For many practicing Jews and Christians, Sabbath rest is an essential practice to “tend the fire within.” Biblical scholar Renita J. Weems recalls the Sabbath of her childhood: 

Once upon a time Sunday was a special day, a holy day, a day different from the other six days of the week…. This was a time when [Black] people like those I grew up with still believed that it was enough to spend six days a week trying to eke out a living, … fretting over the future, despairing over whether life would ever get better for [us]. Six days of worrying were enough. The Sabbath was the Lord’s Day, a momentary cease-fire in our ongoing struggle to survive and an opportunity to surrender ourselves to the rest only God offered. Come Sunday, we set aside our worries about the mundane and renewed our love affair with eternity….  

Our working-class hearts were ultimately fixed on one thing alone. Sunday held out to us the promise that we might enter our tiny rough-hewn sanctuary and find sanctity and blessing from a week of loss and indignities. Remembering the Sabbath where I grew up involved delighting oneself for a full twenty-four hours, ultimately in good company, with fine clothes and choice meals. The Sabbath allowed us to mend our tattered lives and restore dignity to our souls. We rested by removing ourselves from the mundane sphere of secular toil and giving ourselves over fully to the divine dimension, where in God’s presence one found “rest” (paradoxically) not in stillness and in repose but in more labor—a different kind of labor, however. We sang, waved, cried, shouted, and when we felt led to do so, danced as a way of restoring dignity to our bodies as well. We used our bodies to help celebrate God’s gift of the Sabbath. For the Sabbath meant more than withdrawal from labor and activity. It meant to consciously enter into a realm of tranquility and praise.  

After a week of the body toiling away in inane work and the spirit being assaulted with insult and loss, Sunday was set aside to recultivate the soul’s appreciation for beauty, truth, love, and eternity. 

Weems acknowledges that Sabbath is difficult to maintain, but can be a healing balm if practiced: 

The Lord’s Day allows us to bring our souls, our emotions, our senses, our vision, and even our bodies back to God so that God might remember our tattered, broken selves and put our priorities back in order. The Sabbath makes sure we have the time to do what’s really important and be with those we really care about.  

I miss the Sabbath of my childhood. I miss believing in the holiness of time. I miss believing there was a day when time stood still. There’s virtually little in this culture, and hardly anything in my adult comings and goings, to serve as a timely reminder of how precious time really is, to remind me of sacred moments. 

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A significant number of our cultural and social challenges arise from a simple fact—diversity. The United States is one of the most ethnically and religiously diverse societies the world has ever seen, and despite the warped history believed by some Americans, the country’s pluralism is what its founders intended. George Washington said, “The bosom of America is open to receive not only the Opulent and Respectable Stranger, but the oppressed and persecuted of all Nations and Religions, whom we shall welcome to a participation of all our rights and privileges” (emphasis added).In many ways, America’s diversity is a great strength, but it’s not without some significant difficulties. After all, with diversity comes disagreement. Over the last 50 years, the number of Americans who attend church has declined dramatically, and only a minority of Americans remain committed to orthodox Christian doctrines about sex and marriage. Often overlooked, but perhaps more bewildering, is the plummeting biblical literacy among self-identified, churchgoing Christians, and the corresponding rise in the number of Christians who dismiss basic public virtues like honesty, humility, and mercy.Some Christians look at these changes and long for the past. They romanticize an earlier era they never experienced assuming it was more hospitable to their faith and values. Unfortunately, this sentimentality for the past can easily become antipathy toward their non-Christian neighbors. Today, we are witnessing the rise of powerful religious and political movements predicated on blaming immigrants, non-Christians, and ethnic or sexual minorities for all the country’s problems. For the Christians swept up in these movements, America’s heritage of welcoming and embracing diversity is a curse rather than a blessing. For them, tolerance is seen as the enemy of truth.The challenges of faithfully following Christ in a religiously and morally diverse society help explain the rise of two trends. First, Christian voices are calling for cultural separation. Rod Dreher’s Benedict Option is a vivid example. He calls for a “strategic withdrawal” of Christians from America’s public life and institutions to protect themselves, their children, and their churches from the corrupting influence of secularism. Second, other Christians are calling for cultural domination. Stephen Wolfe’s book, The Case for Christian Nationalism, articulates this view. He advocates for the takeover of America’s public life and institutions by Christian leaders and the imposition of Christian values upon non-believing citizens.Domination and separation represent the “fight or flight” instincts of a threatened animal. They are both born from fear and ignore our higher calling in Christ to seek a wisdom from above. As Jesus told Pilate, “My kingdom isn’t the sort that comes from here” (N.T. Wright’s translation of John 18:36). Unlike the kingdoms of the world that are rooted in fear and must use violence, coercion, or segregation to maintain their power, Christ’s kingdom is built on no such insecurity. Therefore, it is sustained by neither fear nor force. It is a kingdom that can thrive even where it is opposed.We see a glimpse of this reality in Naaman’s story. Facing the challenge of maintaining his allegiance to God upon returning to his homeland, Elisha does not tell Naaman to flee Syria to live among God’s people. Nor is he commanded to impose his religious convictions upon his pagan neighbors. Instead, Naaman is told to simply “Go in peace.” Elisha’s words reveal that Israel’s God is not threatened by the pagan deities of Syria, and therefore Naaman does not have to fight nor flee those who oppose his faith. He may, with God’s blessing, live among them. DAILY SCRIPTURE JOHN 18:33-37  2 KINGS 5:1-27 WEEKLY PRAYERfrom Thomas Aquinas (1225 -1275) Give us, O Lord, a steadfast heart, which no selfish desires may drag downwards; give us an unconquered heart, which no troubles can wear out; give us an upright heart, which no unworthy ambitions may tempt aside. Give us also, O Lord our God, understanding to know you, perseverance to seek you, wisdom to find you, and a faithfulness that may finally embrace you; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

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