Knox (Westport) Presbyterian Church

Sunday, September 12, 2021

Good morning!  Welcome to Knox (Westport) Presbyterian Church on this Sunday, September 12, 2021.

Sharing Our Thoughts on Life and Faith

Last Sunday, Labour Day, we looked at the work of our hands to discover the important role that labour plays in each of our lives.

This morning we are going to look at work’s counterpart to discover the important role that leisure plays in each of our lives.

‘A change is as good as a rest’ is an old English proverb means that changing your what you are doing is as beneficial as taking a break.  The similar proverb, “All work and no play, makes Jack a dull boy” echoes this sentiment.  When a person takes a break or a holiday, he/she feels refreshed and energized and able return to their work with a positive outlook, able to begin focussing attention to the task at hand.

I want to ask you this question:

When you need a rest, what change do you enjoy?

Reprise the role of Work

Before we turn our attention to the role of leisure and its rewards, I want to briefly review what we learned about the role of labour.

The pictures we are given on labour and leisure in the Bible – in the Book of Proverbs and elsewhere – run the gambit of human experience.  We learn from these pictures what life is really like: its difficulties and struggles; its delights and promises.

The Genesis Picture of Creation

In the Genesis picture of creation, the role that the first man and woman had to play in God’s creation was to be responsible for all that God created.  They were to take care of God’s good creation.

As a result of the failure of the first man and the first woman, a profound change took place in the role of labour:  labour became filled with struggle, tension, and conflict that we witness and experience every day.

 

The Role of Labour in Our Lives

In spite of the profound changes in life’s circumstances following the failure of the first man and first woman, God’s intent remains the same:

1. Work as a sacred calling

The Apostle Paul puts it this way:

Place Your Life Before God

So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life — your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life — and place it before God as an offering.  Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do . . . . fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. . . . God brings the best out of you. (Romans 12:1-2)

If we offer our everyday, ordinary life as an offering to God, the significance of our work - and incidentally, that includes everything we do: our employment; our volunteer service; and even our enjoyment of life’s blessings - our everyday, ordinary life becomes extraordinary as God brings the best out of us.

There will be purpose and direction in what we do.

1. Work as a commendable task

Our work demands our best, regardless of the task at hand.

Being a follower of Jesus doesn’t cover up bad work. (Colossians 3:22-25)

To do good work is a commendable task and is to be admired and sought after.

Observe people who are good at their work —  skilled workers are always in demand and admired; they don’t take a backseat to anyone.  (Proverbs 22:29)

A wise worker will look at people who are good at their work; learn from them; and emulate them.

1. Work as a source of blessing and delight

Having looked at what we are to do in the good work we are given, it is important to see work as a source of blessing and delight.

You worked hard and deserve all you’ve got coming. Enjoy the blessing! Soak in the goodness!  (Psalm 128:2)

The Psalmist tells us that we should enjoy these blessings; savouring the pleasure; feeling good.

Some of the jobs and tasks we do over the course of your life are not particularly enjoyable, but they can bring great satisfaction.

So let’s not allow ourselves to get fatigued doing good. At the right time we will harvest a good crop if we don’t give up or quit.  Right now, therefore, every time we get the chance, let us work for the benefit of all.  (Galatians 6:9-10)

And finally:

1. The fruit of our labour is to be generously shared

And finally, the blessing we receive from diligent, good work, is to be generously shared in honouring God for His provision.

One person gives freely, yet gains even more; another withholds unduly, but comes to poverty.  A generous person will prosper; whoever refreshes others will be refreshed.  (Proverbs 11:24-25)

That brings us to the counterpart of the role of labour: rest and leisure.

Today’s Message

On Labour And Leisure

(Part Two)

Like labour, we need to see leisure as a sacred calling in the light God’s intention for people.

The Genesis Picture of Leisure

Our starting point in the Genesis account is:

By the seventh day God had finished his work. On the seventh day he rested from all his work. God blessed the seventh day. He made it a Holy Day Because on that day he rested from his work, all the creating God had done. This is the story of how it all started, of Heaven and Earth when they were created. (Genesis 2:2-4)

 

The obvious question to be posed by this:

“If God rested on the seventh day after all the work of creating was done, should this also be the pattern and principle for the man and woman made in the image of God?”

