It’s
been more than 15 years since I read this story in the New Yorker, written by Adam
Gopnick about his daughter, Olivia, and her imaginary friend,
Charlie Ravioli--but I have never forgotten it. Echoing the habits and speech of her parents, who were busy Manhattan
professionals, three-year-old Olivia could be heard calling her friend Ravioli on her toy cell
phone and leaving him voice mail.
“Ravioli? It’s Olivia . . . Come and play? O.K. Call me. Bye.” She snaps the phone shut.
“I talked to Ravioli today,” she tells her mother. "Did you have fun?” her mother asks. Olivia makes a face. “Well, he was busy working.” Then she brightens. “Then we hopped into a taxi and grabbed lunch.”
The author asks his sister, a child
psychologist, about this, and she tells him it is all absolutely normal--in fact, right on target
for a girl her age. Kids observe what’s happening around them and they are
imagining themselves in that world. Not to worry.
But then Ravioli gets busier. Olivia starts to say things like,
“Ravioli cancelled lunch. Again.” Later they learn Ravioli has gotten a
“personal assistant” named Laurie, who becomes his gatekeeper. “Who was that?”
they ask Olivia.” “That was Laurie,” she says. “We were talking about
Ravioli.” One time she tells her parents, plaintively, “Laurie says Ravioli is
too busy to play.”
The author calls his sister again. She says, “OK, you guys
need to get a life!”
This story spoke to me so poignantly about the way we organize our lives, what and whom we serve, and why we so. need. Sabbath.
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| Lighting Sabbath Candles -- Moshe Elazar Castel |
Our readings today leave out the first Biblical
reference to Sabbath, which is in Genesis. On the 7th day, God
rested from all the work God had done. Sabbath is so important that it is
part of the rhythm of creation. For the shalom of creation to be held together,
there must be Sabbath. If the six days are filled with the institutions and
buildings and places of our work, the seventh day is set apart—like a
cathedral: what Abraham Heschel called a cathedral of time. “There
is a realm of time,” he said, “where the goal is not to have but to be, not to
own, but to give, not to control, but to share, not to subdue but to be in
accord.”
Sabbath was so important to our Hebrew ancestors that it is one of the
Ten Commandments. Our Old Testament reading today is a portion of
the Decalogue:depending on the Bible, the 3rd or 4th commandment. “Remember
the Sabbath day, and keep it holy,” it reads.
It
is a shalt, not a "shalt not."
And it is a liberating message. The
Genesis story, in which Sabbath was enshrined in creation, was written at the
time of the Israelites’ return from Babylonian captivity. The Ten commandments are part of the people’s
new Covenant with God after liberation from slavery in Egypt. God is saying: “You were not made to be enslaved. I give
Sabbath to you. And it will become your way of life.” How completely
antithetical to Babylonian captivity, or Pharaoh’s dictatorial agitation. It is
not Pharaoh, it is not Nebuchadnezzar, it is God who is Lord of the Sabbath.
And yet, the Jewish law around the
Sabbath does not sound like “shalts.” It is FULL of shalt nots—the things not
to do on the Sabbath. The Gospel story reminds us of this. The Pharisees, the
scorekeepers of the law, insist that Jesus is not to heal the withered hand of
the man, nor pick grain from the gleanings, for this is prohibited work. Here, Jesus does not repudiate the Sabbath,
but reminds the Pharisees that if the Sabbath is a gift from God to humankind,
when we aside the Sabbath, we do not set aside God’s values of love and mercy. He
is exploring the tension we feel about this day. Being the Sabbath cop sounds
an awful lot like going to work--and yet, keeping the Sabbath has never been an
easy task. So this question of who is the Lord of the Sabbath—and whom we
serve--is still the right question to ask.
Maybe now more than ever.
Bob Dylan wrote a song, you’re gonna
have to serve somebody. It may be the devil, or it may be the Lord. But you’re
gonna have to serve somebody.
And so who are the masters we serve
that mitigate against our Sabbath observance? I would suggest two.
The first master is our capitalist system.
