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SABBATH REST

February 25, 2019

EEP! I’m so excited about this show. This is one of my favorite things to talk on. When I do my talk Dew of Heaven I always use, well like I said at the very beginning of the series, I cram in all of it into one hour. But I like to try to keep like a big chunk of it for this particular thing that we’re going to talk about today. This is Sonja Corbitt your Bible study Evangelista in case you stumbled onto the show accidentally, although I’m not sure how that could happen. But in case you did, this is the Bible study Evangelista show and we are in our Dew of Heaven series. We have two shows left. We’re going to do this one today, and I’m going to do a wrap up next week, where I’m going to kind of summarize everything. I like to do a take-away so that I can offer the take-aways, or the introduction, one of the two, in the series for free indefinitely, so that people can kind of get an idea of what the whole series was about.

And then I’m excited to announce our next series. It’s going to be called ‘Highway of Holiness - Healing Corruption in the Church’. And that will be our Lenten series. I’m not sure how long it’s going to be. I’m still planning it and I’m still studying for it, but we are going to - I answered your druthers on the Facebook page. Some of you one of the Angry Men series and I promise we’ll do that, but I thought you know the suggestion to try to look at sin and corruption in the church during Lent was probably a pretty wise thing to do and because spiritual warfare, when you boil it right down it really is about sin, it’s perfect for Lent. So, we’ll begin that the very next week after we finish the Dew of Heaven series. The first show will be the 11th. I’ve already put together a Facebook post and I hope that you will share it far and wide because we all know that it’s been tough getting through some of the stuff that’s been going on in our clergy, and it casts suspicion, sadly, on our good priests and so anyway we’re going to talk about all that later.

I’ve already spent two minutes into one of my favorite topics, but I do want to do this before I go any further, I have neglected it - I did post it in the show notes for the last couple weeks, but I want to shout out my newest friends of the show, and this is actually three weeks’ worth. So, I’m going to name all of you because I am so thankful. As people fall off, I appreciate so much that other people jump in. Because it really does – I’m looking at maybe doing an app. Several of you have asked for an app where you can just listen to the shows directly and so I’m working on that. So, your donations, your contributions as friends of the show - help so much with that kind of thing. It just enables me to offer you more so thank you, thank you, thank you. So, to Virginia G, Elizabeth, Monica, Nancy, Analesia, Brigid, Kay, Kathleen, Jill (super Jill thank you, you know what I mean.), Viviana, Cynthia, Angela, Catherine, Shannon and Melanie. Thank you all so much I appreciate, as I said, you’re being friends you love and lift me in that way, and I just can’t tell you how much I appreciate it. It’s so uplifting to just know that somebody appreciates, not that you

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don’t all, and I know that so many of you pray for me. So many of you give in other ways, so I just thank you all. I thank you for all of that. Those are the ways that you love and lift me, and I appreciate it so much, my family does too. All right, so now I want to get into the show before I have taken up too much more time because this is so good, I want to get to everything.

Now we talked in the last couple of weeks about Abraham and Sarah, and Hagar and I included that whole thing in the study on rest because the text is in Hebrews, and the book of Hebrews, we looked three weeks ago at the fact that the book of Hebrews is written to the Hebrew Christians who were in danger of trying to go back to the works of Judaism. So, they were not progressing in their faith. Their faith was more in their works than it was in Christ and so they were in danger of going back to what was comfortable. And in the same way sometimes we flee what is uncomfortable but God might want us to remain there and so we looked at Hagar and her example and how Abraham and Sarah got impatient and how Hagar, well you know you’ve already listened to it, so that’s enough of a recap.