Later in the history of God’s people, this principle was issued as one of the Commandments given to Moses:

Observe the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.  Work six days and do everything you need to do. But the seventh day is a Sabbath to God, your God. Don’t do any work — not you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your servant, nor your maid, nor your animals, not even the foreign guest visiting in your town. For in six days God made Heaven, Earth, and Sea, and everything in them; he rested on the seventh day. Therefore, God blessed the Sabbath day; he set it apart as a holy day.  (Exodus 20:8-11)

This commandment is re-iterated several more times in Exodus:

“Work for six days and rest the seventh so your ox and donkey may rest and your servant and migrant workers may have time to get their needed rest.”  (Exodus 23:12)

“Work six days and rest the seventh. Stop working even during plowing and harvesting.“ (Exodus 34:21)

In our 24/7 culture, this commandment and its implications is largely overlooked.  Clearly, however, God’s intent for his people – those who are made in his image – this day of rest is vitally important.

If you do a word search of the Bible in all of its different translations and versions, you will discover that the word “leisure” does not appear anywhere.

If you do a similar search of the Bible in relation to “rest”ing from one’s labour, there are several types of “rest”  that are recorded.  I found a total of 19 references and the intent of their rest:

I will not read all the references but highlight the ones that best represent the intent of each kind of rest.  I am reading from The Message translation.

 

• “Rest” for the land

God spoke to Moses at Mount Sinai: “Speak to the People of Israel. Tell them, When you enter the land which I am going to give you, the land will observe a Sabbath to God. Sow your fields, prune your vineyards, and take in your harvests for six years. But the seventh year the land will take a Sabbath of complete and total rest, a Sabbath to God; you will not sow your fields or prune your vineyards.

 

Don’t reap what grows of itself; don’t harvest the grapes of your untended vines. The land gets a year of complete and total rest. But you can eat from what the land volunteers during the Sabbath year—you and your men and women servants, your hired hands, and the foreigners who live in the country, and, of course, also your livestock and the wild animals in the land can eat from it. Whatever the land volunteers of itself can be eaten. (Leviticus 25:1-7)

 

• Celebrating the harvest

On the fifteenth day of the seventh month, after you have brought your crops in from your fields, celebrate the Feast of God for seven days. The first day is a complete rest and the eighth day is a complete rest. On the first day, pick the best fruit from the best trees; take fronds of palm trees and branches of leafy trees and from willows by the brook and celebrate in the presence of your God for seven days—yes, for seven full days celebrate it as a festival to God. (Leviticus 23:38-40)

 

• God’s provision (here represented by God giving the people manna in the desert

Then the leaders of the company came to Moses and reported.

Moses said, “This is what God was talking about: Tomorrow is a day of rest, a holy Sabbath to God. Whatever you plan to bake, bake today; and whatever you plan to boil, boil today. Then set aside the leftovers until morning.” They set aside what was left until morning, as Moses had commanded.

Moses said, “Now eat it; this is the day, a Sabbath for God. You won’t find any of it on the ground today. Gather it every day for six days, but the seventh day is Sabbath; there won’t be any of it on the ground.”

On the seventh day, some of the people went out to gather anyway but they didn’t find anything.

God said to Moses, “How long are you going to disobey my commands and not follow my instructions? Don’t you see that God has given you the Sabbath? So on the sixth day he gives you bread for two days.

So, each of you, stay home. Don’t leave home on the seventh day.”

So the people quit working on the seventh day.

The Israelites named it manna (What is it?). It looked like coriander seed, whitish. And it tasted like a cracker with honey. (Exodus 16:22-31)

• Self-Denial

“This is standard practice for you, a perpetual ordinance. On the tenth day of the seventh month, both the citizen and the foreigner living with you are to enter into a solemn fast and refrain from all work, because on this day atonement will be made for you, to cleanse you. In the presence of God you will be made clean of all your sins. It is a Sabbath of all Sabbaths. (Leviticus 16:29-32)

• A Sacred Assembly

“Work six days. The seventh day is a Sabbath, a day of total and complete rest, a sacred assembly. Don’t do any work. Wherever you live, it is a Sabbath to God. (Leviticus 23:3)

• A Rest for the Soul

“Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.”  (Matthew 11:28-29)

• A Place Apart

Then, because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat, he said to them, “Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.” (Mark 6:31)

You can see from these descriptions of “rest”  that the Biblical understanding of leisure and rest is very different from the cultural understanding and practice in our day.

