Living In God's Abundant
Grace: Sabbath as a Source for an Abundant Life
Rolf Jacobson
Session #1
back to February 2006 |
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Session #1
Sabbath: God's Gracious
Intrusion and the Principle of Time with God
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This session is grounded in texts selected from
Exodus.
The key themes in this session are:
"God's work through the Sabbath is consistent with how God normally
works, coming to us from outside of ourselves, intruding graciously
into our bondage.
"Sabbath worship is something that God does for us, not something that
we do for God. God regularized the intrusion of the Sabbath in order
to have a regular worship time in which to work on us."
--Rolf Jacobson |
Rev. Dr. Rolf Jacobson is an assistant professor of
Old Testament at Luther Seminary.
© Joint Project:
Centered Life and
Stewardship in the 21st Century, Luther Seminary, St.Paul, MN |
Leader's Guide
Goal: The goal of Session 1 is for learners to make the
connection between the Sabbath commandment and God's grace. To
that end, it is important that learners see that God's grace comes
from outside of the human sphere—God intrudes into our lives
bring grace and freedom. It is also important that learners see that
worship is not something that we do for God, but something that God
does for us.
How to Use This Guide:
This leader's guide is a road map that charts the terrain of Sabbath
in the Book of Exodus. In what follows, you will find:
- A lesson outline
- Key texts identified
- Learning Objectives for each text
- Background information about each text
- Sample mini-lecture components related to some texts (emphasis
on sample)
- Sample Discussion Questions (emphasis on sample)
- You will not find step-by-step instructions on what to say or do
with each text, such as "have participants open their Bibles and ask
for a volunteer to read...." That will be left up to your own
intelligence and creativity. One hint, however: The less that
participants hear your voice and their more they use their own
tongues and brains to read texts and make connections, the better.
I. Gathering and Introducing the Topic
- Open with prayer
- Ask the group to reflect on:
What do you think God's command to keep the Sabbath means?
What were you taught we are to do or not to do in order to keep the
commandment?
Why does God want this commandment kept?"
- Hint: Most groups will say that we are to worship God, spend
time with family, and not work. Notice how most people see the
Sabbath as something that we are doing for ourselves. The
point of this opening question is to set up an initial common
understanding of the Sabbath from which you can then lead people
deeper to see how the Sabbath is not about what we do but about what
God does and about how God orders the world.
II. First Text: Exodus 5:1-4; 12:29-31
Afterward Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and said, "Thus says the
LORD, the God of Israel, 'Let my people go, so that they may celebrate
a festival to me in the wilderness.'" 2 But Pharaoh said, "Who is the
LORD, that I should heed him and let Israel go? I do not know the
LORD, and I will not let Israel go." 3 Then they said, "The God of the
Hebrews has revealed himself to us; let us go a three days' journey
into the wilderness to sacrifice to the LORD our God, or he will fall
upon us with pestilence or sword." 4 But the king of Egypt said to
them, "Moses and Aaron, why are you taking the people away from their
work? Get to your labors!" (5:1-4)
At midnight the LORD struck down all the firstborn in the land of
Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on his throne to the
firstborn of the prisoner who was in the dungeon, and all the
firstborn of the livestock. 30 Pharaoh arose in the night, he and all
his officials and all the Egyptians; and there was a loud cry in
Egypt, for there was not a house without someone dead. 31 Then he
summoned Moses and Aaron in the night, and said, "Rise up, go away
from my people, both you and the Israelites! Go, worship the LORD, as
you said." (12:29-31)
Objective:
To help participants learn that the Exodus event started out with the
request from Moses and Aaron that the enslaved people be allowed to
worship their God and see that there are times when, places where, and
reasons why people do not have the freedom to worship.
Sample Mini-Lecture:
Imagine yourself in the sandals of the first generation of Israelites
whom God had brought out of bondage in the land of Egypt. In those
sandals, you had slaved away for Pharaoh—never getting a day off from
work; never even thinking of asking for a day off; never getting a day
to worship your Lord and Creator.
All of the excitement started with a simple request from Moses, who
had returned from exile: "Let my people go and worship the Lord."
But Pharaoh could think only of work, of the gold and silver he would
lose if the let the people have a day off for worship. So you had
watched and worked as God brought plagues upon the Egyptians. After
the last plague and Pharaoh had finally said, "No more, you can go
worship, but bring me a blessing, too."
