version]
SERMON — On Keeping a Sabbath
I wish to speak with you this morning on the spiritual practice of keeping a sabbath day. We have just heard two readings that place this practice into a historical context — that is, the historical context of the Jewish and Christian religious traditions, the religious traditions out of which Unitarian Unviersalism has come. Hold on to that historical context — but now I’d like to turn to some more personal experiences of what it has menat ot me to keep a sabbath day.
Back in the late spring of 1981, I was living in Concord, Massachusetts, and working in a lumberyard there. I remember walking around the center of town one day when I ran into John Wlater. John and I had been in Liberal Religious Youth, or LRY, together — LRY was the name of the Unitarian Universalist youth movement in those days — and in fact we have still kept in touch all these years later. In any case, John and I hadn’t seen each other in a while — John had been away at college. I remember standing there talking, on the edge of a little field, the daffodils in bloom, the trees still bare of leaves.
John and I had both heard that there was to be a demonstration and acts of civil disobedience at the construction site of the Seabrook nuclear power plant. There were the usual objections to nuclear power plants in general, but I remember having concerns about the effects of thermal polution on sensitive saltwater wetlands, and a lack of trust that the company which was building the power plant paid adequate attention to safety. However you may feel about nuclear power, back then John and I did not want Seabrook power plant built, and we decided that we would participate in the demonstration against it. We decided to get a ride up to Seabrook, New Hampshire, and while we wouldn’t participate in the civil disobedience, we would be there to support those who did.
We found ourselves camping in the woods on land that belonged to a woman whose family had lived in Seabrook for years. We were right next to the land owned by the power company. A regular city of tents had gone up in those woods, and John and I were assigned a little patch of woods where we stretched our plastic tarp and settled down for the night.
The next day, Saturday, remains in my memory as a confusing jumble of memories. Mostly, I remember wandering around wondering what was going on. But I also remember standing with a group of supporters watching as the people doing civil disobedience sat with arms linked, blocking one of the entrances to the construction site — I recognized an old girlfriend as one of those doing civil disobedience — adn then the police came, we were pushed aside, and I lost sight of the blockade. I remember someone warning John and me that if things got tough, to watch out for the Rhode Island state troopers, as they had a reputation for being brutal. I remember being shouted at by a resident of Seabrook who supported the power plant, and who took the American flag I was flying from my daypack, saying that he wouldn’t let me have that symbol of our country. And I remember walking around in the warm spring sun, questioning what it was we were actually accomplishing at Seabrook.
That evening, back in the campsite in the woods, I ran into some friends of mine who were Quakers, and we decided we would come together for a silent meeting for worship, in the manner of the Quakers, the next morning. We spread the word throughout the campsite.
On Sunday morning, a dozen of us gathered in the woods well away from the campsite, sitting in a circle on the ground. So we observed the sabbath in our own way — sitting in silence with friends, waiting to see if any of us would be moved to speak. None of us spoke, although halfway through the hour a young man came up to us and warned us that we were, in fact, sitting on land that belonged to the power company — an act that could lead to our arrest, if we were found by the police. Now I would say an act of worship, an observance of the sabbath, will always be accompanied by risk and the possibility of major sacrifice. But then, I remember just feeling held in religious community, secure somehow despite where we sat. We all looked up at the young man in silence, smiled and nodded, and went on with our worship.
At the end of an hour, we ended the worship service in the manner of the Quakers, turning to the people on either side of us to shake hands. I felt healed, restored, reconnected with some deep spiritual source.
Looking back, this was one of those defining moments in a person’s life. Within a year, I began going to church fairly regularly — at least a couple of times a month. I did not go to hear the sermon — I have actually always had a hard time listening to sermons, as I am more strongly oriented to the visual and the musical than to the verbal. Nor did I go to spend time with friends — often, I would be the youngest person in church by twenty or more years, and I was most generally ignored by the middle-aged folks, although one or two of the elders did befriend me. I went to church as a young man to be able to spend time in religious community, to be healed, to be restored, to reconnect with some deep spiritual source.
Given that the sabbath became relatively important for me, I was fortunate to live a fairly traditional community where many people respected the concept of keeping a sabbath. The lumber company I worked for was owned by an old New England family, and in spite of the pressure from their contractor customers, this family did not believe in opening the store on Sunday. Thus I didn’t have to confront the problem of what to do were I asked to work on a Sunday. Later, I did have to tell employers that I would not work on a Sunday, and I continued that policy until I started working in churches ten years ago.
Not that I am saying that all employers should allow their employees to have Sunday off. Seventh Day adventists and Jews observe their sabbath on Saturday; for many Muslims, Friday is the day for communal prayer at the mosque. I don’t care what day of the week, but the wear of the working life demands the resorative effects of a sabbath day.
Earlier we heard a reading from the book of Exodus, that great story of gaining human freedom: “but on the seventh day you shall rest, so that your ox and your donkey may have relief, and your … slave and the resident alien may be refreshed.” In my checkered career, I have worked in a warehouse, as a salesman, as a carpenter, and I have felt like an ox, or perhaps a resident alien, and I needed that refreshment of the spirit. I would shed my day-to-day work clothes, put on good clothes, head to church, and feel once more fully human.
My younger sister worked for ten years managing a retail store, and at times was lucky to get half a day off each week. Fortunately, the owner of the store went ot the same church we went to, so my sister could always be guaranteed at least half a sabbath day. The restorative properties of even a half a sabbath day cannot be overestimated.
