Sabbath Resistance

Some will remember the movie, “Chariots of Fire” about the 1924 Olympic Games in Paris. One of the runners for Great Britain, Eric Liddell was a devote Presbyterian from Scotland and when he was informed that his first heat for the 100 yard dash was on Sunday he refused to run. At the time I thought he was foolish, even selfish; he let down his team. Now we have soccer on Sunday mornings and I wonder, is anything sacred?

At times strange coincidences occur that leave me scratching my head, wondering whether this involves the Holy Spirit. A few weeks ago in our Wednesday Study we viewed an interview of Old Testament scholar, Walter Brueggemann. Subsequently I mentioned part of that interview in my sermon on October 19th. Then I was casing the new books at the library and I ran into a small volume that Brueggemann wrote recently (less than 100 pages) entitled, Sabbath as Resistance: Saying NO to the Culture of Now. The title caught my attention because I usually think of Sabbath as rest and I admonish people that we all need rest. Sabbath is also time to spend alone with God. But Sabbath as resistance? When is comes to soccer on Sunday mornings I feel it!

Sabbath is not only resistance. It is alternative. It is an alternative to the demanding, chattering, pervasive presence of advertising and its great liturgical claim of professional sports that devour all our “rest” time.

The alternative on offer is the awareness and practice of the claim that we are situated on the receiving end of the gifts of God.

For Brueggamann taking time for Sabbath is not just a healthy choice, it has an ethical component; it is saying NO to what he calls the Culture of Now. He identifies four ways that this NO happens: resistance to anxiety, coercion, exclusion and multitasking. My favorite of these is multitasking. I am one of those who believe that multitasking is impossible; the mind cannot focus on more than one thing at a time and switches back and forth. When this happens quickly we call it multitasking. For Brueggeman, Sabbath would mean resisting the temptation to be doing many things at once even if we are taking the day off on Sunday. And this is where it gets rough – I believe Brueggaman would say that because Sabbath as resistance means to disengage from any activity that it connected to advertising, competition, shopping or entertainment. This is more than resisting soccer on Sundays. I think he would say that to really have a Sabbath that is rest we would need to put away our cell phones for a day – for the rest, but also as a way to disengage from the whole world of commercialism. It is to say NO to this world in order to reconnect to God’s world.

The departure from (this) system in our time is not geographical. It is rather emotional, liturgical, and economic. It is not an idea but a practical act… (it is) an act of submission to the restful God… divestment so that neighborly engagement, rather than production and consumption, defines our lives.

There are times when I wish I lived in the world of Eric Liddell. On the one hand it feels strict and oppressive, but on the other hand when I imagine a whole day disconnected from the world of winning and losing, of production and commerce, of information and to do lists, I feel like it would be very healing. It will not happen… easily, at least, but maybe in baby steps? And not just for myself but also for the world. P.Jim