“Keeping the
Sabbath Holy In 2014”
Rev. Alison Longstaff
Jan 19, 2014
Bath Church of the New Jerusalem
Exodus 31: 12-18; Mark 2:23-3:4; AC 10730
In
2007, I had the privilege of travelling to the Holy Land with a group from my
seminary. We had a layover in London. It
turns out that this next flight was very full, due to delays affecting many
other travelers. We were put on one of
those planes with two aisles and nine seats across, which carries over 300
people, to accommodate all the volume. And as this was a flight to Tel-Aviv,
many of our fellow passengers were observant Jews.
Finally, the captain’s voice came on
the speaker, to announce ... that there was a mix-up with the baggage and we
had to taxi all the way back to the gate to offload one stray piece of
luggage.
A groan passed around the
cabin, and cell phones popped out as folks called to warn relatives. Our delay was of particular concern to the
many observant Jews aboard. You see, it
was Friday afternoon, and the minutes were ticking away to the official start
of their Sabbath, which began at sunset.
It turned out that if we were delayed much
longer, all the observant Jews would have to get off the plane right there at
Heathrow, so that they could observe their Sabbath. They would not ride in a plane, even if
someone else was flying it. They needed
to arrive in Tel Aviv well before the start of the Sabbath, as they would be forbidden
to walk more than a mile nor to accept a ride to their various destinations
once the Sabbath started. Complicating
things further, if they did all deplane in Heathrow, all of their
luggage would have to be found and removed due to security laws, before the
rest of us could get on our way. What a
nuisance!
The
captain was made aware of the dilemma, and he must have pulled some strings. The stray luggage was removed double-time
without our taxiing back to the gate. Our flight was bumped to the head of the line
for take-off, and the pilot “stepped on the gas” to get us to Tel-Aviv about a
half hour before the start of the Sabbath.
Our fellow passengers scattered.
I tell you, that was the quietest,
emptiest airport I had ever seen.
I
was more impressed by this experience than I would have expected. It was touching to observe these people’s
willingness to be massively inconvenienced so as to honour their understanding
of God’s laws. It was something to see
how “the whole world” was, in a sense, inconvenienced by this one group’s
devotion.
I was impressed, not just by the
integrity of the devotion of these conservative Jews, but also by the way the
airline scrambled to accommodate their need. I also felt deeply grateful to be
Swedenborgian, which lets us view the text of the Bible spiritually, not
literally, and frees us from such logistical nightmares.
But it did make me reflect. What does
it mean to “keep the Sabbath Holy” when one is a Swedenborgian? Should we be so strict? Certainly today’s modern life often makes
shift work, homework assignments, long drives, and a host of other obligations
and activities land on Sundays, whether we like it or not. Should we refuse work shifts, not shop, not
run errands, and not drive anywhere on our
Sabbath? Are we observant enough?
In
our text from Mark, Jesus was careful to warn us against such literalistic
thinking. Jesus urges us to live by the
spirit of the holy texts rather than the literalistic laws. He implies that we
must keep the Sabbath Holy in spirit
first, then choose how we wish to honour it physically and materially.
So, how do we keep the Sabbath in
spirit? Reading in Swedenborg, we find
words of beauty, hope and promise, as he describes the true meaning of the
Sabbath. The Sabbath means “rest” and
“peace,” because it corresponds to the time when all our spiritual battles will
be won. The Sabbath describes the Lord’s
state when He finally united His Human fully with His Divine, which is what we
celebrate on Easter morning. It
therefore also represents the time when we
will be conjoined with the Lord and heaven in our hearts---when our work of
regeneration is finally “done.”
How
far away does that feel? Life on earth
is pretty full of struggles, misunderstandings, broken relationships, and widespread
injustices. This state of inner
connection with heaven can seem like it is a long way off. Nevertheless, the Lord does give us periodic
glimpses of heavenly peace, in moments of tenderness in relationships, in
hearing human stories of hope and redemption, and in witnessing acts of pure
creative joy. Eventually, as we do the
work of regeneration, we will experience such states of inner gratitude and
hope and joy more fully and more deeply.
And this is one way heaven comes to earth.
Swedenborg tells us that to the
extent that we do the work of regeneration, we will be granted this internal
Sabbath rest. Not only will we
experience it, we will become it, for everyone, so far as he or she advances
toward heaven is called “a Sabbath to the Lord.” (Heavenly Secrets # 85)
Imagine being so filled with hope and peacefulness that it spreads to
those around us. I know I have met
people like that. I know I would like to
be one of those people some day.