But any scriptural discussion of rest would be completely, here’s a pun; completely incomplete, without a look at the Sabbath. Because the word Sabbath means rest. And in our text in Hebrews, the end of chapter 3, in the beginning of chapter 4 actually talk about that. It’s implicit though which means it’s not really clear that that’s what’s happening. But in chapter 4:3 specifically, well in verse 5, in 4, a couple places, but when it uses the word rest, if you look up the actual Greek word, which is what the New Testament was originally written in, in Greek, if you look that up, the word is Sabbath. And so that’s why it’s appropriate. Because in that, in Chapter 3:7 through 4:10 Sabbath rest is specifically used in 4:9 and it’s actually the only occurrence in the New Testament in which the actual word is used. Although it says rest in all those places verses 3 and 4, and several places actually in those two chapters, but the actual word Sabbath is used in verse 9 and it says there, “There remains therefore a rest for the people of God.” And so, you could also say, ‘there remains therefore a Sabbath for the people of God.’ And then it says, ‘for he who has entered his rest has himself ceased from his works, as God did from his works.’ And so, we have to look at Sabbath. And in Jewish thought the Sabbath teachings in the Old Testament law were prophetic of the Messianic kingdom in which there would be a particular type of rest that was not necessarily physical and that’s why we’ve been talking about it all along.

I’m building, I have been building up to this point: the Sabbath. So, in this context in Hebrews it means exactly the same thing; there remains another different rest for God’s people at the end of the ages, one in which we’re no longer going to labor. And technically it means the new creation, the new Heavens, the new Earth and after the final judgement when everything has been put right and put to rest. Not in the sense that it’s dead, but that it’s more alive than it’s ever been. It’s truly at rest in the ways that God intended for all things to be, and they were, before the fall in the garden.

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So, it’s important again to make a distinction between working and the works that we have discussed previously. And as we’ve talked about too, it’s probably better to say working and earning. We have to work, you know? Hagar’s work was to go back home, but in fact, I mean if you think about salvation, it’s a sweaty enterprise and I mean it requires every kind of exertion. The Israelites had to labor and war for the Promised Land. It was God’s gift, but they still had to work to make it theirs. The difference is they could never earn what was God’s gift and that’s what we have been looking at. And if you think about your own children, you know, like an allowance, you know if you give your kid an allowance it’s because he’s earned his allowance, but if you give your kid a Christmas present it’s not necessarily because he earned it, he or she, and that’s the point, it’s a gift, right? And so, you can’t earn what is God’s free gift.

Now the fourth Commandment gives us instructions about the Sabbath, and it tells us why they were supposed to remember it. They were supposed to remember in order to keep it holy. And holy means different or set apart. And so, God told them specifically that they were to keep the Sabbath holy. That’s in Exodus chapter 20, it’s actually in a couple places but just the bare bones of it in the Ten Commandments, is in Exodus 20. Now it also shows up though in Deuteronomy 5 where we actually get a little more detail. I’m going to read it first in Exodus. It says in chapter 20:8 ‘Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God, in it you shall do no work, you your son, your daughter, your male servant, your female servant, your cattle, your stranger who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them’. - I think that’s appropriate for the readings this week. – ‘And he rested on the seventh day. Therefore, the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it’. Which means he made it holy, he blessed, and he separated it, alright?

Then we see in Deuteronomy chapter 5:12 it says, ‘Observe the Sabbath day.’ Remember that Sabbath means rest. So, it might as well say, ‘observe the rest day, to keep it holy as the Lord your God commanded you. Six days you shall labor and do all your work but the seventh day is the Sabbath day of the Lord your God, in it you shall do no work.’ and it goes through the same thing, but then it says in verse 15, ‘and remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you up from there by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore, the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day.’ He wants us to remember, on the rest day, the times that we were slaves to sin. That God has rescued us by his mighty hand and his outstretched arm. Oh my gosh! I cannot wait to get into this a little more. He says, “Therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day.” That is - a command is the same thing in the scriptures as a promise. So, word, command, and promise are all interchangeable. So, he promised you to keep the Sabbath day meaning it’s a promise that you should have a Sabbath day. But it’s also a command for the same reason. We'll be back in a moment. This is Sonja Corbitt your Bible study Evangelista.