The phrase most commonly used, especially in the Old Testament, to refer to “rest”  or “leisure”  is “Sabbath rest”.

Leisure and A Sabbath Rest

I want us to explore what is meant by “A Sabbath Rest” and how it is largely ignored in our time and culture.

1. What happened to the Sabbath?

First, a bit of historical review:

As a result of various acts by the British parliament dating back to the Sunday Observance Act of 1625, Canada’s ban on Sunday shopping was in effect from before Confederation.  In 1888, the Lord's Day Alliance came into existence as the result mainly of Presbyterian and Methodist interests advocated a national Lord's Day which prohibited business transactions from taking place on Sundays.  In 1906, The Lord's Day Act was passed which made Sunday a day of rest in Canada.  Canada's ban on Sunday shopping was more than a personal preference.  It was now enforced by law in the Lord's Day Act of 1906.

The Presbyterian Church in Canada led the way in advocating laws supporting Sunday as a strict, religious day of rest.  Sunday-closing Laws provided an enforced day of rest for many workers and wholesale and retail merchants had little desire to expand their work week to seven days and thereby run the risk of increasing costs by spreading the same volume of sales over a longer period of time. To these people, the guarantee of Sunday as a weekly rest day reduced the threat of competition for the consumer's dollar

This Act and its observance of Sunday as a common day of rest remained in effect but was increasingly amended in practice, if not in the law.

As a young boy, I remember the attempts by the CFL (Canadian Football League) to move its Championship game from its traditional day on Saturday to Sunday.  The argument was made that, if the Grey Cup game was held on a Sunday when businesses were closed, more people would be able to attend of watch this annual Festival.  The first Grey Cup game held on a Sunday in 1969.

Eventually, as a result of a legal challenge to the constitutionality of the Lord’s Day Act, on April 24, 1985 the Supreme Court of Canada in the BIG M DRUG MART case struck down the Lord's Day Act on the grounds that it contravened the freedom of religion and conscience provision in the CANADIAN CHARTER OF RIGHTS AND FREEDOMS.

I share this bit of history in order to show the rapid and extensive change that has taken place in our culture.  Beginning in the 1960’s, the gradual erosion in influence and practice of observing the Sabbath as a strict religious day of rest became the widespread practice of 24/7 that we see today.

I mention the Grey Cup shift from Saturday to Sunday to indicate that one of the significant changes in Sunday observance was the introduction of sports and entertainment as a primary focus for a day of rest.

2. The Sabbath – the good and bad in practice

A number of years ago, I was encouraged by the manager of my local, Christian bookstore to read a new book by Judith Shulevitz during my upcoming study leave.  My initial response was to pass on his recommendation.  Why did I need to read a book on the Sabbath?  After all, the observance of the Sabbath was largely out of practice, and besides, as a minister, my job involved me in working on Sunday – the Christian observance of the Sabbath.  Lance simply said in concluding his recommendation, “I think you will find it interesting and a delightful read on your vacation.”

He was right!

The book is The Sabbath World: Glimpses of a Different Order of Time by Judith Shulevitz.

Judith is a modern-day Jew who tells her story of struggling to make sense and find meaning in the practice of the Sabbath day of rest.  The book is more of a memoir than a step-by-step guide to the Sabbath and I couldn’t put it down once I started reading it.  In fact, I no sooner finished reading it than I gave it to my mother-in-law who also read it almost non-stop.

If we had enough time together, I would sit down and read this book to you.  It is compelling, frequently amusing, highly personal, and challenging.

In the final analysis, she doesn’t argue for the recovery of the traditional, legalistic, observance of the seventh day as a day of NO work, but rather works through how to find “a different order of time”.

I couldn’t find my copy of the book last week.  It might be in my bookshelves in Mississauga or maybe I never got it back from my mother-in-law after she read it.  I had to have a copy to re-read and savour this journey into the Sabbath for when I would share this principle of the Sabbath with you today, so I downloaded a Kindle version and began to read it again.

