Liberating Our Lives
Mark 2.23-28
Rev. Matthew M. Fry

As we continue to experience The Word of the Lord together, let us pray. Give us, we pray, O God, thoughts higher than our own thoughts, prayers better than our own prayers, powers beyond our biological possibilities, that we may spend and be spent in the preaching and hearing of Thy Word. Amen.

Hear now The Word of the Lord as it comes to us in the gospel of Mark. Listen. Mark 2.23-28:

 ²³ One sabbath he was going through the grainfields; and as they made their way his disciples began to pluck heads of grain.  ²⁴The Pharisees said to him, “Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the sabbath?”  ²⁵And he said to them, “Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need of food?  ²⁶He entered the house of God, when Abiathar was high priest, and ate the bread of the Presence, which it is not lawful for any but the priests to eat, and he gave some to his companions.”  ²⁷Then he said to them, “The sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the sabbath; ²⁸so the Son of Man is lord even of the sabbath.”

The Grass withers, the Flower falls, but the Word of the Lord endures forever…Thanks be to God.

Recently I was looking at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, in the Faith and Values section. The front page, and much of the section, was about how people are feeling more and more rushed. It included the following statistics.¹ 1997. The year the United States supplanted Japan as the industrialized country with the longest working hours. That makes this 10 years that we have been the industrialized country with the longest working hours. 50. That’s hours per week that almost 40 percent of Americans work. 26%. That’s how many Americans take no vacation per year. 25%. That’s how many Americans share a dinner together. Which is astounding. 75% of Americans eat dinner alone, many of them because of working late. And the last statistic, 9 weeks. Amount of time (at 350 hours) that Americans work more on the job per year than their peers in Western Europe.

I’m not telling you anything new when I say that time is now viewed by some as a more valuable commodity than money. And as much as we strive for money, we don’t seem to do the same with our time. We as Americans are starved for time, what with the long work weeks, the skipping of vacations, the eating over the desk, the long commutes during the long waits in traffic. But at least we have email and cell phones to keep us on a leash attached to our work 24/7. I mean, if God were to create in today’s climate, the demand would be that it take only 4 days, and the resting business on the 7^th day could be done on God’s own time, thank you very much.

I think the old phrase, “Do that on your own time,” will soon be a lost phrase. So many people today don’t have their own time. And our own time, whenever that comes, is interrupted by the ring of the cell phone or the noise of incoming email when work beckons.

Somehow, in my lifetime I think, there has been a fundamental shift. I’d like someone to do a study to show the effect of email and cell phones on it, that we are always now available. But here is what has happened. People not only work more and more hours, as shown by the statistic that since 1997 America has been the hardest and longest working nation in the world. But there is a subtle shift, in that overtime is now expected, on call is the norm, and a person is more and more consumed with the job so that life will be put on hold as less important than the job, and not just during the working hours, but at all hours, any day.

50 years ago, while running for Vice President, Richard Nixon made a bold campaign process. The year was 1956, and Nixon was the incumbant. “We will see the time not too far distant when we can have a four-day work week, and family life will be even more fully enjoyed by every American.” Nixon was campaigning for President Eisenhower’s re-election. And he was echoing what the trends were showing. Business, labor and political leaders had been making that prediction for over a century, and Americans had steadily gained more leisure time.² But we’ve given that battle up in an effort to get more and more ahead.

We no longer joyfully work our jobs, they work us, and work us to early graves, to anxiety disorders, to constant interruptions that take us away from personal time, away from being fully present with our families, away from really enjoying doing the things we really enjoy doing. Which is directly addressed in the words of Jesus in today’s gospel passage. Verse 27, “Then he said to them, ‘The Sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the Sabbath…’”

See, Sabbath is more than just a day off. It’s rest. It’s refueling. It is time for the soul to be refreshed so that it may stretch and grow and flourish. It is the time in which we set work aside. It is the time in which we set aside the goals of getting ahead. It is the time in which we symbolically stand for something greater than money, power, or prestige by not trying to earn any of those and by simply enjoying the grace of the creator.

Life is a gift, and it takes a Sabbath to realize that. Otherwise we might think that our lives are earned by our hard work. And the fallacy is that if we think that our life is earned by our hard work, a better life will be earned by harder work. So we work and work to get the so called better life, and then we realize that we don’t get to ever enjoy it because we are working for it. We are letting things that are not necessarily bad things, but they are things none the less, run our lives instead of enjoying life and enjoying God. We have given away our Sabbath, instead of having Sabbath give the day to us. The Sabbath was made for humankind, not humankind for the Sabbath.

How can we get it back? How can we leave work at work, leave the chores of life behind and get back to enjoying life the way our Creator intended? Well, I don’t know, but I’m going to give a few options which may or may not work for you and yours. These are neither the exhaustive list, nor are they surefire ways that work for everyone. Some of these may not work for you, or you may find several that do work for you that are not on this list.