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Alright we've established the basis for Sabbath is in the moral law. It is a moral imperative that you must keep Sabbath. Isn’t that interesting? So, it’s not something that can be set aside. Another interesting thing that we have to keep in mind is that they worshipped on the Sabbath from Friday evening unto Saturday. Because in the beginning, in Genesis it says that God created the heaven and the earth, and the evening and the morning were the first day. And so, because of that the light always follows the darkness and so in fact that was a lesson in and of itself. But the Jewish people then celebrated, they counted time from evening to morning. That’s the reason we can go to church on Saturday evening for a vigil because it counts as a Sabbath, as a Sunday because it’s the evening. Now in Exodus 31:16-17 we actually have a little more, even more information and I’m going to read actually the whole section. If you’ll look at your paragraph headings it says the Sabbath Law or something of the sort, depending on your translation.

But in verse 12 chapter 31 verse 12 it says, ‘The Lord spoke to Moses saying, ‘Speak also to the children of Israel telling them; surely my Sabbath you shall keep for it is a sign between me and you throughout your Generations that you may know that I am the Lord who sanctifies you. You shall keep the Sabbath therefore, for it is Holy to you. Everyone who profanes it shall surely be put to death. For whoever does any work on it that person shall be cut off from among his people. Work shall be done for 6 days but the seventh is the Sabbath of rest holy to the Lord. Whoever does any work on the Sabbath day he shall surely be put to death. Then the children of Israel shall keep the Sabbath to observe the Sabbath throughout their generations as a perpetual covenant. It is a sign between me and the children of Israel forever. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth and on the seventh day he rested and was refreshed.’

This, gosh there is so much in this. First of all, it’s important to point out, and it says so and this section, Sabbath was the sign of the Covenant that God made with the people when they came out of Egypt. And he points to that by saying that he created on 6 days and he rested on the seventh. The seventh day is the Covenant day and’s perpetual because the Covenant, every Covenant that God makes is irrevocable. The promise or the Covenant remains and effect forever and ever and that’s the reason it had to be perpetually observed. How is it perpetual now? Well we keep Sunday because it’s the day of the sun when God separated light and matter from darkness. And it’s the day that Jesus rose from the dead. So, changing Sabbath was to show a new thing. It was different than Judaism, it was now Christianity. And so, it actually, the 8th day on which Jesus rose, it shows and points to the end of all time, the final Sabbath rest at the new creation because it will be the eighth Covenant, okay? I hope that makes sense.

But you can see here that it has to be perpetual and that everyone who does not keep it will be put to death and it’s because it was a sign of the Covenant. To not keep the Sabbath or to keep the rest meant that you were not, you were declaring that you are not part of that Covenant and so it says here that you should be put to death and that’s probably what they did because God commanded it, but for all

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intents and purposes what was happening is, they basically excommunicated themselves. So, it’s not so much what God commanded that they do to one another but what they did to themselves. Okay? So, you can see then that this is a sign of a perpetual, irrevocable Covenant; keeping this Sabbath, okay? A couple of other interesting things that, we have to keep this stuff in mind, is that the Sabbath it says is God’s, we are keeping God’s Sabbath. Who was to cease working? Everyone, all the people whether they were are aliens real or not. Everyone was to rest. In other words, you can’t have a slave and make them work on a Sabbath. Everyone gets the rest. Animals too, even the animals must rest. And actually, later on we’ll see in the prophets, the land was supposed to rest too. I’m going to go ahead and get into that. I didn’t mean to but I’m going to.