Notice that the Exodus event began as a struggle between an earthly
king, who wanted people only to work so that his economic model would
not be thrown out of alignment, and the heavenly Lord, who desired
that the chosen people be allowed the chance to worship.
Sample Discussion Questions:
What do you think life was like for slaves?
Why didn't Pharaoh want to give people the chance to worship?
Do you ever take for granted the opportunity to worship?
What are the reasons today that people might not be able to worship
God?
III. Second Text: Exodus 20:1-2
Then God spoke all these words: 2 I am the LORD your God, who brought
you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery;
Objective:
To help participants see that God's commandments are not restrictions
on freedom but rather guidelines for how free people live.
Mini-Lecture:
Imagine again that you were one of that first generation of Israelites
who came out of Egypt. You walked into the sea as an escaped slave,
with your owner charging hard after you in his chariot. You walked
out of the sea a free person, with nobody looking over your shoulder.
So what to do now? How to live now?
This is the situation that faced the Exodus generation. When they
were slaves in Egypt, all their decisions were made for them: when to
get up today, what to wear today, where to go today, what to eat
today. Yesterday was the same as today and the same as tomorrow and
the day after.
Children are like that, too. When you were young, someone—probably
your mother or father—got you up, picked out your clothes, set
breakfast in front of you, packed you out the door with lunch, and so
on. And like a herd of teenagers suddenly left on their own, free to
make all their decisions for themselves, our ancestors in the faith
walked out of Egypt and did not have the foggiest idea of how free
people are to live.
So God gave them the Ten Commandments. God said this: I am now your
Lord and you are my people, because I brought you out of Egypt.
Nobody else will ever be your king again, I will fill that role, so
that no human oppressor ever tries to lord it over you. You are free
now and here is how free people live. Free people don't steal, or
they go back into bondage. And besides, are you really free if your
neighbor can just take your stuff? Free people don't murder, or they
go back into bondage. And besides, are you really free if your
neighbor can just kill you? And so on.
God's laws only make sense to people who have been freed from some
sort of bondage.
If you have ever been in bondage to anything—to an abusive
relationship or family situation, to alcohol or other drugs, to a bad
job, to significant financial debt, to health problems, to sin—and if
you have been freed, then you can understand God's laws.
God's laws are not restrictions on freedom but are the way that free
people live. Some teenagers think that their parents' rules limit
their freedom, like a cage that confines a tiger in a zoo. But other
teenagers understand that their parents' rules actually keep them
safe, like a fence along the edge or a cliff or the guard rail on a
highway. If you have never been freed from anything, you may be like
the first kind of teenager and you may think that God's laws restrict
your freedom. But if you understand that God has freed you from sin
in your baptism into the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ then
you can understand that God's laws are how free people live.
In the Book of Deuteronomy, Moses says: "For what other great nation
has a god so near to it as the LORD our God is whenever we call to
him? And what other great nation has statutes and ordinances as just
as this entire law that I am setting before you today?" (4:7-8).
Notice that for Moses, who had been freed from bondage, God's laws are
a sign of how good and gracious God is and a means by which God keeps
the promise to make Israel a great nation.
Sample Discussion Questions:
What is your attitude towards God's commandments?
Have you ever been freed from any sort of bondage?
What factors keep people from a proper understanding of God's
commandments?
IV. Third Text: Exodus 31:12-13
The LORD said to Moses: 13 You yourself are to speak to the
Israelites: "You shall keep my sabbaths, for this is a sign between me
and you throughout your generations, given in order that you may know
that I, the LORD, sanctify you. (31:12-13)
Objective:
To help people see that worship is not an event in which we do for
God, but an event in which God does something for us.
Sample Mini-Lecture:
One way to think about a law is that a law is a fence around a value.
A law protects something that is important and worth preserving. If
that is so, we might wonder what it is that God is protecting by
giving us the Sabbath law.
In fact, it turns out to be more than one thing. Fences can surround
and protect more than one thing. For right now, however, we will
focus on the idea that the Sabbath law protects the good thing of
having regular time with God. Every relationship needs time in
order to be healthy. We need regular, quality time to spend with
friends, family and loved ones. That time allows us to communicate,
clear the air, share experiences, get to know and continue to know
each other. Our time with God is the same. The most important time
that we have with God is in worship.
But here is a really important thing to get clear about
worship—Worship is not an event in which we do something for God. Not
a time when or a place where we are doing something for God. Rather,
worship is a time in which God does something for us, in which God
acts on our behalf for us. Most of us think of worship as
something that we do for God—we praise God, we thank God, we give
offerings, we pray, and so on.
