Bring No Burdens... A Meditation on the Sabbath

“Bring no burdens out of your houses on the Sabbath…”
–Jeremiah 17:22

This verse comes in the midst of a discussion of the importance of keeping the Sabbath (Jer. 17:19-27).  And, interestingly enough, the emphasis is placed on the rewards that will arise from keeping the Sabbath: security and safety and peace for Judah and Jerusalem, a line of Davidic kings, the promise that Jerusalem and the Temple will be known as a place of pilgrimage and sacred offerings.  All of this simply by keeping the Sabbath.  “Bring no burdens out of your houses on the Sabbath…” “Bring no burdens through the gates…”  The prophet, speaking for God, promises Israel that if they will simply keep the Sabbath, their kings and their people will continue to live in God’s Holy City forever. 

According to Rabi Jacob Neusner[1] the Jews emphasis on the Sabbath wasn’t necessarily so much a negative rule (forbidding activity) as it was a positive teaching. He says that the real emphasis was on being like God, following God’s example from Genesis of resting on the 7^th day.  This wasn’t just about behavior, it was really about identity.  The Jews were a people who kept the Sabbath, they were a people who followed God, and keeping the Sabbath was a very important way of living that identity. It reminded them (as individuals) to put their trust not in their own efforts, but in the Lord. And as a community, it gave them the opportunity to renew relationships, rebuild connections, relearn their interdependence.  By keeping the Sabbath (all, together), families, households the community became stronger. They had this shared experience, a day of rest that helped build cohesion among them. It wasn’t just about the rules, it was also about the renewing.

So, I look again at this verse and hear God demanding not a “day,” so much as a way of life.  And, enlightened by Jesus in the Gospels, I hear the affirmation that this way of life isn’t just a rule against work because certain kinds of work, are clearly allowed. Jesus heals on the Sabbath, Jesus lets His disciples gather grain to eat on the Sabbath, and Jesus reminds the Pharisees that doing good on the Sabbath was never completely forbidden (ex. rescuing a sheep or caring for the sick).  So, what is this “burden” we are not to bring out of our houses? What does God mean by this? 

Clearly it is about more than a wheelbarrow full of dirt, or a basket of dirty laundry. I keep hearing something more complex, perhaps something to do with another kind of burden... our fears, our longings, our anxieties…  And I keep hearing the Lord saying –Lay that burden down. Here I have something else for you…  Come to me, abide with me, and I will give you rest (Mt. 11: 28-30).

The promise of God that if we will simply keep the Sabbath, we will endure in peace and security, seems like so little to ask. Is that what frightens us about it?  All God is asking is that we rest. Do no work. Just take a day off! One day a week… And yet, it seems almost impossible for so many of us. 

I am reminded of what Pascal wrote:

All of the world’s evil comes from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room...

...for even 15 minutes, one might add!

And there is your key.  Bring no burdens out of your house on the Sabbath… not much to ask, but oh so hard to do.

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[1] As quoted in Jesus of Nazareth (vol. 1) by Pope Benedict XVI (p.108)

Isaiah and the Lord's crushing pleasure

“It was the Lord’s good pleasure

to crush him with pain;

If he gives his life as a sin offering,

he will see his offspring

and prolong his life,

and through him

the Lord’s good pleasure will be done.”
–Isaiah 53:10

“It was the Lord’s good pleasure to crush him…” What a hard thing to read.  And yet, do many of us not feel a kind of crushing weight upon us even in our comfortable houses and relatively safe lives.  The weight of waiting and of not knowing. Perhaps even the weight of all that new-found quiet.  It is strange and sometimes must feel hard to be so “isolated,” and uncertain.

As Christians, we read this passage and immediately hear an allusion to Jesus and His cross, the suffering servant who gives His life as a sing offering for the sake of others.  But, reading it the other morning I wondered: what did Isaiah’s audience make of it? What did it mean to them? This image is from what is often referred to as “Second-Isaiah.” Scholars believe chapters 40-55, were written by a later prophet (perhaps a follower of the first) and were possibly written 150 years after chapters 1-39.  Second-Isaiah is believed to have been written during the Babylonian exile, so the audience for this book was themselves in exile, dragged off into slavery. They must have felt the true sting of these words. Were they struck by their God with this affliction? Certainly they were helpless, despised, crushed, a people of constant sorrow led to the slaughter. Did they believe that this truly was God’s pleasure? Or did they begin to suspect something even worse… that it was a sign, proof that there was no God, no Yahweh who loved and delighted in His chosen people. 

Had their whole history been nothing but a fantasy?  Were they just some minor tribe who had been lucky for a while, found a nice piece of fertile land, settled it and enjoyed a little success under a couple of minor kings, but of no real importance to the world or history? Easily knocked over by other larger and more powerful tribes or nations when the time was ripe…

Truly, how could a loving God take pleasure in crushing anyone? What on earth could these words have meant to 5^th century Israelites living in exile?  And what does it mean to us today, living in our own strange “self-isolated” exile?  I know that when I read these words I am struck by the brutal sound of them, the spiritual weight of such an image.  And I want to quickly find some nicer way to understand it. I want to find some way to tame it, make it sound not so frightful, but gentle and sweet. I want to find a way to fit it on a Hallmark card.

But you can’t. Not if you face it. Face the actual words themselves. Don’t hide behind theological interpretations, but ask yourself this:  What is God saying here? What is the truth God is revealing to us through this fearful image? Even today?

It seems to me, that –in fact-- this bleak vision is one of assurance and encouragement.  It assures us the same way I think it was intended to assure the enslaved in Babylon. It speaks not just of abuse and punishment, but of the real pleasure of God: self-giving.  To the 5^th century Israelites it may have said, their disfiguring abuse under the Babylonians, their seeming destruction, was in fact an unexpected kind of proof, a proof of God’s love. His true pleasure. And, thereby it speaks also of His presence right there with them, even in their hour of exile and destruction.

What a hard teaching this is.  Even for us today, in the shadow of the cross and the echo of the empty tomb, this is still a hard teaching. To find God’s pleasure, God’s love, God’s presence in our time of anxiety and suffering is very hard.  When things get rough, we tend to go into defense mode, and our shields go up—a kind of psychological and emotional self-isolating. No one wants to be mistreated, wants to be seen as a failure, wants to be disfigured by life and loss. Those moments make us feel completely abandoned, as if God has forgotten us. 

And yet this passage seems to say: Don’t be afraid. This is what you were made for.  Give your life to God and witness the pleasure of God’s will being done, in you and through you.

Even if it means becoming God’s suffering servant, we are being called to give our lives to Him, each and every day.  This isn’t just a memo for the time of pandemics and coronas, it is a call we need to listen for every single day.   

In Colossians, Paul writes of “making up” in his own suffering what is “lacking in Christ’s afflictions” (1:24).  Is that the opportunity that Isaiah is speaking of here?  

When the world feels like it is crushing us, when the sacrifices (even if it is just staying home and self-isolating) seem beyond our ability, perhaps that is the time for us not to turn away and hide.  But a time to surrender to the will of God.

A time to pray: 

Help me Lord, surrender to Your will, Your pleasure;
Help me surrender to the fullness of Your presence, Your tender love.

Like Your son, I pray: Not my will, but Yours be done.
My God, I give my life to you.