The health of our market economy requires us to want more than we have. Wanting
more creates demand, which spurs production, which creates jobs. This system is
finely tuned to human nature and motivation, and there is a reason why it
works. And yet, we are forever
challenged to keep it in balance. Else we become slaves to endless desire,
endless productivity, endless restlessness. We are caught up in a 24/7,
always-on world. The pace quickens, our calendars fill, busyness is a status
symbol, and there are all those things to buy, and do, and experience, and
achieve. Even our machines are always on.
Do you
know that we use the equivalent of 50 large power plants’ worth of electricity
every year just to power devices in sleep mode? And speaking of sleep mode, we can’t sleep! The
market for sleep
aids is expected to grow 50 percent by the year 2025.
A second master we serve is the self,
and the narrative that we are
our own makers. The Venite, which we often
say in our Morning Prayer service, says, “It is God who has made us and not we
ourselves.” But we tell ourselves, “It is we who have made us,” and so we make
of our lives an endless self-improvement project. As a recovering self-sufficiency addict, I have
learned to hear “You create your own reality” as a potential trap. Alexandra
Schwartz, in her book, Working Ourselves to Death, reminds us that, “We must now
chart our progress, count our steps, log our sleep rhythms, tweak our diets,
record our negative thoughts—then analyze the data, recalibrate and repeat.” There is a fine line
between being stewards of the talents God has given us and resting in our God given-ness.
This is why
it is important to connect Sabbath to God our Creator, to take a break from the
work we do, and to let God work in us. To remember we are beings, not doings.
Ragan Sutterfield, a writer
and seminary classmate of mine, wrote, “When we strive to make our daily
existence ever more responsive to our will—then taking a Sabbath because we
believe we are subject to our religion’s story of created order is actually an
act of insurrection.” It is an assertion of freedom. It is counter-culture.
Think of Sabbath like a Snow Day—that exhale
we feel when we have no choice but to relax. Sabbath is about embracing limits,
when our culture encourages us to blast through them. And because it is
counter-cultural, it takes planning and intention. Here are some ideas to get
you started on your insurrection—er, Sabbath:
- Talk with your family about Sabbath principles. What limits will you observe? What does “holy” (set apart) mean to you? Have a healthy debate and refine as you go along.
- How about a Technology Sabbath? Shut off the TV, the phones, the game consoles, the iPads, the laptops. Don’t live by the clock.
- Don’t use transportation, or at least motorized transport.
- Have a no-commerce Sabbath. No buying or selling allowed.
- Spend time outdoors, taking in creation and experience the limits and blessings that being out of a controlled environment bring.
- Do something creative: Bake. Knit. Write. But take it easy, or you’re back at work!!
- Consider a 6 pm Saturday -- to 6 pm Sunday Sabbath.
- Consider opening your Sabbath time with candles, a prayer, the blessing of children, and closing it with a prayer.
· If you strive to get an A+ in
Sabbath-keeping, it is no Sabbath. But trust in its wisdom. And as you imagine
your Sabbath, keep in mind the one whom you are serving this day. I have been inspired
lately by Bishop Michael Curry’s description of the loving, liberating, and
life-giving God.
God gave us this gift because God loves us. We may spend this day as God’s
own child. The organizing principle of Sabbath is God’s love for us.
God gave us this gift to liberate us from the systems and
institutions that require our energy and sacrifice every other day of the week.
We were not created to be enslaved by human systems. God’s dream is that we
have this day for freedom and rest.
God the life-giver gave us Sabbath to renew life—literally, so that our
cells can renew and our bodies’ systems of healing work more efficiently. But
also renew our life together: to breathe
life into relationships, giving them redemptive and re-creative power. Sabbath
encourages us also to not “use” the earth and allow it too to rest on the
seventh day. So Sabbath supports all life.
You gotta serve somebody. As for us and
our households, let us serve the loving, liberating, and life-giving God. Let
us set aside this day that the Lord has made, a day “where the goal is not to
have but to be, not to own, but to give, not to control, but to share, not to
subdue but to be in accord.” (That’s Heschel again.)
Good Shabbes to you. Blessed Sabbath.
May the insurrection begin.
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