These were called Moedim seasons, okay? Sabbath, the worship day was the seventh day. The 7th week after Passover was Pentecost. The seventh month was the Feast of trumpets and the Feast of the new year, those kind of went together and then the seventh year was a Year of Jubilee. If you remember back a couple years ago, we had a Year of Jubilee oh, a year of Mercy and you could go through the holy doors and get a special Indulgence. And so that’s what that was, Jubilee years were when every debt was canceled. Seriously can you imagine like every debt that you have being canceled. Every 7 years! And that’s exactly what happened. All the slaves were freed, all the debts were canceled, but I’m getting ahead. Okay so, see how everything time is based on sevens. 7 days, 7 weeks, 7 months, 7 years, 7 covenants, or 7 eras of God’s dealings in the history of salvation; Sabbath is a way then of keeping time with God. Not that God is in time, he is outside of time. But it’s a way of observing our covenant with God. What’s our covenant? Jesus is our covenant. But I’m getting ahead again. But I can’t help it! I get so excited!

Sabbath then was instituted as a covenant sign. It was a memorial for them, the real Sabbath, was a memorial of Israel’s Liberation from bondage, the bondage to Egypt. It was a literal slavery, they worked they worked all the time. And in fact, it’s even primeval, right? Because God created in six days and rested on the 7th and as I said that creation thing in and of itself, because he rested on the seventh day was a covenant. God was giving himself in Covenant to creation and asking creation then to give itself back to him, which it did, because everything was in perfect harmony until the fall. So, all of that Covenant keeping, and that Covenant making is self-donation. God gives himself to us in self donation. And so, we see the word ‘rested’ in verse 17 in Exodus 31 verse 17 means to desist from exertion. Refreshed means to catch one’s breath, to resuscitate, or to make alive again. So, imagine then what Sunday, or Sabbath, is meant to do for us. It’s meant to bring us back alive after a week of work. And work is good, right? Because it’s the primary location for our spiritual formation; our workplace, and so that is a good thing. We are working, God is working first of all. We see in Genesis that God is always working. But God is also always at rest. God is working, he’s always working Jesus says in John chapter 5:17. God is part of time and here he creates the planets, and the sun, and time for creation and for us. And yet he’s not of time; he’s full of time and not of time, at the same time. Ha-ha. He is full of space, right? But he’s not of space. He creates space and matter for us. So, he’s

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always working and he’s always at rest simultaneously because he is not part of time and space. But he’s always working. He’s always active. Our work continues the work of God through us on a daily basis.

And so, Sabbath and work are not opposites, they are one whole. Sabbath is the crown of the work week. In fact, the catechism says that Sunday is the colonel of the whole liturgical year. And elsewhere it says in catechism number 2184 and 2186. ‘Just as God rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had done, human life has a rhythm of work and rest. The institution of the Lord’s Day helps everyone enjoy adequate rest and leisure to cultivate their familial, cultural, social and religious lives. On Sunday and other holy days of obligation, the faithful are to refrain from engaging in work or activities that hinder the worship owed to God: the joy proper to the Lord’s Day; the performance of the works of mercy and the appropriate relaxation of mind and body’. It’s that resuscitation idea, that making a live again. ‘Family needs or important social service can legitimately excuse from the obligation of Sunday rest.’ That’s the whole story where Jesus says, ‘if your oxen falls in the ditch do not get him out on the Sabbath?’ Well of course you do. The Pharisees were getting after him for healing on the Sabbath.

So, obligations, or social service, important stuff can legitimately excuse. It says, ‘The faithful should see to it that legitimate excuses though, do not lead to habits prejudicial to religion, family life and health. The charity of truth seeks holy leisure. The necessity of Charity accepts just work. The Christians who have leisure should be mindful of their brethren who have the same needs, and the same rights, yet cannot rest from work because of poverty and misery. Sunday is traditionally consecrated by Christian piety to good works and humble service of the sick, the infirm and the elderly. Christians will also sanctify Sunday by devoting time and care to their families and relatives, often difficult to do on other days of the week. Sunday is a time for reflection, silence, cultivation of the mind and meditation which furthers the growth of the Christian interior life.’ That was actually a really long quote. The gist of it was really in 2184 and 2185 but it’s all important. We'll be back in a moment.