So it is that the sabbath is in fact an act of social justice. In our society, where we are either working at our jobs, or working at our equally demanding task of consuming and doing leisure activities and spending money to keep the economy going — in this our society, coming to church is extremely countercultural. We are countering the culture that tells us that we are human only insofar as we spend and make money. We are countering the culture by recaliming the rest of our humanness — the depths of our spirits, the feeling of being in community, the connections we try to maintain with family and with friends. We are countering the culture by healing ourselves, healing each other, healing the world.
Social justice, yes — but there is another way to picture the sabbath. On the cover of your order of service, Amalia Nelson-Croner has drawn us a delightful picture of how to keep the sabbath in the home. Put the telephone outdoors, put the TV out the door, all the distrcactions go out the door. In the second panel, you can see what happens after you remove all the distractions — you settle in to restore your soul, even though the distractions are looking throuhg the window at you, trying to get your attention. You have to be firm about keeping the sabbath — it is a spiritual discipline.
It is important to remember, however, that in our liberal religious tradition, we do not try to legislate rules for keeping a sabbath day. In Amalia’s picture, the woman is sitting with her legs crossed in some kind of meditation posture — a marvelous idea, but for some of us, our knees don’t work that way. And that’s just fine – you don’t have to sit in that exact position.
In our second reading we heard from Paul, formerly known as Saul of Tarsus, and while I take issue with many things he said, he was a great builder of institutions. In his letter to the Christian community at Rome, he made it clear that each person must decide for him- or herself the nature and extenet of religious obligations. In an example that sounds familiar to our 21st century ears, Paul says that some people eat meat, and some people are vegetarians. Persons have to make their own choices as to religious and moral dietary restrictions.
Paul writes: “Those who eat must not despise those who abstain, and those who abstain must not pass judgment on those who eat; for God has welcomed them.” You may not choose to use the word “god,” but it should be easy enough to translate Paul’s meaning. Both vegetarians and meat-eaters are equally welcome in our religious communities.
And then Paul moves on to comment on those who “judge one day to be better than another, while others judge all days to be alike.” Here Paul is at his liberal best — and yes, at times Paul does possess a strong strain of liberality and broad-mindedness. Paul, in this passage, refers to the sabbath day: it is up to you to make up your mind whether you observe the sabbath: “Let all be fully convinced in their minds.”
However, while you must be fully convinced in your own mind, I will add that you should not act in such a way that you prevent others from observing the sabbath, should they wish to do so. If you are an employer, you should make provision for your workers to observe their sabbath days, to the extent they may be fully convinced in their minds. If you choose not to go to church, or to observe the sabbath at home, you should not prevent others from observing their sabbath.
This has radical implications for us. I am coming to believe that this means that we should not have obligatory committee meetings on Sundays. I know that I no longer consider Sunday as my sabbath day — I now take Fridays as my sabbath day, a day when I do no work, reconnect with family and friends, restore my soul. Sundays here at UUCB have become, shall we say, frenetic, and some of us go to meetings before and after and even during the worship service. If you choose to do so, I suppose that’s fine — but if you choose to hold meetings that others must attend, then there is the possibility that you are requiring other persons to break their sabbath. This is akin to having a church meal where we do not offer a vegetarian option, thus forcing vegetarians to either not eat, or to eat against their conscience. So it is that I believe that no compulsory church business should be conducted on Sundays, that those who need to restore their souls may do so.
In the same vein, we have a special responsiblity when it comes to passing on the sabbath tradition to the next generation. In large part, our culture no longer allows children to have a sabbath day — not even a half a sabbath day — perhaps not even a sabbath hour. Children and teens are expected to attend sports practices, lessons, even school functions that interfere with their opportunity to have a time of spiritual restoration. There is always homework that must be done. Even here in church, we demand of our children that they go to Sunday school where we expect them to become religiously literate — which is all well and good, but it does not meet the additional deep need of children to restore their spirits.
We adults have enormous power over children and teens. We must use that power for good, not for ill. Let me pose this question to you: what will the children of this church do when they are out in the world fighting for justice, when they are scared and tired and questioning their very selves, what will they do if they do not know how to restore themselves? — if they have no concept of the sabbath?
Indeed, let me bring that question home to you: what will you do as you are out in the world, fighting for justice when you have the time and energy, being buffeted by the demands of your job? Many of us have spiritual practices that we engage in, but I wish to call your attention to the fundamental spiritual practice of our religious tradition, the spiritual practice of keeping a sabbath. This practice is in the very bones and blood of our religious tradition. As we heard in the first reading, keeping of sabbath is explicitly linked in the Torah with social justice: feeding the poor, allowing the land to recover, supporting wild animals. Elsewhere in the Torah, keeping the sabbath is linked with economic justice, with freeing those who are enslaved. Keeping a sabbath is a spiritual practice that aims at healing and restoring ourselves, and healing and restoring the world.
The sabbath is one of the great religious inventions of humankind, and as such it is a great blessing. Therefore, it should be no surprsie that one of the chief purposes of our religious community is for us to creat the time and place where we, and others, may keep a sabbath. As a community, we come together to co-create this insitution, this church of ours, so that we may nurture sabbath-keeping. We come together to act as role models for young people — and for each other — we join together in our shared effort to restore and renew ourselves, that we may bring justice to the world.
We come here to church to feel blessed. We come to look upon the faces of others, to sing together of our blessings. We come to church to be restored, to find time away from the fret and fever of the week, to gather together in community, celebrating our past and claiming the future as our own. Through our spiritual practice of keeping sabbath, may we renew our souls — whatever “souls” might be! — in love and justice. Amen.