Because some of us are living in our apartments while we renovate them, we have gathered more information than we might have on how to make something look good on the outside though it is dying or dead underneath. This cosmetic kind of renovation is what we sometimes do for the poor, and the kind that some real estate speculators are engaged in doing for the rich, which is tantamount to human beings preying on other human beings. From two to five years can go by before the deterioration begins to show.
Sometimes the imagery of Jesus addresses directly the matter of false appearances: "Alas for you, lawyers and Pharisees, hypocrites! You are like tombs covered with whitewash; they look well from outside, but inside they are all full of dead men's bones and all kinds of filth." I think of these cosmetic renovation jobs as well as of this Scripture as our new faith communities struggle with their disciplines and articulate their vision for each other and for those who are unknown to us. So many of our statements speak in such lofty terms of a commitment to the oppressed that some of us must wonder how we can translate them into our own lives, and save ourselves from hypocritical announcements.
Diego Irarrazaval C. writing of the Chilean liberation struggle said,
I want to clarify the basis of our reflection. We are coming to realize that the fundamental root of Christian thought is the question: What is to be done? This is not a doctrinal question like: What do we believe? Nor is it a moral question we raise: How are we to do good?I have wondered about the relationship of the Sabbath to that all important question as I have hurried home from church on Sunday to work in my apartment. I am sometimes overwhelmed by what has to be done so that order and grace can come into my rooms. Sunday afternoon is a fine time for hard labor that will move me toward my goal. I would like to think that this is a special situation, but the fact is that I have never kept the Sabbath. I don't believe that any one in the whole Church of the Saviour community does very well at keeping the Sabbath. It may be the day that we work the hardest. I have thought about this in a deeper way since reading Dr. Wilfried Daim's commentary on the Fourth commandment, "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy."Given our commitment to those who suffer most and who have the greatest right to head the liberation process, the question, What is to be done? reads more like an ultimatum! We Christians invented neither the question nor the answer. The concrete and actual protagonists of the revolutionary process are those who pose the question. It is the oppressed who demand of us a response, who challenge all Christians who are neither "hot nor cold."
Moses' Fourth Commandment is the first law in history to protect man's free time. It even protected domestic animals, not merely women and servants, against exploitation. This law did not place too heavy a strain on the labor supply of a society whose productive capacity was incomparably lower than today's. The modern struggle for the eight-hour day cannot compare in importance with the institution of one free day in the week. In the Decalogue, the Fourth Commandment has retained its function to this day. It is a time to face God, or, in secular terms, to recall life's meaning, to concentrate on cultivation of one's humanity, and to catch one's breath: "For on the seventh day, God caught his breath," as the Biblical passage should properly be translated.As I type those words I think to myself that I will begin keeping the Fourth Commandment when I have created some order in which to dwell. But another part of me responds, What will you have gained, if the order on the outside does not have a corresponding inner order? In Scripture a person's own being is the house. The rooms to be prepared for the coming of a Presence are inward ones. The door to be opened requires that the householder be at home. We can always find a good reason for not keeping the Sabbath -- always choose or accept the imposition of new deadlines, moving from one deadline to the next, hurrying through all the days of the week, so that we can hurry through the seventh. What if Moses had said to the children of Israel, "Our lives are endangered. We cannot rest until we are more certain of survival, but once we make it safely into the New Land, we will begin keeping the Sabbath. Then we can begin to reflect on our week and look to God for direction."
I live in a community of God's people, but we are often too busy to be with each other. In little spaces we attempt to deal with the injustices of the world, and the question that it poses: What is to be done? We sometimes say to each other that we are looking forward to the time when we will have leisure to be together, forgetting what every wise one knows that the way to a goal can change the goal.
This morning I paused again over these Scriptures and their meaning for our new faith communities:
If you cease to tread the sabbath underfoot,Of course a decision to keep the Sabbath can become another heavy rule to give us a long-faced look, or it can be a means of liberation -- freeing us from all the deadlines that we are always making for ourselves and for each other. Perhaps on the Sabbath we can find time to be with each other, to listen to each other and care for each other. If we give ourselves permission not to bake or clean or shop on the Sabbath, perhaps we can learn to be present to each other and create our heaven right now, straighten out our priorities and join the revolution because we have had time to deal with the question of What is to be done?
and keep my holy day free from your own affairs,
if you call the sabbath a day of joy
and the Lord's holy day a day to be honored,
if you honor it by not playing your trade,
not seeking your own interest or attending to your own affairs,
then you shall find your joy in the Lord,
and I will set you riding on the heights of the earth.
Isaiah 58:13-14 NEB
When I think about how I might keep the Sabbath I can understand how our fathers arrived at over 400 rules about what could and could not be done on the Sabbath. And yet one needs guidelines. I think I shall practice reserving my own sabbath for reflection and prayer, the writing of notes, and the visiting of the ill and the oppressed. I shall also eat with my friends on that day and invite them to eat with me, but I shall do no preparation of food, or shopping, or cleaning on that holy day. All of that will have to be done before or not at all. I think that I shall also visit friends in other faith communities and give encouragement and ask for it. I am hoping that some of you will decide to keep the Sabbath so that you will greet my coming, and not find it an intrusion upon your work. But more than that so that we can support each other and discover whether the keeping of this commandment enhances life and enables us to exalt in life as the Scripture promises. Perhaps together we can recover the meaning of the seventh day so that it can become "a day of joy."
Elizabeth O'Connor is a member of The Church of the Saviour in Washington,
D.C.,where she works as a counselor, writer and leader of small groups.
Last year The Church of the Saviour spawned six sister communities and
this article is taken from a letter she wrote to those communities.