So, one of the principles in the Old Testament about Sabbath is; Sabbath is meant for two things; for reflection on how God rescued the people from Egypt, and remember that their ceremonial law, this was actually moral law not ceremonial law, but their ceremonial law focused on the saving incident of the Jewish faith and that was the Exodus. Ours however is different, our saving incident or event, our saving event is the cross. And so, our Sabbath, our rest, our Sunday looks to the cross. We remember our redemption for all eternity at the cross. And so, we are focusing on two different things. That’s the reason we don’t keep Sabbath anymore, we keep Sunday. It’s similar and perpetual but it’s different, it’s transformed, okay? Sabbath then, was transformed into Sunday through Christ’s resurrection. Now there’s so much in this I can see that I’m not going to be able to make it through all of it. I’ll do the last part of it next week just before I get to the recap. But the Jubilee year, get this so every 7 years the land was to lay fallow. Everyone was released from slavery. There was complete and total restoration of property if it had been held as collateral for if it

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had been sold out of necessity or whatever and it was also a year of no work. Nobody worked for a whole year. Can you imagine a year of vacation? Those are called sabbaticals. Nobody keeps a whole year anymore.

But even more y’all listen every seventh seven, every 49th year was a Jubilee year, but the 50th year was a Sabbath of the Sabbaths. There were two years back to back. Is this not amazing? There were two years that nobody worked. What they did was they would go out to the fields where the crops had been planted the year before and they would harvest what came up voluntarily. Can you imagine how much faith was required to do no work for two whole years and trust that God was going to feed you anyway? I mean that’s exactly why God told them that they were supposed to keep the Sabbath because he wanted them to know he says, that I am the Lord who sanctifies you. So, he wants us to trust him. Now this is perfectly our example for today is Chick-fil-A. Chick-fil-A is open six days a week and they’re closed on the 7th. And do you know, I know this because many moons ago I was the marketing director for our local Chick-fil-A, and I know that Chick-fil-A as a national business, makes more money in 6 days than McDonald’s makes in 7. So, God blessed Sabbath keepers. I can’t wait to get to that I’m not there yet though.

Now think about what a Sabbath for you should look like. Now every single time I do this talk I get people walk up to me later and they go, can I mow the grass? You know I don’t know I’m not here to tell you what you can and can’t do on Sabbath that would be wrong. Ask God, ask God if it’s okay. But the rule of thumb is, what is restful? If mowing the grass is restful to you, then mow the grass. But I’ll tell you this, when God was teaching me this principle - remember I had been removed using my teaching gift to serve other people. I had been completely removed. And you know in the beginning I thought man that’s cool I really like this I mean I wasn’t burned out, we left that church that had split and split and split and we went to a mega church and we hid there. And we did that, and it was nice because we went from going to church several times a day on Sunday and also on Wednesday evenings and then I taught classes and all that kind of stuff. We went from doing all of that to going only on Sunday for 1 hour and I just remember going man this is really nice, you know? You have your whole day. And as I said I was not burned out and in fact I remember it was nice for about three weeks, maybe a month at the most and then I started getting really irritable, agitated. I felt guilty actually because I wasn’t using in my spiritual gifts and I know that is an imperative, you’re supposed to use your gifts and talents.

And so, I went to God and I said I need you to put me some place. I need something to do and he said no, I want you to learn how to rest. And I said, ‘I’m not tired’ ha-ha and he said, ‘you don’t even know how to rest. You don’t even know what rest is’. And that’s how he began with me in that Hebrews passage and as you can see its sort of wraps up with this idea of Sabbath and so as I was studying the Sabbath, I was trying to figure out ways to really try to guard my Sabbath because I could tell he really wanted me to learn this. Now I didn’t know it at the time, but he was teaching me how to rest in my Promise Land. Now I’m here in the promise land now but I keep this Sabbath idea I mean strictly. And I’m going to show you why. It’s not a legalistic

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thing. It is a matter of, first of all I love God and I want to celebrate the fact that he has rescued me from sin that’s part of it though I want to thank him by receiving the Eucharist I want to go to mass I want to worship with all of you so that’s part of it but also I know that those who don’t keep the Sabbath shall surely die is that and the Old Testament and he said it many more places and I’m going to show you that in the moment.

