The Freedom of the Sabbath

A few years ago, the city of Swansea in Wales put up a new road sign. Now, the Welsh government wants to promote the Welsh language, so that it survives, and so things like road signs are required to be bilingual. But only about a quarter of the population actually speaks Welsh. And so it’s typical for a local government to have an in-house translator; most people working in the road-sign department don’t actually speak both languages, so they send the text off to be translated.

Anyway, the city needed to put up a sign that read, “No entry for heavy goods vehicles. Residential site only.” So, the road-sign office sent an email off to the translation office and asked for a Welsh translation. And an email came right with two sentences of Welsh. So they printed the sign with the English on top and the Welsh on the bottom, and installed it on the road.

Later that week, photos started appearing on social media with laughing emojis. Someone called the local government. “I think there’s a mistake on your sign.” Oh, really? What? Well, on the top it says, in English, “No entry for heavy goods vehicles. Residential site only.” But then on the bottom it says, in Welsh, “I am not in the office at the moment. Please send any work to be translated.”

In these last weeks of summer vacation, we turn to a story of Jesus healing in a synagogue on the sabbath. And I’m reminded of this classic tale of the vacation auto-reply gone wrong for two reasons. First, I think that the practice of the out-of-office reply is the closest we modern Christians have ever come to the spirit of the Sabbath as Jesus understood it. And second, I think that the point Jesus is trying to make in this story is nearly always lost in translation.

 

The “lost-in-translation” Christian interpretation of a Sabbath healing story goes something like this: The requirement to abstain from work on the Sabbath, the seventh day of the week, is a burdensome requirement of Jewish law. All Jews agreed on a specific definition of what “work” meant, which would have included this kind of healing. So by healing this woman, Jesus is intentionally violating the Sabbath’s prohibition of work. Jesus prioritizes compassion and love over rules and regulations, so he decides that the observance of the Sabbath should be left in the past.

But nearly everything I just said is inaccurate. The Bible tells us to refrain from work on the Sabbath, but it never says what work means, and this was the topic of active debate. The rabbis would eventually create a list of thirty-nine categories of activity that could be called “work.” But “healing” isn’t one of them. “Speaking” isn’t one of them. Reaching out your hand and touching someone isn’t one of them. Nothing that Jesus does violates the letter of Biblical or even later rabbinic law governing the Sabbath.

The leader of the synagogue criticizes Jesus for a kind of violation of the spirit of the Sabbath. Even if this healing wasn’t strictly “work,” doing it on the Sabbath is unnecessarily edgy. Sure, everyone would agree that you can do what you need to save a life on the Sabbath, but this isn’t an emergency. She’s had this condition for eighteen years. Why do you have to heal her on the Sabbath? Why can’t it wait for tomorrow?

And Jesus responds with an accusation of hypocrisy. Fair enough. (“Untying,” by the way, is one of those 39 categories of work.) But then he goes on to make a deeper point. He argues that far from being against the spirit of the Sabbath, the healing that he does is the thing that is most in line with the spirit of the Sabbath. There is nothing more fitting, Jesus says, than for this woman “to be set free from this bondage on the sabbath day.” (Luke 13:16)

To anyone who was a regular at the synagogue, his point would have been clear. They would’ve heard the Ten Commandments read from the Torah, many times during their lives. And anyone who was sophisticated enough to follow the debate here probably would’ve recognized that Jesus is playing one version of the commandment off against another.

The full text of the Ten Commandments appears twice in the Torah, but in slightly different forms. And in this case, the two versions give two different explanations for the meaning of the Sabath. So in the Book of Exodus, chapter 20, the commandment reads: “Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a sabbath to the LORD your God; you shall not do any work—you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns.” (Exodus 20:8–10) And then it gives the reason: “For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day.” (Exodus 20:11) This explanation goes back to the creation story. God created the universe in six days, and rested on the seventh; therefore you also should work for six days, and rest on the seventh.

But there’s another version, in the Book of Deuteronomy. It begins nearly identically: “Observe the sabbath day and keep it holy, as the LORD your God commanded you. Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a sabbath to the LORD your God,” and so on. (Deut. 5:12–14) But then the reason it gives is different. “Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt,” it says, “and the LORD your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm; therefore the LORD your God commanded you to keep the sabbath day.” (Deut. 5:15) This explanation looks back to the bad days under Pharaoh. It reminds the Israelites of a time when they were slaves, with no control over their time, forced to work long and hard every day. And it tells them that they will never be forced to work all week again—God has set them free, one day a week, at least, from the obligation to be productive.

Jesus isn’t rejecting the Sabbath or the Jewish tradition of debate over the nature of the Law. He’s participating in that debate, and arguing that the Sabbath, truly understood, blends both these explanations. Yes, it is a day on which we rest, as God rested from creation. But it is also a day on which we are set free, as God set our ancestors free. And there could be no better way to observe the Sabbath than to set this woman free from what afflicts her.

 

And this is what I love about the technology of the out-of-office reply. This automated message doesn’t impose any burden on you. It doesn’t prevent you from doing anything. I’ll admit that when I was away for a month, I did in fact check my email several times. What the out-of-office reply does is remove the obligation to check the inbox. It removes the expectation that you’ll reply. It shifts the emphasis: it doesn’t forbid you from working, it sets you free from the obligation to work, and this is what makes the Sabbath a “delight,” in Isaiah’s words (Isaiah 58:13).

Any remnants of Christian Sabbath restrictions in our society are basically gone. The days on which we didn’t sell beer on Sundays, or didn’t open shops or restaurants, or didn’t schedule youth sports, are gone. And for many people, removing those restrictions feels like a relief.

And yet we’ve been left with a world in which we are never free. If you work in an office job, you can be reached 24/7 by email. If you work in retail or food service, you can be scheduled on short notice for any day or time. And even those of us who think we’re free from work are not. We come to church to rest and are faced with a volunteer  In the modern digital economy, every moment of our attention to social media or television is analyzed and monetized.  And besides—there’s always something to be done around the house.

But God wants to set you free from the constant obligation to be productive, so that for a little while, you can truly rest in the presence of God and in the company of the people you love. What would it take for you to have that time? What do you need to be set free from to lay aside your burdens for a while? And what can you do to help set other people free from the demand for constant work, so that the “entire crowd,” and not just one person, might rejoice at the wonderful things God is doing? (Luke 13:17)

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Not Peace, But Division