I’m going to do something very different right now.  I’m going to read a couple excerpts from this book.  The first excerpt is Judith’s search for a kind of Sabbath rest that we all need.  Perhaps you are looking for just such a time of rest.

She begins her story . . . .

READING FROM “THE SABBATH WORLD: GLIMPSES OF A DIFFERENT ORDER OF TIME” by Judith Shulevitz.

Because of copyright laws, because the citations are from this book, these readings are not included in the written text of this message.

 

I think that understanding God’s intent for the Sabbath Day of rest is not all about a legalistic set of rules for us to obey, but a way of thinking and living filled with spirituality, community, tradition, worship, relationship (with God and each other).  It’s not really about religion and religious observance.  It’s about a journey; a mystery; a place for me in the midst of God’s good creation even if I don’t believe in God.

Originally, I thought I would just offer a prescription for the abuses and neglect in our day surrounding the Sabbath Day of rest

Observe the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.  Work six days and do everything you need to do. But the seventh day is a Sabbath to God, your God.

Perhaps the most important concept captured by Judith in her book is:

“We could let the world wind us up and set us to working, . . .  But that would make us less than human.  We have to remember to stop because we have to stop to remember.”

Let me tell you of a similar practice that my wife and I followed when we were young and married with little children.  Life was busy – not as busy as it seems in the lives of our children and grand children today – but, it was busy.  A friend of ours suggested that we find time, at least once a week, to get away together as a couple – just Liz and I.  Call it “date night” or an “afternoon-walk-in-the park”.  It doesn’t matter what you call it, as long as you are setting that time aside just for the two of you, without the distractions of work or family or entertainment. And here are the only three rules we were to follow:

• Just the two of you
• No distraction – watching a movie or attending a sporting event are not allowed
• Enough time to share how things are going – hopes and dreams, disappointments and lessons to be learned

We weren’t always regular in this practice – it’s hard to always set aside that time.  We were diligent in it and found that time indispensable and priceless.

We even decided to extend this practice to our family as a whole.  Friday night was family night.  No outside activities.  No television unless if was for something we all wanted to watch together.  There we many, many times when one or more of our children wanted to do something else on Friday night, and many times they participated only under protest.  But I think everyone remembers those times with gratitude and joy.

It’s so important, as Judith Shulevitz tells us in her book on glimpses of a different order in time, that when we stop to remember, we have incredible joy and blessing in those memories.

3. A Sabbath Rest Reserved for the People of God

I will leave the final word to the writer of the letter to the Hebrews:

For as long, then, as that promise of resting in him pulls us on to God’s goal for us, we need to be careful that we’re not disqualified. We received the same promises as those people in the wilderness, but the promises didn’t do them a bit of good because they didn’t receive the promises with faith. If we believe, though, we’ll experience that state of resting. But not if we don’t have faith. Remember that God said,

Exasperated, I vowed,  “They’ll never get where they’re going, never be able to sit down and rest.”

God made that vow, even though he’d finished his part before the foundation of the world. Somewhere it’s written, “God rested the seventh day, having completed his work,” but in this other text he says, “They’ll never be able to sit down and rest.” So this promise has not yet been fulfilled. Those earlier ones never did get to the place of rest because they were disobedient. God keeps renewing the promise and setting the date as today, just as he did in David’s psalm, centuries later than the original invitation:

Today, please listen, don’t turn a deaf ear . . .

And so this is still a live promise. It wasn’t canceled at the time of Joshua; otherwise, God wouldn’t keep renewing the appointment for “today.” The promise of “arrival” and “rest” is still there for God’s people. God himself is at rest. And at the end of the journey we’ll surely rest with God. So let’s keep at it and eventually arrive at the place of rest, not drop out through some sort of disobedience. (Hebrews 4:1-11)

 

Prayer of Response

Let’s pray:

Closing Hymn – “Take Time to Be Holy” - #638

Don and Barb are going to lead us in our closing hymn.  Please sign along.

Benediction – Romans 11:33, 36

 

Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God!  How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!  For from him and through him and to him are all things.  To him be glory forever.

 

Choral Blessing

Go now in peace. Never be afraid.

God will go with you each hour of every day.

Go now in faith, steadfast, strong and true.

Know He will guide you in all you do.

Go now in love, and show you believe.

Reach out to others so all the world can see.

God will be there watching from above.