“Six days you shall work, and do the stuff you need to do. But the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Holy One, your God. On that day, you are not to do any work. Neither you or your children, your employees, your animals, or the stranger in your midst” (Exodus 20.9-10).
You know this command. Six days you’ll work, and then on the Sabbath you will rest. It’s something many of us struggle to do, even when we know it’s good for our mental, physical, and spiritual health. There is just too much work to do. In fact, the Sabbath (whenever you choose to take it) is often the day when you can shut off the normal endless flow of emails and phone calls and try to catch up.
It’s important to take Sabbath time when you allow yourself to experience and celebrate life beyond your job. But, as with everything in this community God is building, it’s not just about us.
Listen to what all this command says: it’s not just you, neither your families or your employees or even the stranger are meant to work. No one, it says, is supposed to be working.
That seems, heck almost impossible in this world of ours. Someone always has to be working. There has to be someone at the check-in desk at the hotel. There has to be someone behind the register at the gas station, the grocery store. Cooks and servers have to be ready at the restaurants. The world would shut down otherwise.
I am not suggesting that we all try and take a day where we don’t directly cause someone else to work. I think we should try and do this whenever we can; because, it is what we can do to allow someone else the opportunity at some sort of Sabbath.
The reason for this gets to the heart of this commandment. It is not just that we should not work, but that we should do whatever we can to not put someone else in the position of having to work. Why? Because we are not better than them.
On this day, everyone stands on an equal footing. This is not the world we have built where for some to enjoy leisure others must toil, this is a Reality where everyone stands on level ground. No one’s taking advantage of someone else. No one is laboring while everyone else takes a nap. No one, on this day, is better than anyone else.
This is because, in God’s Vision, not only are all people equally valuable, but all work is as well. There is no separation that the executive’s work is more highly valued or more important than the work of the grocery clerk. In fact, this call of the Sabbath is that no one’s job is more important than anyone else’s.
And, because of this, all of us deserve rest from our labor.
In the week ahead, help me to see and value the work of those around me.