1. Stop multitasking during some of your meals. When you eat, turn off the television, put down the newspaper, turn off the computer screen, and enjoy the company of the people around the table with you, even if, and perhaps especially if, the only person around the table is you.

I’m not saying that multitasking is a bad thing. It isn’t. But when our rest time becomes multitasking time, we become more machine than human, more kin to computer than to our flesh and bone, and we become made for the Sabbath, not the Sabbath for us.

I find that when I eat lunch over my desk at church, I go to the fridge with a sense of relief. I think to myself, “This is great, a time for a little break.” But I leave my computer on, and I work as I eat, and I never seem to get the break that I look forward to. Lisa, on the other hand, turns away from her desk, and eats overlooking the playground and watching the children play. Who do you think enjoys their lunch break more? If Sabbath is the rest of the soul, then claiming just 15 minutes during meals is a good way to get more Sabbath, to claim that the Sabbath is made for humans, not humans for the Sabbath.

2. Don’t answer the phone at dinner. Only solicitors call during the dinner hour for the most part anyway. If you are sitting down with family or a dear friend, the last thing you need to do is answer the phone. If it is an emergency, they will leave a message, or call on the cell, or call right back anyway. Guard the time you have that is built in to unwind.

3. Better still, screen all your calls. Everyone now has called I.D. If you don’t know the number or name that pops up, don’t be surprised when it’s a solicitor. Just because the phone rings, either the phone at home or the cell phone, the 11^th Commandment, Thou Shall Answer It, does not exist. Your life does not need to be constantly interrupted just because someone wants to interrupt it. Call people back, sure, but prioritize your time, and be mindful of those priorities. Spending time with out of town relatives over a good cup of decaf after dinner may be more important than answering the phone to talk to the neighbor who is upset about the Home Owners Association. Not that the neighbor isn’t important, and you can surely call back later. This can help you be present in mind and spirit correlating to where your body is. Be where you are, set by your priorities.

4. Plan on as much time as you can, per week, to have nothing planned, and the television off. This can lead to those things that produce great memories, like a good family board game, or a nice walk, or a trip to the Ice Cream store. There’s nothing wrong with T.V., I really like T.V., love the Lost, which means when you call me on Wednesday between 9 and 10, you will get screened. But so much of the time Americans use T.V. as a way to just pass the time, and then wonder why their time isn’t filled with more rest. T.V. can be great, but it won’t always produce Sabbath, if it ever does.

5. Find something to do that is a real waste of time. I used to Golf, when I was younger, with some regularity. What I enjoyed about it was the absolute luxury it was with time. Golf takes 5 hours, 6 if you take as many shots as I do. And in the end, it is done to get me outside, enjoying the trees and grass and nice creation. It was a time when the regular demands on my life took a backseat.

As you may remember, I like backpacking. What you may not know is that I love backpacking in the rain. When you hike in the rain, you really have to focus. You have to think about where you are going to put your foot for the next step, how to find solid enough ground that you won’t slip down the mountain, or end up calf deep in mud and water. When you walk in good weather, you walk along and your mind can race to what you need to do at work, what’s going on with the family, or whatever. And at the end of the day, sometimes its like you haven’t even left the regular world, because in your mind, you haven’t. But in the rain, you get to the end of the day, and you have been forced to leave it all behind, or your behind will have fallen somewhere. Finding a good waste of time is why folks like to knit, fish, collect stamps, or any other thing. Sometimes your brain needs a break, find a good waste of time. These things are worthwhile.

6. Leave the cell in the car. When you go to the restaurant. When you go to the game. When you come to church (did I say that out loud?). When you want to be somewhere, be there, all the way, and don’t let someone who isn’t there take you away, even if only your mind and attention.

I have a friend who was officiating a wedding, and after the homily, right before the vows, a cell phone rang. And if that weren’t enough, it was the mother of the groom. She proceeded to talk on the phone, in the front row, for 2 minutes. I ask you, even if her house is burning down, what could be more important than what is in front of her? Weren’t all her closest friends there? And the ones who weren’t, didn’t they know what was going on at that very moment. What could possibly be more important than her son and immanent daughter-in-law making their wedding vows to each other? I gotta tell you, the look that the bride gave to the groom was both predictable, and priceless.

When you care enough to go somewhere, you ought to leave the cell in the car. You’ve gone to the trouble of being somewhere, don’t you want to be there for what you’ve gone there for?

7. Do something, every once in a while, alone. People report how surprised they are that they enjoy a little alone time. Go to a movie, go out for breakfast or lunch, take a nice walk, whatever. Enjoy some alone time.

So there’s my list. Remember, it isn’t comprehensive, it isn’t mandated that you do them all, it isn’t a recipe that if followed correctly will produce the exact desired result. It’s just some suggestions that hopefully will get you thinking about ways to reclaim our lives, to liberate us from becoming the job and to free us to enjoying the life that God has laid out for us. The rest and restoring quality of Sabbath was made for humankind, not humankind for the Sabbath. May it be so. Amen.