Living In God's Abundant
Grace: Sabbath as a Source for an Abundant Life
Rolf Jacobson
Session #2
back to February 2006 |
Session #2
Sabbath: God's Gracious Intrusion and the Principle of Justice |
This session is grounded in selected texts from
Exodus and Deuteronomy.
Key themes is this study are;
"The Sabbath is more than just a day a week, it is a principle and it
is about justice.
"The sabbatical principle includes God's intrusion into the bondage of
life on earth.
"The sabbatical principle is about who God is: God is a liberator,
one who frees us and blesses 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 2 is for learners to make the connection
between the Sabbath commandment and God's grace in the form of
justice.
How to Use This Guide:
This leader's guide is a road map that charts the terrain of God's
Sabbatical principle. 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
students 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 remember from our first session?
We talked about the Sabbath commandment, what did you learn from
looking at the Book of Exodus last time?"
- Hint: Emphasize two things. First, that 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.
Second, that 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.
II. First Text: Exodus 20: 8-11 and Deut 5:12-15
Exodus: Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy. 9 Six days
you shall labor and do all your work. 10 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. 11 For in six days the LORD made
heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the
seventh day; therefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day and
consecrated it.
Deuteronomy: Observe the sabbath day and keep it holy, as the
LORD your God commanded you. 13 Six days you shall labor and do all
your work. 14 But the seventh day is a sabbath to the LORD your God;
you shall not do any work-- you, or your son or your daughter, or your
male or female slave, or your ox or your donkey, or any of your
livestock, or the resident alien in your towns, so that your male and
female slave may rest as well as you. 15 Remember that you were a
slave in the land of Egypt, 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.
Objective:
To help participants see the Sabbath commandment as a gracious
intrusion into a world of bondage.
Sample Question:
The Ten Commandments are given twice, one in Exodus 20- and once in
Deuteronomy 5. The only commandment with any significant difference
is the Sabbath commandment. Compare the two versions of the command.
What is the difference.
Hint:
The answer is that the motive clause in the two commandments is
different. Exodus has a theology of imitation: God rested so we
rest. Deuteronomy has a theology of response: Because God freed us
when we were slaves, we should free our workers to have a day off once
we are in the position of being like Pharaoh.
Sample Mini-Lecture:
Imagine that you have been a slave all of your life, with never a day
or weekend or holiday off. And then God frees you from slavery and
says this: "The first rule is that you HAVE to take one day off from
work in every seven."
You might respond, "Have to? HAVE TO?! You don't have to tell
me that twice, it's more like GET TO!"
Offering a day off each week to someone who has never had one is
something like commanding a starving man that he has to eat or a woman
dying of thirst that she has to drink.
"And not just you," said God, "but you, or your son or your daughter,
or your male or female slave, or your ox or your donkey, or any of
your livestock, or the resident alien in your towns, so that your male
and female slave may rest as well as you."
In other words, you also have to make sure that you don't live in such
a way that you make it so that others don't get a day off.
In session one, we talked about how the Sabbath is like a fence around
a value and that one value that the Sabbath protects is the value of
regular time with God. But a fence can surround more than one thing
and as it turns out the Sabbath law is also God's way of protecting
another value. That value is justice.
Notice that in the Sabbath laws stated above, there is an emphasis on
the slaves getting a day off. God says, remember that you were a
slave once who never got a day off, so from now on, not only do you
get a day off, but all slaves and average workers do, too.
Here is the point. God's Sabbath law is about God's grace. Last
session we looked at the sort of grace in which God creates regular
time to make us holy. But the Sabbath law is also about God's grace
in creating a kingdom where justice is the norm.
The people had been slaves in Egypt—God graciously intruded into that
bondage and freed the people. But there is more than one kind of
bondage. If you have to work every day as a slave for a master, that
is bondage. But if you have to work every day for your parents, or
for your business, or for yourself, then that also is a form on
bondage. "Not where I am Lord," is God's response. And so God
regularized this intrusion of grace. God said, "I am going to make it
a regular part of every week that everyone gets a day off from the
bondage of toil and trouble." So God threw a wrench into the economic
gears of our human world that want to churn away day after day and God
said, "No rest? No! Rest!" This is the principle of what the
Sabbath is all about. The Sabbath is about God's way of intruding
into our bondage to free us and grant us grace. God made the Sabbath
a regular part of our routine. By doing so God made it so that all
might live under the banner of God's gracious justice.
But making the gift of grace a routine part of life is not universally
popular. Human nature is a stubborn thing. Some people soon came to
see the Sabbath as an imposition, especially where it intruded on
their ability to make money. Perhaps you remember the scene at the
start of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol in which Scrooge
resents having to give his nephew Christmas Day off:
"You'll want all day tomorrow, I suppose?" said Scrooge.
