by Jennifer Hockenbery
Preface: I ended my August blog with this one last note: “Being a woman is exhausting! We need more Sabbath, more rest in our lives. Starting in August, we are taking a Sabbath from Social Media on Sundays. This allows our staff to go to church, be with their families, and rest. Next month, I will talk more about the importance of Sabbath for women.” This blog is dedicated to the difficulty for women of taking time to retreat, to rest, to take a Sabbath.
When I started in July, I watched WELCA’s small, busy staff hustling all seven days a week. I wondered about the Sabbath. At least Sunday should be a day when the staff does not need to work, I thought. I instituted a social media Sabbath on Sunday, and we are no longer creating or sharing a post on Facebook or Instagram on that day.
Since then, I have been thinking about the complex relationship many women have with the Sabbath and with resting.
We know that there are commands in Scripture to honor the Sabbath and keep it holy. Exodus 20:8-11 comes to mind. But I think of all the Ten Commandments; this one is probably one we feel comfortable breaking.
OMG, I guess we also feel pretty at ease taking the Lord’s name in vain. Also, who doesn’t covet some of our neighbor’s things? Okay, so we are pretty sinful. Yet, it seems that something’s different about our relationship with the commandment about the Sabbath.
The difference is that we often feel more guilty keeping the Sabbath than breaking the commandment. How can we rest when there is so much to do!?
After all, in Mark 2:27, Jesus clearly says that the Sabbath was made for human beings and not human beings for the Sabbath. So, if taking a Sabbath is for our sake, well then, it seems kind of selfish to take a day to rest, to retreat, to worship, to enjoy when we could be. . . cleaning, grocery shopping, exercising, working, earning money to pay our bills, studying, volunteering, etc. In hearing that the Sabbath is made for us, we give ourselves permission to ignore our need for rest and nourishment.
What irony! If God commanded it, if culture demanded it, then many of us would be more likely to try harder to keep it. We so badly want to be considered good and righteous. But since Sabbath is for us, we feel free to ignore the rule that would make us more healthy and likely nicer and kinder.
Isn’t that an interesting problem? We are now in what we philosophers call a double bind–a situation in which no matter what we do, we lose. If we dedicate Sundays to only things that feel holy and refreshing—we feel guilty that we are not working. If we work, we feel proud of that work, righteous even. (We have become Pharisees—not about the Sabbath but about being busy.) Our constant work makes us feel righteous, but it does not make us feel good. We feel tired and worn out. We feel undernourished and depleted. Worse, that sick feeling of being worn out feeds our feeling of righteousness even as it undermines our health and our faith in the loving God who promises to take care of us and those entrusted to us.
This is not an easy thing to solve. Our very psyches are working against us. If we take the day off and rest, as God suggested, we feel guilty and bad about ourselves while we are resting. If we say, I should just keep working, we feel exhausted and depleted. We cannot win!
But what if we remember the gentle message of the Gospel? We have been called beloved by our God, who came to Earth to tell us not to worry so much but rather to relax into our trust in God’s righteousness rather than our own. (Matthew 6:25-34)
What would it mean to take that Gospel lesson seriously? We might take a day to consider the lilies—or the red Maple leaves—to watch the geese fly overhead. We might go to church and stay for coffee hour, not to be holy but because it will feed us. We might go to that Women of the ELCA fall retreat—not to be righteous but because it will be fun. And on those Sabbaths when we can’t take a break, we really can’t, then we don’t worry about that either. As Jesus noted, sometimes we must pick grain on the Sabbath. We pick it because we need to eat, and then we rest because we need rest. This work and this rest are not about earning the brand of being righteous. It is just about taking care of ourselves and those entrusted to us.
The Gospel goes against how we were formed to think. We have been trained to believe that we are only good and lovable when and if the house is perfectly clean, dinner is nutritious, the kids are thriving, the parents are taken care of, the debts are paid, and everyone thinks we are nice. How contrary it is to hear: “Your busyness does not make you righteous!” How contrary to culture it is to believe: “I am a beloved child of God, just as I am.” How hard it is to say: “I will trust in God’s love; I will take a break. I will rest and refresh myself.”
In the end, we must remember that the rest will not make us more holy or righteous either. Let’s not boast about our self-care to our exhausted friends. But taking a Sabbath might make us feel less tired and a little more joyful. Maybe that’s why God thought it was a good idea to command it for us.
Dr. Jennifer Hockenbery is interim executive director for Women of the ELCA and editor of the Journal of Lutheran Ethics.