But think about what Sabbath could look like for you maybe a nap maybe leisure time by the TV definitely not working a good meal a slow-moving day you know what does your Sabbath look like right now? You know I don’t do laundry I don’t do dishes nobody does in the house. Now when you first try to put this into practice and you’ve never done it before the laundry will scream at you. The dishes will scream at you. Every time you walk by them, they’re going to scream your name and you have to discipline yourself to just leave it. Look it’s going to be there the next day and it’s, I promise you if you trust God and this principle, he will multiply the time you do have in those six days to make up for the one you lost on the 7th. I promise you. It’s just like Chick-fil-A. He, I don’t know how this works, I just know it does. You want to know how I get so much done? I get it done because I keep Sabbath and I do my prayer disciplines every day and I make sure that those things are, I know how necessary they are. You know I remember somebody saying that they asked Mother Teresa or told her you know I just don’t have time to keep a holy our everyday and I’ve just got too much to do. And she said well then you need two hours. Ha-ha it’s that important. It is the sap of all you’re doing dear one, if you’re not keeping this principle properly, you’re going to run out of steam. You’re not going to be restful. You cannot rest truly if your body does not rest.

Now listen here’s another principle. God said it in the Old Testament. Especially in Deuteronomy 5, but if you don’t worship on Sunday then you haven’t rested, and if you don’t rest on Sunday then you really haven’t worshipped, they got together you can’t separate the two. So, if you haven’t worshipped then you haven’t rested, if you haven’t rested you haven’t worshipped. It’s all part of keeping the Sabbath. It’s all one thing, all right? So, what happens when the people don’t keep the Sabbath the way God ask them to? Well Nehemiah is about a man who felt burdened to restore the city of God Jerusalem to its a former place of Glory and Honor. That meant rebuilding the city, the temple and the wall around it after the Babylonians had destroyed the whole thing about a hundred years before. And then they took the Jews captive and they left Solomon’s Temple and complete ruin. Now in Nehemiah chapters 15 through 21 I’m going to read that to you because it’s kind of funny actually.

‘I saw people in Judah trading wine presses on the Sabbath and bringing in sheaves unloading donkeys with wine, grapes, figs and all kinds of burden which they had brought into Jerusalem on the Sabbath day. And I won them about that day on which they were selling provisions. Men of Tyre dealt there also who brought in fish and all kinds of goods and sold them on the Sabbath to the children of Judah and in Jerusalem. Then I contended with the nobles of Judah and I said what evil thing is this that you do by which you profane the Sabbath day? Did not your father’s do this and

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did not bring, and did not God bring all this disaster on us and on the city? Yet you bring added wrath on Israel by preventing the Sabbath. So, it was at the gates of Jerusalem, as it began to be dark before the Sabbath, that I commanded the gates to be shut and charged that they must not be open until after the Sabbath. Then I posted some of my servants at the gates so that no burdens will be brought in on the Sabbath day. Now the merchants and sellers of all kinds of wares were lodged outside Jerusalem once or twice and then I warned them (I love this) and said to them why do you spend the night around the wall? If you do so again, I will lay hands on you. From that time on they came no more on the Sabbath and I commanded the Levites that they should cleanse themselves and that they should go and guard the gates to sanctify the Sabbath day.’

Man, we’re going to come back to this story and our next series but what’s interesting is that Nehemiah says in verse 18 that the reason for the Babylonian captivity was because they profaned the Sabbath by working, buying and selling and because they did not have love of God and thanksgiving by keeping that Sabbath. And to profane, the word profane means to make ordinary. And so, he, to prevent further profaning of the Sabbath, he shut and locks the gates and threatens to beat the crap out of anybody who tries to come in. Ha-ha I mean I just think that’s so funny. And he’s telling them; don’t you see that that’s why we’re enslaved to Babylon? Because we haven’t been keeping the Sabbath. More on that when we get back.