"If quite convenient, sir."
"It's not convenient," said Scrooge, "and it's not fair. If I was to
stop half-a-crown for it, you'd think yourself ill-used, I'll be
bound?"
The clerk smiled faintly.
"And yet," said Scrooge, "you don't think me ill-used, when I pay a
day's wages for no work."
The clerk observed that it was only once a year.
"A poor excuse for picking a man's pocket every twenty-fifth of
December!" said Scrooge, buttoning his great-coat to the chin. "But I
suppose you must have the whole day. Be here all the earlier next
morning." (Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol, Chapter 1.
Public Domain.)
Scrooge represents that voice in all of us that resists God's grace,
especially that part of God's grace through which God wants to extend
the rule of justice. Scrooge is like Pharaoh, he would rather cling
to the false gods of silver and gold—especially where the labor of
those who owe him sweat is concerned. And, perhaps, that is exactly
why God made a day off to worship and rest a regular part of life in
God's kingdom.
Sample Discussion Questions:
Do you keep the Sabbath because you are imitating God, because you are
responding to God's grace, or for any other reason?
Are there any "sons or daughters, male or female slaves" in our world
today for whom you are not providing a Sabbath?
What does justice have to do with the Sabbath?
III. Second Text: Deuteronomy 15:12-18
If a member of your community, whether a Hebrew man or a Hebrew woman,
is sold to you and works for you six years, in the seventh year you
shall set that person free. 13 And when you send a male slave out from
you a free person, you shall not send him out empty-handed. 14 Provide
liberally out of your flock, your threshing floor, and your wine
press, thus giving to him some of the bounty with which the LORD your
God has blessed you. 15 Remember that you were a slave in the land of
Egypt, and the LORD your God redeemed you; for this reason I lay this
command upon you today. 16 But if he says to you, "I will not go out
from you," because he loves you and your household, since he is well
off with you, 17 then you shall take an awl and thrust it through his
earlobe into the door, and he shall be your slave forever. You shall
do the same with regard to your female slave. 18 Do not consider it a
hardship when you send them out from you free persons, because for six
years they have given you services worth the wages of hired laborers;
and the LORD your God will bless you in all that you do.
Objective:
To help learners see that the Sabbath is more than just one day a
week, but a principle of life in God's kingdom.
Sample Mini-Lecture:
So, God works like this: God intrudes graciously into the bondage of
our lives to free and bless us. In the ancient world, like in our
world, the most widespread form on bondage was financial or economic
bondage. In the ancient world, slavery was about economics and was an
economic reality—do not confuse slavery in the Bible with the bond
slaver of American history; in the biblical world, slavery was more
like the indentured servitude of American history, it was not
life-long slavery. If people were in financial trouble with heavy
debts, they might have to sell themselves into slavery in order to pay
off their debts.
Exodus 22:3 says that if a thief is caught and cannot pay back to the
property owner the penalty for what he stole, then he shall be sold
into slavery to pay the restitution.
2 Kings 4 tells the story of how Elisha helped a woman whose husband
died before he could pay off his debt and how a creditor came to claim
her two children as payment for the loan.
So here is what God said: "Where I rule, such bondage shall not be
permanent. After serving six years, slaves shall go free in the
seventh year." That is, God was saying that the principle of God's
gracious intrusion into the realities of human bondage will extend to
the problem of economic bondage. This is what God said. So God
made provision in God's kingdom for regularized intrusion into
economic bondage.
Notice one other thing. Sometimes, certain forms of "liberty"
actually are less "free" than certain forms of service. A wife or a
child who are kicked out with no means of supporting themselves. A
slave who is sent on his way with no means to make a living or get
started.
Therefore God commanded two things. First, the Israelites could not
send out slaves "empty-handed" at the end of six years. To go forth
with no means of support might be nothing other than a death
sentence. Second, if they slaves wished to remain in their masters'
households, the slaves could choose to do so. If so, the slave would
be figuratively joined to the master's house through a ceremony in
which an ear was pierced—the slave became a part of the household.
But the choice in the matter was left up to the slave! The master—the
one in economic and political power—was not the one given the choice.
That choice was given to the powerless. That is God's idea of justice
And that is part of what God was protecting when God set up the
Sabbath laws.
Sample Discussion Questions:
Do we have any ways today of protecting the economically
disadvantaged? What does our congregation do to help the poor?
IV. Third Text: Exodus 23:10-11
For six years you shall sow your land and gather in its yield; 11 but
the seventh year you shall let it rest and lie fallow, so that the
poor of your people may eat; and what they leave the wild animals may
eat. You shall do the same with your vineyard, and with your olive
orchard.