In contrast to this vision of
heavenly peace are the Old Testament warnings against ignoring the Sabbath. They can be unnerving to read. “Observe the Sabbath, because it is
holy to you. Anyone who desecrates it must be put to death; whoever does any work on that day
must be cut off from his people…[and] put to death.”
Yikes.
That’s pretty harsh. Can you
imagine if we went around having to kill everyone who did work on Sundays? It would sure solve the
overpopulation problem! And you’d have
to kill me, because I definitely work on Sundays.
Despite
the external harshness, mercy lies in the internal meaning of these laws.
In the internal meaning, keeping the
Sabbath “Holy” is describing our need to remember that all good and truth come
from the Lord. “Profaning the Sabbath
day” is describing the times when we are lead by our fears and our neediness, not
by trust in the Lord. When we have
forgotten that the Lord is in charge, we succumb to the illusion that WE are
the source of our wisdom and strength---that we do everything ourselves. We all think and feel this sometimes. We can’t help it. We are born limited and blind.
To say that someone is “cut off” if
he or she profanes the Sabbath isn’t actually describing a punishment; it is a
description of what happens. When we are
in a place of forgetting that God is Wise and Good and in charge, then we are
in a state of being cut off from
God. We feel alone. We start struggling to do it all ourselves, usually
from fear and emptiness. We start
grabbing for objects or people or accomplishments that we think will fill our needs. And
at those times, we aren’t connected to the reality of God’s love and care. We have succumbed to the illusion that we can
and must fix our emptiness ourselves, through doing more and doing it better, and
through getting more things or having the right friends.... So long as we
remain trapped in these illusions, we are in a kind of hell. Believe me, it’s not a great place to visit,
and you certainly don’t want to live there.
It is empty and frightening and a place of great struggle. But falling into that illusion is what we do,
and repeatedly falling into that illusion is how we learn about the difference
between heaven and hell. The point isn’t that we
make this mistake, the
point is that we are able to return again
and again to the Lord, until the peaceful realization that God is in charge
becomes permanent. “Remembering the
Sabbath” for you and me today, may mean keeping a firm grip on God’s promise of
our regeneration, despite how many times we find ourselves falling into the
illusion of our own power and into fear.
In our reading in Mark, we heard
that “the Jews” were offended when Jesus freed his followers from a
literalistic observance of the Sabbath. Now
remember, “Jews” in the story do not mean a specific ethnic group out
there. No. It is referring to a part of us, a part of
you and me that has a certain quality. We are not to judge that part of us,
just understand it and be patient with it. In the realm of correspondences the
“Jew” is the part of our nature that is deeply earnest and attaches strongly to
literalistic interpretations of Scripture.
There is a part of us that wants the observance of the Sabbath to be so concrete.
It is so earnest it wants compliance to
be easy and measurable, because then it
feels safe. If God’s holy laws were
strictly about measurable physical actions, then we could go to church, and check
off “keep the Sabbath,” and feel good. We also would never have to enter the
messy realm of examining our feelings and intentions. We could keep spiritual life external. That’s
what the inner “Jew” finds comfortable. But yet the realm of feelings and intentions
is where the true spiritual work lies.
Of
course, if checking off “keep the Sabbath” by sitting in a pew for an hour each
week is the best someone can do, then God accepts that. There is a place for that way of doing “spirituality.” But that external life of worship is so far
from the deep and rich inner spiritual life that God intends for us. Surely it is better to strive for the peace
promised by the true inner Sabbath.
To keep the Sabbath spiritually we must dare to stray from
the safe shores of certainty into the realm of feeling and intention. The spirit is not an area of such easily cut
and dried rules. We can’t measure if we
are keeping the Sabbath “right” when it’s all about our spiritual movement and
growth. Because, in the realm of spirit
and heart, it isn’t so much
about being “right” anyway. Sincerity counts, and humility, intention and
compassion count, far more than “rightness.”
It isn’t about being right, it is about being more loving.
What does keeping the Sabbath look
like for you?
For me, it means to pursue
regeneration sincerely. For me, it means
to pursue the Lord’s presence earnestly, and to trust His leading, no matter
how remote it can seem sometimes. It
means to trust the process, and keep getting back on the horse no matter how
many times I fall off. I think that
keeping the Sabbath Holy means trusting absolutely that no matter how broken
you or I may look to ourselves, the Lord promises us wholeness. He promises
me. He promises you. He promises every one of us. The minute you or I believe we are too
broken to be saved, the illusion has won.
But Hell is never stronger than God.
Never. I keep the Sabbath Holy
when I trust in God’s loving goodness and the promise of regeneration, and I keep
trying, no matter what.
Keeping the Sabbath also involves taking
good care of our relationships. We grow
through relationship just as much as through individual work. We need community, however we find it, despite
how attractive the notion of the hermit’s pursuit of spirituality might
be. Much of our spiritual life and work
happens in relationship. Part of the beauty
of the Harry Potter series is the message that he could not beat the “dark lord”
alone. He was only able to succeed with
the love and support of his friends and the whole community. This is true for all of us.
And on the deepest level,
remembering the Sabbath means to hold before our eyes the promise of
regeneration. The Lord promises a time
of rest for us all—a time when our hearts and our minds will truly be at
peace. This is the true love that we all
seek, an internal union of such love and integrity, that we will have no more
pain or struggle, and this will be reflected in all our relationships, from our
most intimate to our most public.
This is my charge to you today, whether
you make it to church regularly or not, keep the Sabbath Holy in your heart. If you do this you will be blessed in your
work and in your relationships and in your home. Trust in the Lord, wait patiently for Him,
and he will give you your heart’s desires.
Amen. (Psalm 37)
Originally preached August 5th,
2007, Church of the Good Shepherd,
Kitchener
The readings
Exodus 31:
12-18
Then the LORD said to Moses, "Say to the Israelites,
'You must observe my Sabbaths. This will be a sign between me and you for the
generations to come, so you may know that I am the
LORD, who makes you holy. Observe the Sabbath, because it
is holy to you. Anyone who desecrates it must be put to death; whoever does any work on that
day must be cut off from his people. For six days, work is to be done, but the seventh
day is a Sabbath of rest, holy to the LORD. Whoever does
any work on the Sabbath day must be put to death. The Israelites are to observe
the Sabbath, celebrating it for the generations to come as a
lasting covenant. It will be a sign between me and the Israelites
forever, for in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth and on the
seventh day he abstained from work and rested.' “When the LORD
finished speaking to Moses on Mount Sinai, he gave him the two tablets of
the Testimony, the tablets of stone inscribed by the finger of God.
Mark 2:23-28 – Mark 3:4
One Sabbath Jesus
was going through the grainfields, and as his disciples walked along, they
began to pick some heads of grain. The Pharisees said
to him, "Look, why are they doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath?" He answered, "Have you
never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need? In the days
of Abiathar the high priest, he entered the
house of God and ate the consecrated bread, which is lawful only for priests to
eat. And he also
gave some to his companions." Then he said to
them, "The Sabbath was made for man, not
man for the Sabbath. So the Son of
Man is Lord even of the Sabbath."
Mark
3:4 Then Jesus asked
them, "Which is lawful on the Sabbath: to
do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill?" But they remained
silent.
Secrets of Heaven, Emanuel
Swedenborg # 10730. The statement: 'And the seventh
day shall be a holy day for you, a Sabbath of rest to Jehovah' is actually referring to the second state in the
regeneration or enlightenment process of a person, in other words, when that
person is joined to the Lord… In its highest meaning, it is describing the
union of the Lord's Human with His Divine.
With humans, first the Lord leads by means of truths or laws, and then
the Lord uses those laws to draw the individual into a life of love and
integrity, and thus joins the individual to Himself. ‘The Sabbath' is describing this second state in the regeneration of a person, which is when inner
goodness or loving-kindness is now ruling the individual’s decisions and
actions, and once they are inwardly ruled by goodness, they are led by the
Lord.
[2] Strictly speaking, 'the
Sabbath' means rest and peace, because when the Lord united His Human to His
Divine He had peace. Then all the
spiritual battles ended, and everything in heaven and hell was restored to order.
Therefore, not only did He Himself have peace but it spread to the angels in
heaven and the people on earth. All of
creation dwelt in peace and safety.
[3] It is an all-embracing reality
that a person should be joined to the Lord, which is achieved through regeneration. This alone brings a person inner peace and
spiritual security. This is also why among the Israelite nation the Sabbath was
the number one illustration of their covenant with Jehovah, that is, of being
joined to the Lord…. For a covenant
joins together those for whom it is binding.
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