What Nehemiah shows us there is that when we don’t keep the Sabbath properly, when we’re not observing it, when we’re not worshiping, when we’re not resting, we fall back into bondage to sin. And we’ll see in our next series that we can fall back into bondage to sin anyway. But we’re far less likely to do so if we are keeping our Sabbath properly, if we’re reflecting on Sunday on the ways that Jesus has rescued us from sin and when we reflect properly on the cross, and on the Eucharist and all of those things, and the gifts that they are to us; Sabbath is meant to be a deliberate act of interference. It is an interruption of our work week. It’s a decree of no work so we can notice, and attend, and listen, and assimilate the work of God to orient our own work, in his work. It’s a way that we come in from the week’s work and we reflect on how we have cooperated with God, to keep order and to build the kingdom. Now that can happen as simply as going to a menial job every single day. There is dignity in work. It keeps our families fed, it keeps structure in society, it is a good thing, work is a good thing. It’s not small. Joseph the Worker shows us that in his feasts. But more than even that, Sabbath is meant to interrupt the do, do, do, do, do, right? We are supposed to be focusing on rest and worship. It’s a deliberate interference. Now it’s not that work is bad, right? Because Jesus embraced creation as his own workplace. He came here to do a job.

So, working is good, but we must rest, and we must rest in both worship and body, it’s two-fold. Sabbath is a protest, the catechism says, against the servitude of work and the worship of money. Many people work on Sunday because they want more money and God will frustrate that, how? Well we’ll see in the prophets it’ll probably have to be next week, but we’ll see in the prophets that when he talks about, in the

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10 commandments, that you will surely die if you don’t keep the Sabbath. What happens is we completely burn out, we get burnout which is not rest, we get anxiety, we get completely unrestful. Everything gets out of whack when we’re not doing that the way we should. It’s very, very important that you remember that if you don’t keep the Sabbath your body will make sure at some time, at some point, that you do. And one of the things that Nehemiah told the people that they needed to do was to let the land keep a Sabbath and we’ll see that in the other prophets. Let the land even keep the Sabbath, why? Because it has to rest and when it doesn’t rest it stops producing and that’s exactly what happens to us. Our bodies, they get sick, we may have an accident, and this is one of the ways that God really, he does that interruption. If we’re not deliberately interrupting the work that we’re doing, if we’re so focused on do, do, do, do, do, on busyness, on cramming every single minute full of activity, and this can even be stuff for your kids. You may think that you’re doing the right thing by cramming their week full of stuff but I’m going to challenge you. This is why they make ball teams on Sunday now, because everybody just rolls over and lets them do it. Sunday is not meant to be a day of work for our children either, or our animals. Now we don’t use our animals to work anymore, most of us, but our kids shouldn’t be working either. That even means homework. Those kinds of things can be planned for the week ahead, and then you have a rest day.

So, here’s my challenge; I’m getting to it a little but early, but I want you to think about one way, this week, that you can begin dialing back the activity that you do on Sunday. How can you begin weeding out some of those things that you have sort of like creep into your Sunday, and instead let it be a total rest day. Now look when I say rest, I mean it. Ha-ha When I first started trying to do this, I mean I took him literally. Okay Lord, so I’m going to try it. So, I would plan the week ahead I would try to get my laundry at least mostly done so that it wasn’t screaming at me. And I would, but I never did do dishes. I cook on Sundays because I love to do that, but we don’t do dishes. So, I plan for all of that the week ahead, and then when Saturday evening, when I first started, I was actually going to Sunday services at our denominational church still. I was learning this when I wasn’t Catholic yet. But I had begun to go to mass at the tail end of learning all this - I had begun to go to mass.

