EVEN WHILE THEY SLEEP: THE IMPORTANCE OF SABBATH
This past year, I became a co-organizer for a local initiative called Sabbath Solidarity, which organizes semi-monthly healing spaces for people of color. The premise is simple: for one night, the organizers—i.e., myself and my friend, Jess—provide a delicious free meal, hire massage therapists and other healers to provide free bodywork sessions (as well as a yoga instructor to give a free class), and then invite people of color to come and heal, to really have an experience of sabbath even if it’s just for this one evening. We also usually have an activity space of some kind with art supplies for folks who don’t want bodywork but want to unwind with some paint. Initially the invitation was for activists and organizers of color, but eventually this was broadened to all people of color. It’s only two to three hours, once a month, but I know that for some of us, it’s hard to find that time to set everything down and just be.
I try to encourage folks to enter into rest however they want or need—if they want to turn off their phones, by all means, do so. If they just want to have a meal and chat with folks, do that. If they just need one good massage and quiet time, it’s their time to get it! The “solidarity” part of the name is truly about meeting people where they are; we try to have a variety of different offerings, and we plan on traveling to different parts of the city so that people of color all over town can have a night for themselves and not have to worry about grabbing a bus or Lyft to come to our events. This is ultimately about building a community of support, because we need to lean on each other from time to time to take care of ourselves. Each of these events is a small way to support the community by saying, “Come, set everything down for a moment. Take some space to breathe. Your obligations can wait for a few hours. Have a meal. Get a massage and work those knots out. Enjoy each other’s company. We’ll take care of everything.”
Organizing these events has made me really contemplate what it means to “keep the sabbath holy.” It’s not simply a matter of showing up to church on Sunday, singing hymns, taking Communion and going home after coffee hour; it is prioritizing a time to rest from our labor as God did after creation.
In a capitalist society that prizes constant productivity, making space for downtime, even when you’re sick, is seen as a waste. Around this time last year, for example, I saw an ad for cold medicine with the tagline, “No more sick days!” God forbid you spend one day at home, in bed—that’s less time that you have to make money! (Side note: use every minute of your sick time and, please, do not feel bad about it. You only get one life, one body. Take care of it.) We have all been taught that we need to work as much as possible in order to make money and get those markers of success—the nice car, the house in the suburbs with the picket fence, exotic vacations. But this belief has been collapsing before our eyes because of the way our capitalist economy works—the 1% have gotten richer, while everyone else struggles to make ends meet. Systemic racism keeps people of color oppressed and working twice as hard to get by. Gender pay gaps still exist across industries, even in the church. We are working ourselves to the bone, sometimes with two or three jobs, with little to show for it and, more often than not, we are shamed or even penalized for taking time for ourselves.
Aside from the external pressures to work without ceasing, we also have to contend with our own internalized capitalist work ethic, and not just because we may view sabbath time as lazy or selfish. We worry, rightly so, about getting all of our needs taken care of. We may be anxious about all the labor that needs to be done. We may struggle to leave work at work instead of bringing it home. But we have to remember these anxieties are the fruits of a broken system that prioritizes productivity over wellness, wealth over health, and the antidote is sabbath.
To me, sabbath is a time to decompress, to let the worries of the world fall at God’s feet. It is making space to commune with God and with others, not just at church, but wherever I may find myself. Sometimes it looks like a night spent with my community and other times it may be a quiet day spent inside, re-reading Harry Potter or working on an embroidery piece. It’s acknowledging that working harder and more often will not solve all my problems, but instead that God is working things out for me while I take a break from my labor. And that is incredibly hard for someone with loads of anxiety like myself. I worry about how I will pay this bill or that. I check my bank account daily to be sure I have enough funds to get through the week. I want to be sure that everything is going to fall into place, and that is natural. But practicing sabbath reminds me that I am not, in fact, in complete control. God is, and God will provide for every need, so I can take a few hours or a day to be still. I’m reminded of the opening words for Night Prayer in A New Zealand Prayer Book: “It is but lost labor that we haste to rise up early, and so late take rest, and eat the bread of anxiety. For those beloved of God are given gifts even while they sleep.” God will take care of me, because God did not simply create the universe and then go for a nap, but instead God provided for every need that every life form required.
We can take sabbath and be reminded that God is present in our communities. When we need support to take time to rest, we can reach out to our friends and family and ask for help. One of the most beautiful things I witnessed while organizing a Sabbath Solidarity event is when a mother brought her infant daughter to the event. Friends who were attending watched over the baby while mom did yoga and got a reiki treatment. That is authentic solidarity. We take care of each other knowing that we are taking care of Christ present in each of us.
In a world that convinces us that working ourselves to the bone to keep up with the Joneses is the only way to be “successful,” making time for rest, not just one day a week, but as needed, is holy and counter-cultural. After the multiplication of the loaves and fishes in John’s gospel, the crowds go in search of Jesus. When they find him and ask him where he went, “Jesus answered them, ‘Very truly, I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you.’” (John 6:26-27). I am reminded when I read this passage that society wants us constantly working for perishable food. Sabbath can give us a taste of the food that lasts forever.