One of the most famous statements about the Christian comes from the
first question of the Westminster Shorter Catechism. The very first
question of this famous document asks "What is the chief end of man
[humanity]?" The answer: "Man's [Humanity's] chief end is to glorify
God, and to enjoy him forever." This is a great phrase about the
promise that God has established a relationship with us that will last
forever, but the way most people understand this phrase they think it
means that we have to do something for God forever. That - we have
to glorify him.
A more faithful way to understand worship is to understand that in
worship, we don't do something for God, but God works on us. Notice
the words in the text from Exodus 31: "The LORD said to Moses: 13 You
yourself are to speak to the Israelites: "You shall keep my sabbaths,
for this is a sign between me and you throughout your generations,
given in order that you may know that I, the LORD, sanctify you"
(31:12-13). Notice who is in charge of the verbs here: I, the
Lord, sanctify you." WE don't keep the Sabbath so that WE can do
something for God. We keep the Sabbath because in the worship event,
when we come together, God sanctifies us, God makes us holy.
Without time for worship, we would be left on our own, without God to
make us holy. We cannot make ourselves holy. Therefore God has
commanded that there be a regularized, gracious intrusion into our
lives, so that we will have regular time with God, wherein God will
justify us and sanctify us. God has said that this regular time
should be once every seven days.
Sample Questions:
How does your idea of worship change when you see worship as an event
in which God works on us, rather than as something we do for God?
What parts of worship change their meaning when seen through this
lens?
V. Fourth Text: Exodus 23:14-17
Six days you shall do your work, but on the seventh day you shall
rest, so that your ox and your donkey may have relief, and your
home-born slave and the resident alien may be refreshed. 13 Be
attentive to all that I have said to you. Do not invoke the names of
other gods; do not let them be heard on your lips. 14 Three times in
the year you shall hold a festival for me. 15 You shall observe the
festival of unleavened bread; as I commanded you, you shall eat
unleavened bread for seven days at the appointed time in the month of
Abib, for in it you came out of Egypt. No one shall appear before me
empty-handed. 16 You shall observe the festival of harvest, of the
first fruits of your labor, of what you sow in the field. You shall
observe the festival of ingathering at the end of the year, when you
gather in from the field the fruit of your labor. 17 Three times in
the year all your males shall appear before the Lord GOD. (23:12-17)
Objective:
To help people see that "regular time" with God means more than just
once every seven days, it also means regular times on an annual and
daily basis.
Sample Mini-Lecture: Earlier, we read in Exodus how the
Sabbath law is a fence around the valuable thing of having regular
time with God, in which God does something for us: makes us holy,
justifies us. The law written in Exodus 23:12-17 takes the idea of
regular time to another level. Notice that we are again dealing with
the Sabbath law here. The law repeats that no work is to be done on
the Sabbath. And the law states: "Do not invoke the names of other
gods," showing us the connection between Sabbath and worship—that we
are to worship on the Sabbath. Then notice that the law goes right
into talking about the three major worship festivals of the Israelite
year: Passover (the festival of unleavened bread), Pentecost (the
festival of "weeks," seven weeks after Passover), and Booths (the
festival of ingathering). [These remain the three festival of Judaism
to this day; Yom Kippur, the day of atonement, and Rosh HaShanna, new
year's day, are the high, holy days of Judaism.]
One of the things to learn here is that God has established regular
time in our relationship on more than just a weekly basis. Yes, we
keep the Sabbath by having weekly time for the preaching and teaching
of God's word. But there is also an annual rhythm to our relationship
with God, and by extension, a daily rhythm, too. God sets aside
special times on annual basis, such as the Christian times of Advent,
Christmas, Lent, Easter, and Pentecost. Likewise, there are times
each day for us to worship God in our homes and daily lives: prayer
before meals, morning and evening prayers, personal Bible study and
devotions. All of these, too, are God's actions, in which God forms
us anew, re-creates us.
Sample Questions:
What practices are important to your faith life on a daily basis?
What about on an annual basis?
How does God work through these?
Permission granted by Centered Life Learning and
Stewardship In the 21st Century, Luther Seminary, for use in
congregations.
Click on the following for other sessions:
Session 2 - SABBATH: GOD'S GRACIOUS INTRUSION AND THE PRINCIPLE OF
JUSTICE
Session 3 - SABBATH: GOD'S SUFFICIENCY AND OUR GENEROSITY |
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