So, I would put something in the Crock-Pot on Saturday evening and go to Mass, and then we would go to church on Sunday morning at our Baptist Church and then we would have Sunday dinner and then nothing else happened. I started to try to take a nap and it took several weeks before I could actually do that and really relax, because your whole body, your mind is screaming at you. If you sometimes, those of you who are OCD and perfectionists and who work yourselves to death, you have the hardest time relaxing. Your brain will not shut off. You’re thinking about all the things you need to be doing. You’re planning for the next week, all the stuff is in your head and you can’t rest and that happened to me. I remember trying to take a nap and I just could not turn it off in my head, but I stayed with it and I did it every single week and after three or four weeks finally my body would relax. And I got to where I could take, and I still can, I can take a 3-hour nap on Sunday and turn around and go to bed at my regular time and sleep all night long. Now I’m not saying that’s going to happen

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to you, or for you, depending on, you know, which direction you’re coming from, but I will say this; if you discipline yourself to rest, your body needs it and it will follow you if you do that. So whatever plans you have to make throughout the week to start getting things in order so that you can rest emotionally and mentally and physically.

Some of you can’t because you have to work and that’s exactly what the catechism was saying, those of us who can, stay home so that the people who can’t, may be allowed to do so as well. I will challenge you this too, if you’re in a job that makes you work on Sunday ask God to move you. I remember as even a teenager I tried really hard to keep this principle, now I let it go for a long time, but as a teenager I remember working jobs, and I won’t let my kids do this either, they will not work on Sunday. But I remember having jobs that made me work on Sunday, and I just felt challenged and convicted about it and I said okay Lord, so I would ask to be off, and if they wouldn’t let me off, I'd leave that job and go get one that would. If you ask most of the time, they will let you. We just don’t ask because we don’t want to rock the boat. But if it’s possible for you to do that, try it. If it’s not I understand that too, our pastors work on Sunday, they have to. They have to offer us the mass and you know as worshipful as that is, having a parish full of people and several services or several masses and all those people asking you questions and wanting your attention and all that, that’s hard for a pastor, you know? I too sometimes, I’m traveling almost every single Sunday, so I keep my Sunday obligation on Saturdays as much as I can when I’m traveling, but when I get home on Sunday, and on into Monday, I don’t do anything. I mean you can ask everyone here, I have to do reentry, and I have to go to the grocery store, but I wait till the end of the day on Monday. I give myself that time to try to just recoup. So, if you can’t do it on Sunday, pick another day like our pastors do, and do it. You must have a rest day. So, think of ways that you can begin making your Sunday more restful.

I’m going to read this quote by Caryll Houselander. I love her. “Rest is not idleness. Indeed, restlessness is the torment of idle people.” That’s exactly what we’ve been talking about. “It is not relaxation. Relaxation should never be necessary, because the nervous tension which makes it so, should never be present. Rest, far from being relaxation, is a culmination, a fullness of gathered peace, like the fullness and stillness of waters gathered into a flood tide. Think of a child asleep in his mother’s arms, the abandon with which he gives himself to sleep can only be because he has complete trust in the arms that hold him. He is not lying asleep on that heart because he’s worn out with anxiety. He’s asleep there because it is a delight to him to be asleep there. The mother rests too, she rests in his rest. Her mind and her body rest in him. His head fits into the crook of her curved arm. Their warmth is mingled like the warmth of too softly burning flames. She rocks to and fro and her rocking is unconsciously timed by his breathing. Rest is a communion of love between them. It is a culmination of content on the child's part; utter trust in his mother, on the mother’s part; sheer joy in the power of her love to sustain his life. Such as this was the rest of God in the beginning of time when he had created the world. ‘And on the seventh day God rested.’ she quotes, ended his work on which he had made, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work when he had done. God could not need rest, he could

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not be tired by creating the world. His rest was the infinite peace of infinite love, and that is what he gives us every single Sunday in the mass and in the Eucharist.

Until next week this is Sonja Corbitt your Bible study Evangelista. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen