Remember the Sabbath day, and keep it holy. For six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work—you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and consecrated it.
Exodus 20:8-11
Then he said to them, ‘The Sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the Sabbath; so the Son of Man is lord even of the Sabbath.’
Mark 2:27-28
It's been quite a few weeks since I've been able to post, and it's been full of lots of really good "God-stuff" that I'd love to post about at a later time, but this one's been cooking for a while and it's time to get it out there.
Let me explain what you see above.
THE MAP: This is from a report by the National Low Income Housing Commission. It lists the amount of hours in a week you'd have to work in order to afford a one-bedroom apartment. For easy reference, the gray states are "less than 60 hours/week", the light blue are "61-79 hours/week" and the dark blue are "80 or more". The states with an asterisk next to them are states that already have a minimum wage higher than the federal minimum wage. Maryland comes in at a modest second, with 101 hours per week. A single worker, no spouse or kids, making minimum wage, looking just to put a roof over his/her head, would have to work 101 hours every single week.
THE FIRST BIBLE VERSE. That would be the Third Commandment. It's the wordiest of the ten (depending on how you count), and it seems to be so wordy because God wants to make one thing absolutely clear: The Sabbath is not just for one class of people. It's for everybody. Your kids. Your employees. Your pack animals. Even complete strangers from foreign cultures who are hanging out in your general vicinity. And God is telling you this because it is your responsibility to make sure this is an option for those over whom you have influence.
THE SECOND BIBLE VERSE. Here we have the Son of God--Jesus Christ--declaring NOT that the Sabbath isn't important or that Christians shouldn't keep it anymore, but rather that it should not be used as a legalistic burden to heap on those already struggling to feed themselves. Jesus and his disciples are picking grain on the Sabbath because they haven't got any food, and the Pharisees invite them to a sumptuous Sabbath feast where they can fill their bellies to their hearts' content. Wait, no...turns out they get all bent out of shape and judge them for breaking the Sabbath, while offering precisely 0.0 solutions as to how they can both keep God's law and not go hungry. Huh.
So here's what I'm thinking today. It is admirable, of course, for Christian businesses to close their doors on Sunday. It is expected that Jews, Muslims and Christians--all who take God's commandment seriously--will take time in the week to rest, to reflect, to worship, and to simply let God be God. We all need time as a community to remember that by God's grace, the world keeps turning even when we're not running. These are all good things.
But I would submit to you that the third commandment was phrased in such careful legal language because it is so easy to break it by proxy. It's not just about you. It's about everyone whom your life touches.
And I'd further submit that if your business is closed on Sunday but your workers have to go someplace else and work a ten or twelve hour shift to make ends meet, you might still have a third-commandment issue on your hands. If you take time worshiping and resting with your family on Sunday, but you live in a state where a person couldn't possibly do the same on minimum wage, you might still have a third-commandment issue on your hands. In sum, this whole country has a great big hairy third-commandment issue on its hands, and it's high time we did some praying about how best to fix it.
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