What is so Holy about the Sabbath? 2/1/48
[“Faith at Work” series, sermon # IV]
Scripture: Exodus 20: 8-11, and Matthew 12: 1-8
Text: Exodus 20: 8; “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy”
Religion is regarded mildly today -- much too mildly by far too many people. The commonest form of such regard is that of “individual religion,” with little or no reference to the church, or to public worship, or to any established religious observances at set times. By those who practice such “individual religion,” it is usually supposed that this represents a great “advance” over churchgoing.
The characteristic of many “moderns” is that they are not ashamed of failure to support and attend church or synagogue. On the contrary, they exhibit a certain pride in their relative detachment. One who believes that he has in this way gone on higher, may be tolerant of those among his neighbors who do support and cherish the institution; but he is certainly not constrained to follow what he thinks is their quaint example.
Often such a person is characteristically kind. He prides himself on being a decent, law-abiding citizen, well, most of the time. He may actually demonstrate in his life several of the Christian virtues.
He may suppose, and occasionally even say, that he believes in “spiritual” religion above institutional religion with its demand for worship at least one day a week. In such a belief, he fancies himself free of creed and independent of organization, places or times in worship. Once in a while I have heard it said, “I get closer to God out in the fresh air on the golf course than I ever do in church.”
Now this supposed emancipation from forms and ceremonials can sound quite noble -- as well as advanced and modern. It even gets some plausibility from the fact that it bears a superficial resemblance to the great teaching of the gospel that God can be known and loved in any situation. And of course Jesus imparted many of his great truths (after he had been thrown out of his own home-town synagogue) out-of-doors; teaching on the mountainside, by the sea, in a friend’s home. But he also did some terribly searching teaching right in the temple!
But the vulgar truth about this modern assumption is that those who make it are usually not spiritual giants. Even listening to Dr. Bigshot preach over the radio at home while dangling the newspaper in one’s hand, is not very significant worship. But those who pass off the wretched cliché about devotion to Christianity rather than “churchianity” and then go for a horseback ride during church time are just kidding themselves and fooling no one else.
Men might conceivably have great experiences of God’s presence, and of their own moral need, while getting out of the rough on the sixth hole. After all, nothing is impossible with God! But such an experience is extremely unlikely to occur. I speak with the authority of at least some week-day experience, for I am an expert at getting into the rough. And I cannot believe that the dark blue mood, and the occasional imprecatory appeal to deity, sometimes occasioned among the lovers of this intriguing and exasperating form of “out-door worship,” are essentially different on Sunday morning than on Monday or Saturday afternoon.
The fact, laid bare, is that our contemporary estimate of the 4th commandment is pretty light. Many people really believe that the commandment concerning the Sabbath is trivial and outworn -- perhaps like the second commandment, about graven images. It may have been applicable once, but is now outmoded and purely ceremonial, narrowly religious rather than ethical.
Now let us examine this assumption - and the commandment - as logically as possible. A first thing we note is its vast importance in the Bible. It is by no means considered lightly there. It is given more space than any other -- more than the second --- four rather lengthy verses. Throughout the Old and New Testaments great emphasis is laid on the Sabbath - its interpretation and observance.
The reason for this great emphasis is that in ancient Judah, the Sabbath was one of the major instruments of cultural survival. When Jerusalem fell in 586 BC, and the leaders were taken captive to Babylon, and the temple ruined, it looked as though the chance for survival was slight. The northern kingdom had fallen more than 100 years before that, and had never been revived, nor has it been revived to this day! The southern kingdom would have gone into oblivion the same way, and our whole Western civilization greatly impoverished or never even brought to being, had it not been for the great emphasis placed by those captive people on the Sabbath.
The Sabbath became the external badge which held the people together in a public witness. Once a week the people stood up to be counted in their alien environment. Naturally, the weaklings fell away. And the faithful were consequently strengthened.
Along with the faithful emphasis on the Sabbath came the invention of the synagogue. The people had no temple. But they could get together to read the Word and discuss it. And there they not only worshipped God in this informed fashion, but strengthened their own personal lives. Thus arose the meeting house, which, adopted in Western Christianity, has meant so much to us.
