The God of Rest and Relationship

At Aruka one of our core values is that of relationship. In recent months we’ve been exploring the concept of the Jewish and Christian practice of the Sabbath and its central importance to our ability to live in healthy relationships with God, ourselves and each other. 

The Sabbath practice is 24 hours of complete rest once a week. It honours Holy time and helps to maintain mindfulness in an increasingly mindless society. It’s a slow and ancient practice that brings rest and relationships front and centre in our lives. When we observe the Sabbath, we begin to live all the other days of the week differently.

The Sabbath is a Holy day when we cease market interaction. We disengage from buying, selling, wanting and producing. We draw a boundary line around the domain of the market and enter a sphere of inaction and rest that permeates mind and body. We resist the lie that we are not enough and don’t have enough and instead, we rest in thankfulness that all life is a gift from God to be gratefully received and enjoyed. Not earned or purchased. We remember that we are valued and loved children of God, not commodities who are restlessly driven to endlessly produce and consume. On the Sabbath, we enter the restful realm of Yahweh and escape the pharaoh's anxiety-ridden domain. Time slows down, it is sanctified and hallowed and we experience life under the rule of the liberating God of rest and relationship. We experience the joy and freedom of the liberating Exodus God who leads us out of slavery, out of Egypt and into the promised land. 

The command to observe the Sabbath is the hinge at the centre of the 10 commandments between the first 3 commands regarding the God who rests and the final 6 commands that concern the neighbour.

When Jesus is asked which is the most important commandment he sums up the 10 commandments, the prophets and the whole Law in what Scott McKnight refers to as the ‘Jesus Creed’. 

“‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind… Love your neighbour as yourself. (Matt 22 37-39)

And at the heart is Sabbath rest. We cannot love God and love our neighbour without rest at the centre. We cannot dwell in relationships with others without dwelling in Sabbath rest. God commands us all to rest together as a holy people on the seventh day.

We are to rest in relationship with God, neighbour and self. 

As Walter Brueggemann says in his book ‘Sabbath as Resistance’

It’s a social reality that provides commonality and coherence to the community of covenant and the commandments of Sinai. 

When we observe the Sabbath, we slow down enough to honour the sacred relationships with God, ourselves and each other. We remember that people are a sacred ‘Thou’ to be honoured in the context of relationships. We remember that they are not commodities to be used for our advantage, or threats or competitors that get in our way. They are our neighbours to be loved, valued and enjoyed.