Objective:
To emphasize for learners that the Sabbath is not just about one day a
week, but that it is a pattern of God's gracious intrusions into our
sphere.
Sample Mini-Lecture:
In this text from Exodus 23, notice what gets to rest now every seven
years and for whose benefit this rest exists! The land gets to rest.
Every seven years fields, vineyards, and orchards were given rest.
This was for the renewal of those fields, vineyards, and orchards, of
course, so that especially the fields might be renewed.
But who was to benefit? The "poor of your people" and "the wild
animals." So notice again the connection between God's gracious and
intrusive commandments and God's principle of justice. God commanded
rest for the land for the sake of the poor!! How else would the poor
eat, after all?
And there is a sense also of ecology here, a sense that God cares
about nature and creatures outside of the human sphere. As we human
beings fulfill God's command to subdue the earth (Genesis 1), we are
to do so in way that cares for the wild animals—we are to provide for
them, as God commands here in Exodus 23. God's concern for the poor
is seen in other laws from the first five books of the Bible, also.
In Deuteronomy 24:19-22, God uses language very similar to what we
have seen in the Sabbath laws to speak of provision for the poor:
When you reap your harvest in your field and forget a sheaf in the
field, you shall not go back to get it; it shall be left for the
alien, the orphan, and the widow, so that the LORD your God may bless
you in all your undertakings. 20 When you beat your olive trees, do
not strip what is left; it shall be for the alien, the orphan, and the
widow. 21 When you gather the grapes of your vineyard, do not glean
what is left; it shall be for the alien, the orphan, and the widow. 22
Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt; therefore I am
commanding you to do this.
V. Fourth Text: Deuteronomy 15:1-2, 7-11
Every seventh year you shall grant a remission of debts. 2 And this is
the manner of the remission: every creditor shall remit the claim that
is held against a neighbor, not exacting it of a neighbor who is a
member of the community, because the LORD's remission has been
proclaimed. 7 If there is among you anyone in need, a member of your
community in any of your towns within the land that the LORD your God
is giving you, do not be hard-hearted or tight-fisted toward your
needy neighbor. 8 You should rather open your hand, willingly lending
enough to meet the need, whatever it may be. 9 Be careful that you do
not entertain a mean thought, thinking, "The seventh year, the year of
remission, is near," and therefore view your needy neighbor with
hostility and give nothing; your neighbor might cry to the LORD
against you, and you would incur guilt. 10 Give liberally and be
ungrudging when you do so, for on this account the LORD your God will
bless you in all your work and in all that you undertake. 11 Since
there will never cease to be some in need on the earth, I therefore
command you, "Open your hand to the poor and needy neighbor in your
land."
Objective:
To emphasize for learners that the Sabbath is not just about one day a
week, but that it is a pattern of God's gracious intrusions into our
sphere.
Sample Mini-Lecture:
God has one more surprise for you, showing that God's plan of gracious
intrusion into the bondage of life goes even further.
Here, in Deuteronomy, God commands something that modern, capitalistic
Americans can hardly understand. God commands that all debts be
forgiven every seven years. Have you ever heard of such a crazy
thing? And God warns the people, if it is the sixth year and your
neighbor needs some money, you cannot do the math and realize that you
won't get paid back. You have to lend it. "Be ungrudging when you do
so," says the Lord. Do not be tightfisted and miserly.
Now, of course, this law would not work today, because we live in a
capitalist economy. Ancient Israel's economy was much different.
They were not a capitalist free-market economy. For better or worse
(and I think it is clearly for the better) we live in a different
system, but the issue is still this: What can we learn from this law
in Deuteronomy 15? Cannot we still learn to be ungrudging and not
tight-fisted? Doesn't it still tell us that God demands that we care
for our neighbors?
So notice God's sabbatical pattern of gracious intrusion:
- Every seven days, God commands release from work for all,
including slaves
- Every seven years, God commands release from bondage for slaves
- Every seven years, God commands release from production for the
land, for the purpose of feeding the poor and the wild animals
- Every seven years, God commands release from debt for the poor
It should be clear by now that God's Sabbath principle is not just
about rest or worship, but about God's value for justice. And God has
regularized and institutionalized this love of justice in God's laws.
Sample Question:
We don't live in Israel's system, but how can we "keep" God's
sabbatical laws in our own way?
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 1 - SABBATH: GOD'S GRACIOUS INTRUSION AND THE PRINCIPLE OF
TIME WITH GOD
Session 3 - SABBATH: GOD'S SUFFICIENCY AND OUR GENEROSITY
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