Living the Sabbath - Wirzba

The following (except my comments between in italics) are excerpts from Norman Wirzba’s book, Living the Sabbath. (Brazos Press, 2006) Definitely worth reading.

Sabbath, being the climax of creation, is thus the goal toward which all our living should move. It is not merely an interlude within life, but rather its animating heart, suffusing every moment with the potential for joy and peace.
(33-34)

Sabbath rest is thus a call to Sabbath trust, a call to visibly demonstrate in our daily living that we know ourselves to be upheld and maintained by the grace of God rather than the strength and craftiness of our own hands. To enjoy a Sabbath day, we must give up our desire for total control. We must learn to live by the generosity of manna falling all around us. . .

The Sabbath asks us to notice. It compels us to reconsider and question with depth and seriousness what all our striving is ultimately for. . . Does our exertion bring honor to God, or is it at cross-purposes with the life-giving, life-celebrating ways of God?
(38)

Sabbath . . . teaching (combines) the profound theological truth that the world is best when it lives for God and God’s pleasure, and a concrete, practical vision that calls each of us to arrange our economic patters and priorities so that they enable all embers of creation to participate in the menuha (rest, tranquility, serenity and peace) of God. The Sabbath is not a break from life but rather a profound theological lens that enables us to get a better look at all of it. In its observance we commit ourselves to honor the presence of God in all things and to participate in the ways of life and health.

Keeping the Sabbath really is a matter of life and death. When we forsake the Sabbath, what we are finally doing is closing ourselves off from God’s life-giving and life-sustaining grace (see Ps. 104:27-30), demonstrating that we think we can live by ourselves and from our own might. Though we no longer physically kill those who violate Sabbath observance, we have to acknowledge that this path, because it is fraught with anxiety, fear, and worry, will inevitably lead to violence as we attempt to expand and make total the reach of our control and power. The security and comfort we think we are achieving will finally be hollow, because they come without the delight that follows from experiencing the world as God experienced it at the dawn of creation, and as God still yearns to find it today.
(41)

. . . we need to learn to feel God’s sorrow in our blindness and perversity in mishandling or abusing the relationships that make our lives meaningful and rich. When we scorn God’s blessing by greedily taking more when we already have enough, or by abusing gifts for our own glory rather than God’s, or by destroying the relationships that bind us to each other and to God, we bring sadness to God and ruin to ourselves.
(56)

Our culture would lead us to believe that joy is something we create and earn through our own effort. The teaching of the Sabbath offers us a strikingly different path, a way that begins and ends with the love of God as the foundation for any and all goodness in life. Joy and delight are not something we bring about. They follow from our grateful acceptance and affirmation of God’s gracious care. To practice delight we do not, indeed must not, rely on ourselves alone. Instead we learn the art of opening ourselves up and making ourselves available to the creative love that permeates and sustains us all. We all learn to look differently, with the eyes of God. The practice of delight is the life we perform under the inspiration and full acknowledgment of God’s gracious presence in the world, a presence that lets us know we are loved and that invites us to extend this love to others.
(63)

The attraction of many forms of entertainment, however, is that they give us release or an escape from life, whereas the experience of delight follows from a deeper immersion in and affirmation of it. . . . Rather than knowing the deep joy of relationships that are healthy, strong, and amply celebrated, and the happiness that follows from contributing to goals that are worthy and ennobling, we have settled for being amused.
(64)

Because we are ignorant about the true requirements of life and the wealth of memberships that nurture it along the way, we are readily convinced that products can substitute for relationships. In the absence of relationships that feed and inspire us, we turn to products to fill the void. When the void becomes large enough, there is simply no limit to the number of products we “need” to make our lives whole or a joy. Life becomes an endless shopping trip for happiness.
(73)

Hope is a rupture in the systems of violence and suffering: it holds before us possibilities that are genuinely new and welcoming of life. It lets us know that we are not condemned to repeat over and over again our destructive past. Hope makes it possible for us to sing and rejoice even in the midst of our pain, because hope opens our being and our imagination so that we can find comfort and support in the relationships that carry and sustain us through all of life’s trials and joys. Hope is not to be confused with an optimism we nurture in ourselves; rather it is strength and vision we draw from our dependence upon and celebration of others. This is our Sabbath discipline: to be trained in the strengthening and celebration of relationships – our life together.
(88)

The boundlessness of God’s goodness and grace is our most basic starting point for worship . . .

“We need worship deep enough to change us, strong enough to kill our self-absorption, awe-full enough to shatter the little boxes into which we try to fit God, and thorough enough to address the world’s needs because God is already at work to meet them.” (Marva Dawn)