May 2010 Pastor's Highlander Column

MAY 2010
PASTOR'S COLUMN

Brothers and sisters,

Some months ago, I heard a story about a young, up-and-coming lumberjack who possessed the reputation for being among the fastest of new “axemen” in the business; he’d never met a tree he could not cut down, and he prided himself on his reputation.

After some months heavy work in a grove of redwoods, first his daily, then weekly, and finally monthly tally of felled trees began to decrease and then to fall precipitously. Greatly concerned over his growing lack of productivity, and feeling the stinging taunts of other “up-and-comers” whose tallies were beginning to catch him up, the lumberjack quietly cornered one of the older men on the job-site.

As the budding “Paul Bunyan” took the older man aside, he expressed his great consternation as he said, “Tom, I need help. I’m worried sick. I keep working as hard as I ever have, and at the end of the day, I’m as tired as I’ve ever been, but my tally keeps getting smaller and smaller. I’m afraid that I must be getting sick and that the foreman will fire me. What do I do?”

The more experienced lumberjack looked at him for a moment and then began to chuckle. “What’s so funny?” the younger man asked, heatedly.

“When’s the last time you thoroughly sharpened your axe?” he asked the younger man.

* * *

Now, as we return to our study of the Ten Commandments with a look at the Fourth Commandment, “Remember the Sabbath Day and keep it holy,” I ask us to think about this story and answer for ourselves when the last time was that we really sharpened our axes.

Consider that we live in an age of non-stop momentum and movement. Every moment of every day is filled with a zillion different activities. From school to work, sports practices to shopping, our calendars are so full-to-bursting that most of us have no idea what’s next on our agendas until we physically consult our day-planners.

The largest selling cell-phone and computer applications — after music downloads — are calendar applications. Apple Computer’s calendars always sell out quickly because they will help one to synchronize calendars between and among cell phones, Personal Data Assistants and computers. And this phenomenon tends to indicate that we, as a society, are highly over-scheduled, so much so, in fact, that we now have to schedule and highly organize even our leisure-time activities.

And frequently, when we do so, we manage to disregard the needs of others for their “leisure time”. As a matter of fact, when we lived in New York State, we lived in a farming region heavily populated by “Buggy” Mennonites (close cousins to the Amish). You could find several Mennonite farm stands on just about any road in the county, and all of them had this in common: a sign that said, “Closed on Sundays”. I can’t tell you how many times I heard tourists from large urban areas get vocally angry that they couldn’t buy Mennonite vegetables, baked goods and cheese or maple syrup on a Sunday. “How can they be so stupid (fit other popular adjectives here such as: stubborn, narrow-minded, old-fashioned, etc) as to be closed on a Sunday? Who closes on Sundays? Why would they do something dumb like that? I wanted home-made bread!”

But let’s consider that such scenes and spectacles are not only unseemly, but also un-necessary. God made provision for our needed rest. The Fourth Commandment, as recorded in Exodus 20:8-11 runs as follows:

"Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy."

This is the “bridge commandment” between the first three and the last six. In the first three; [1] You shall have no other gods; [2] You shall not make any idols; and, [3] You shall not take the name of the Lord in vain; God has vouchsafed His own reputation and reminded us of His absolute supremacy and sovereignty over the covenant He has made. Granted, as we have previously discussed these provisions, are for our benefit, but they are principally concerned with God’s role and rule over all creation.

This commandment, however, is concerned with our necessary rest. It references God’s own rest after creation, but in it, God expresses His concern that a people held in centuries of involuntary bondage and unmercifully forced to work without rest or recuperation might find refreshment and restoration. Let us remember the context of the commandment as God gave it to Moses. Yahweh calls Moses to Mt. Sinai in order to give him the tablets of the Law. And as He does so, He is establishing for Himself His people. They had been beaten down so long and so hard that they could scarcely see themselves as a people, and could barely remember the covenant promises made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. If Pharaoh had forgotten who Joseph was, the Israelites weren’t faring much better.

God steps forward and gives them His Covenant, and within that covenant, he provides them the rest they long for and need.

But, we, too, should re-consider the commandment.

The context of the command makes sense for the Israelites. We can understand why God might have given it to them under the circumstances from which they emerged. But, it goes further than that. The text of the commandment, itself, refers not to Egypt, but to creation, which means this command has universal application because all of us are products of creation.

Too often we humans look at God’s commands and see them as meddlesome and burdensome, or, alternatively, we try to add to them because we treat them chiefly as being tests of our ritual purity, devotion and personal morality and righteousness. But, here, God makes it clear that this is a responsibility not just to Himself, but also a reasonable way to ensure that we continue to live and function properly. This is the God-ordained “axe sharpening time.”

We can ignore the call upon us — and in contemporary America that is effectively what we have done. In a 60 - 75 year period we have moved from a national standard under compulsory Blue Laws that bordered on the “Pharisaic”, to a complete ignorance of the standard at all. Where once it was illegal for pretty much any business to be open unless an emergency health restriction could be proved in advance. Now, we have moved to a point where, thanks to a 1985 Supreme Court decision, any governmentally-mandated work schedule exemptions based on the Sabbath are an illegal imposition of religion. An employer may grant someone a Sabbath day-off, but he does not need to.

With that in mind, let us look briefly at the reasonable interpretation and understanding provided to us by the Heidelberg Catechism, which asks and then answers the question for us in a Christian and pastoral way that shows awareness of both Christ’s complete fulfillment of the Law and our personal need for refreshment:

• Q 103] What is God's will for us in the fourth commandment?
• A 103] First, that the gospel ministry and education for it be maintained, and that, especially on the festive day of rest, I regularly attend the assembly of God's people to learn what God's Word teaches, to participate in the sacraments, to pray to God publicly, and to bring Christian offerings for the poor. Second, that every day of my life I rest from my evil ways, let the Lord work in me through the Spirit, and so begin in this life the eternal Sabbath.

This answer takes awareness of our human need for rest, gives us God’s own example from Creation, and then reminds us that Sabbath-keeping should be a joyful celebration of God’s provision for us— not some dour, sour painful exercise in personal self-righteousness. Further it is a foretaste of, and personal participation in our future Eternal Rest with God in the New Heavens and New Earth. This is a celebration that will begin with the Marriage Feast of the Lamb and will continue forever more.

All of us need time to rest and recharge from our over-full lives of chaotic, hyper-scheduled activity. We also need time to study, pray, worship and celebrate the providence and grace of the One Who has redeemed us from our exile in a broken world of sin and death. Let us celebrate God’s provision for us and seriously ask ourselves, “When is the last time I sharpened my axe?”

See you in worship on the Lord’s Day!

Grace & Peace,
Pastor Rusty+