Sabbath
“As rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel put it, the Sabbath is a sanctuary in time.”
Practice Sabbath
Stop. When is a time when you can rest and resist work?
Rest. What can you detach yourself from to relax, rest, and reflect?
Delight. What are easy activities near your home that bring delight?
Worship. What are ways you connect to God? How would you share those with others?
Reflect. Observe how Sabbath slowly forms you into the Way of Jesus.
Practicing the Way provides a beautiful 4-week guide to Sabbath Practice with a congregation or community of friends.
Foundational in being present to God, to yourself, to your neighbors is the practice of Sabbath. Sabbath is a practice of stopping, resting, delighting, and worshiping. It is a practice that can ground you, integrating your faith with your place.
The practice of Sabbath is woven into the creation of the cosmos. The first day humans wake into is the Sabbath, a day of rest. The instruction to “keep the Sabbath holy” is clear in the Ten Commandments. It is the commandment with the most rabbinic explanation from the Jewish faith, and at times the least attention by modern day Christians. Sabbath marks the life of Jesus, and many of the stories of Jesus occur on the Sabbath. Sabbath has been a practice across the centuries and civilizations to resist being enslaved to work and reoriented to rest. Sabbath is a practice to trust in the work of God.
Practicing the Way, an organization creating beautiful discipleship resources, provides a helpful framework for Sabbath through the four translations of the Hebrew word shabbat:
STOP - We stop from work, thinking about work, and worrying about work. We resist enslavement to our identity found in our work and idolatry of productivity and efficiency.
REST - We rest the whole of our person. We detach from distractions. We sleep, relax, and reflect. We realign our life to begin work from a place of rest.
DELIGHT - We choose activities that cultivate wonder and gratitude. We eat good food, take long walks, and spend time being present with family or friends.
WORSHIP - We choose shared practices that align our hearts and minds toward God. We realize in worship we become what our attention and affections are directed toward.
Practicing Sabbath with intentionality to place is an invitation to be present to your neighbors and neighborhood. One can only walk 2,000 cubits, approximately ½ a mile, if observing the orthodox Jewish practice of Sabbath. Without becoming too rigid regarding distance, a practice of being rooted in place for a day of rest can create different rhythms and relationships. A question to consider is what could the practice of Sabbath - stopping, resting, delighting, and worshipping – rooted in your place cultivate inside you?