The institution of Sabbath, congregational worship saved a precious heritage from extinction. If the refugees in Mesopotamia had had only individual religion and private worship, the Western world would never have had the Bible and its great formative teachings. Mere individual religion “gets by” fairly well in prosperity. But something much stronger is needed in genuinely critical times.
Our most sober thought on the matter leads to the conviction that the popular view is wrong and that civilization can not be repaired, or rebuilt unless institutional religion is greatly revived, strengthened and loyally supported!
The chief reason for this is the weakness of human nature. Now it is a splendid fact that many people are strong characters. And their service to human progress may be incalculable. But even among the strongest people there appear the flaws and unsuspected or un-admitted weaknesses which threaten, and sometimes ruin, the good edifice or bring despair and hurt to others. The greatest characters remain those who are yet humble in the knowledge of their own inadequacy before God. Human nature is dog-followed and plagued by weaknesses.
We have high purposes, and fail finally to live up to them. We need the supports and aids, outside of ourselves, which will add to our own insufficient strength.
Dr. Samuel Johnson ably stated that: “Every man naturally persuades himself that he can keep his resolutions, nor is he convinced of his imbecility but by length of time and frequency of experiment.”
It is common human experience to need to be reminded of what we know to be true. A chief function of regular, corporate worship, which the Sabbath makes possible, is to provide the needed reminders. We may be convinced that humble service is better than strutting power. But our decision to the better way is greatly enhanced if we hear again the great words of the Bible, join heartily with our fellows in the classic hymns of faith, and repeat thoughtfully the Lord’s prayer.
I know the truth, and have heard these words many times; but I am greatly helped each time I hear them again: “The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit.”
Do you know the excellent “collect” or unison prayer used sometimes in some of the churches? “O God, who knowest us to be set in the midst of so many and great dangers, that by reason of the frailty of our nature we cannot always stand upright; grant to us such strength and protection as may support us in all our dangers, and carry us though all temptations; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Even with the help of such magnificent reminders we are not good enough. How much farther short do we fall it we don’t even have the reminders!
Even those separated from regular connection from the church owe part of their character to it. A great many folk in public life had the first 15 or 20 years of their life greatly influenced by the external helps which the church provides. What they often fail to consider is that their own most deeply cherished ideals came through the institution now despised by their neglect.
What kind of society would we develop without this rhythm of the week? Our present order of ideals is maintained by the study and effort of the few. Do those who neglect the church really advocate the kind of life in which the many “sponge,” spiritually, off the few?
If all who stay away from church were consistent in their seeming secularism, it would seem that the one who is a holder of the churchless religion would arrange for his daughter’s wedding in the office of a Justice of the Peace or a civil judge. That would be the logic of secularism. If each man followed his own separate practice, there would be no sacred marriage services, no church edifice to solemnize it in, no one to perform it. If one yet seeks to mark the great events in his life and that of his family in the atmosphere of the organized church, he ought to put his might into the maintenance and strengthening of the church.
We miss the point if we suppose the great question is, “Do I, personally, want to attend worship on the day of rest?” This is a silly question. No decent culture of any kind is built out of that attitude.
The pertinent question before every person is this: “What is required of me as a responsible Christian citizen of this place? What is my duty in keeping alive the continuity of culture which has helped save this world from being a worse madhouse than it is?”
We are not angels, without need of external support such as institutional religion can give. We are men and women, who need to be reminded of our duty; put on guard against the fierce temptations of the flesh and fiercer temptations of the mind and spirit.
To fall on our knees, figuratively or literally in worship, in supplication for pardon, in expectation of sustaining help, is not a sign of weakness, but an act of wisdom and enlightened will.
The sober fact is that the Christian churches and the Hebrew synagogues are the only organizations in our civilization whose primary purpose is to keep alive the moral and spiritual principles of a decent world.
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Dates and places delivered:
Wisconsin Rapids, February 1, 1948
Waioli Church, February 2, 1975