We have been talking about our recent Puerto Rico trip today. We have shared a few of our stories. And some stories we have held back. After all, we can’t tell you everything. You know the old saying, “Whatever happens in Puerto Rico, stays in Puerto Rico.” So, you probably didn’t hear that we had a major offender in our group. Yes, there was someone who broke the Sabbath rule, who couldn’t stay still when we came back from church on Mother’s Day, who had to get the paint rollers out on a Sunday afternoon and get on with the work of fixing the camp. I won’t spill any names, I won’t snitch, but some in our group, let’s just say, they were super motivated. Super-super motivated! “God, you can’t waste those precious hours on a Sunday afternoon!” they were saying to themselves. “We came all the way here, let’s get some work done!” Until God mercifully sent some rain from heaven, and that was the end of Sunday afternoon work on Mother’s Day.
The Christians and the Sabbath, the church and the Sunday discipline, it’s become a topic we tend to circumvent. Because Sunday, isn’t that the day when everyone goes shopping? I can tell you, there are long lines at Trader Joe’s in my neighborhood on Sunday afternoons, and they don’t have long lines at Trader Joe’s on most days. But on Sunday that place is rocking. How do I know? Well, sorry, but I have been an offender of the Sabbath rule. I have shopped on Sunday after church to get a head start on the week. So, whatever I say now, please keep in mind that I am in the same boat with you, not super holy when it comes to God’s holy day, but still, a defender of the idea that God rested for a reason on the seventh day and that it would be good for us as well. Good for you!
The whole thing is a very strange uphill battle, God saying to us, “Rest my people!” and us saying, “No, thank you Lord, we don’t want to rest, we can’t rest. It’s just not possible. See, we are too busy!” Because Sunday, isn’t that the day when all the soccer and Lacrosse and field hockey and volleyball and basketball and whatever ball tournaments take place? How do I know? Well, I talk to people and it’s not a secret. But we avoid talking about it because we don’t want anyone to feel guilty. And if you are a Sunday sports enthusiast, please know, I am not mentioning this to make you feel bad.
For the most part, Christians in the post-modern West pretend that there is no such thing as a Sabbath rule, because Sunday, isn’t that the day when we sleep in? We work all week and we toil all week, and finally on Sunday morning, we want to rest, simply rest, and maybe eat breakfast a little later. I don’t know how our ancestors did it, because I am pretty sure that a 40-hour week was not in the cards for them, like it is for a good portion of people today. They toiled from Monday through Saturday and then on Sunday morning, they went to church. How did they do that?
Yet, in our days, some people say: forget about sleep. Sunday, isn’t that the day when we work our second job? I don’t mean the truly essential Sunday professions, people who staff hospitals, prisons and such, but jobs that are half-necessary and mostly done because they’re lucrative and pay well. And no, I repeat, I am not mentioning these things to make people feel bad or because I feel morally superior in any way. Who knows, if I weren’t a pastor, what would I be tempted to do on a Sunday morning? I am mentioning it because of a fundamental assumption inherent in today’s gospel passage. Sunday (o.k. it was the Saturday of Sabbath in Jesus’ time) – isn’t that the day that we dedicate to God, – the day when we rest from all restlessness, when we seek to regain our spiritual and physical balance, the day when we honor God? And by honoring and worshipping God, we re-discover life itself?
Albert Schweitzer, who is one of my favorite modern saints, as you probably know, he once said, “Do not let Sunday be taken from you. If your soul has no Sunday, it becomes an orphan.” Now, Schweitzer was by all accounts a very busy man and I would be shocked if he didn’t have a full work load of patient visits even on Sundays in the early 20th century hospital he had founded with a premium of faith and idealism in French Equatorial Africa. Yet, the observance of Sunday held sacred meaning for him, and he was never shy about it.
The truth, however we want to slice it, is this: God has a lot of competition on Sundays in Pennsylvania these days. The competition is not so much about essential, life-saving tasks, such as healings or food provisions, things which caused Jesus to violate the orthodox Sabbath rules of his time. Jesus offended the Sabbath rule repeatedly, and he defended his actions repeatedly, as we heard in today’s gospel. But it was always for truly important matters: to save a life, to feed his hungry disciples, things like that. It’s hard to imagine what Jesus would say about the list of things that causes good people who care about their faith to be absent when their faith community meets for worship. Somehow, I don’t think he would be happy about that.
I am not particularly good at math. In fact, sixth grade is when I tell my kids that they are on their own now because I haven’t done any higher math in over thirty years. But I can do simple math. According to my calculations, the year has 8,760 hours. If someone came to church every single Sunday of the year, it would amount to 52 annual hours of worship. That’s a ratio of 167:1 in favor of all the other activities in your life. It’s a ratio of giving God one hour for every 167 hours of your other life activities per week. I would say, it’s a good investment!
When we attended worship at Iglesia Luterana Ascencion on May 13, it may have been a special day, Dias de la Madre. There may have been special excitement because of our presence and the fact that we were able to help a number of their parishioners. Not to speak of the fact that they celebrated the purchase of their land on that very day. But still, my sense was that everybody in that church really wanted to be there that morning and wouldn’t miss it for anything. Because Sunday – isn’t that the day when the community of God comes together? Isn’t that the day when our souls are fed? Can we as a wider community be countercultural just a tiny bit – to set a counterweight to the gravitational forces of secularism and the disappearance of Sunday as a day set apart? I pray for Christians re-discover Sunday. Then, once we have celebrated together as a community of faith, if we feel that there are good things that we can do on Sunday afternoon, I am sure God gives his blessing to that. In fact, I think he blessed those super motivated volunteers in Puerto Rico. Because, as Jesus said, the Sabbath was made for humankind and not humankind for the Sabbath. And their hearts were at the right place. Amen.