Sunday Go to Meetin’

Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.  -- Exodus 20:8

If you turn back your foot from the Sabbath, from doing your pleasure on my holy day, and call the Sabbath a delight and the holy day of the LORD honorable; if you honor it, not going your own ways, or seeking your own pleasure, or talking idly then you shall take delight in the Lord, and I will make you ride on the heights of the earth; I will feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken. -- Isaiah 58:13-14

The Sabbath has always been something of a difficulty for me.  As a child I was willing enough to accept that “keeping the Sabbath” was equivalent to “going to church”.  When I was older, I learned more about the Sabbath, the rules for keeping it, the various restraints God had placed on His people, Israel.  I encountered Adventists and others who insisted on a true Saturday Sabbath and on adhering to some of the Jewish requirements.  There are many variations in understanding.  I was standing outside a little rural church one Sunday morning after service.  The pastor, in addition to his work at the church, ran a herd of beef cattle.  As he was shaking hands and speaking to members of the congregation, he came up to a man, Jim, standing next to me – a family member by marriage.  Following the more typical exchange, the pastor added that he was interested in buying a bull that Jim had for sale.  Without rebuke, Jim replied, “I never talk business on Sunday.”  But Jim was going back to the house to watch sports on television all afternoon. 

I have always figured that keeping the Sabbath had a deeper significance than whether or not the cows got milked – ours always did.  A lot of us in certain lines of work have or have had no option other than to show up and do our jobs on Saturday or Sunday.  We all seem, though, to understand Eric Liddell’s refusal to run in the Olympics on what he considered his Sabbath and realize that it was not a sign of legalism.  Liddell was honoring God, his refusal a testimony to God’s place and presence in his life. 

If we look again at the verses from Isaiah – in fact, it makes even more sense if you read the whole chapter – we realize that the Sabbath, like fasting, is about self-denial.  A denial is a negation but it can also be an affirmation.  If I say that one thing is not true I am often asserting, by my denial, that something else is true.  This is the case with the Sabbath and fasting.  We are saying that human nature, human effort, human energy, intellect, power, and strength are not driving the whole she-bang.  The positive side is that we are demonstrating by our self-denying actions that God is in control. 

The man who gets up on Sunday morning and goes with his wife and children to sit in a church building for a couple of hours instead of going golfing or fishing or cranking up his John Deere is making a statement about God’s place in his life.  He is denying self and honoring God.  So, sometimes, is the man who gets up and goes to work at a part-time job on Sunday morning in order to pay off his debts and honor his commitments. 

In Christ, self-denial is not limited to public displays.  Remember that in Liddell’s case he was a very famous and well-known figure in the world of athletics, especially in Scotland.  We are generally known only to our family, friends and neighbors.  They may watch what we do, but many of them get to see – for better or worse – what we are.  I think regular public, corporate worship is good.  I think an effort to go to church and “keep the Sabbath” in that way is good.  But I also think it can become, not just unnecessary, but a hindrance at times.  It can become a means of compartmentalizing our world – putting God in a box, restricting Him, His access to us and our access to Him to a unique and limited time and place. 

The truth and the reality is that we are able to live our lives daily, hourly in the presence of God, carrying out the tasks of life, bearing the burdens of existence and relationships and commitments while involving and acknowledging the Divine even in minutia.  What we really need to find -- and what I think most of us seek, is that closet that we have talked about recently, that place of peace within our own hearts.  In that Meetin’ House, it is always Sunday Mornin’.