Proper 4B Alt 1st Reading

Deuteronomy 5:12-15

If you went to Sunday School as a child, you were probably taught the Ten Commandments. This instruction happens for good reason. The Christian Church has always regarded these “ten words” as foundational for Christian faith and living, which is why the Ten Commandments play an important role in what we teach our children, especially within the catechisms of various traditions. And following the pattern of many of these catechisms, the odds are that when you learned these commandments, your teachers presented them (1) only according to their Exodus 20 articulations and (2) with a division between commandments 1-4 as expounding on our relationship to God and 6-10 as describing ideal interactions in our relationships with other people.

With this typical training in regards to the Ten Commandments, the text from Deuteronomy 5 stands out as a particularly interesting passage for preaching and teaching. In Deuteronomy 5:12-15, the fourth commandment is articulated in an unusual way, and in its difference from the Exodus 20 text, a few significant paths for preaching emerge. Notice the contrasts between the two different versions of the command to keep God’s Sabbath rest:

Remember the Sabbath day, and 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; 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)

Observe the Sabbath day and keep it holy, as the Lord your God commanded you. 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, or your son or your daughter, or your male or female slave, or your ox or your donkey, or any of your livestock, or the resident alien in your towns, so that your male and female slave may rest as well as you. Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm; therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day. (Deuteronomy 5:12-15)

The first difference that can be seen is where the Exodus narrates the Sabbath command with the injunction to remember, the Deuteronomic tradition suggests that the appropriate response for each week’s holy day is observance.[1] Considering these two texts together, their differences compliment each other with a simple, yet profound insight. A. J. Swoboda notes that these two poles of remembrance and observance have been noted by rabbinic scholars to serve as “a reminder… that Sabbath observance depended on Sabbath remembrance. To do, one must first remember.”[2] For the faithful people of God to keep the Sabbath, they must both remember the command and then actually put such remembrance into actual observance. The Old Testament instruction to remember serves as more than just an invitation to recall something to mind, as they also suggest that some form of observance or practice must accompany remembering God’s actions or words. This dualism in the Old Testament is reminiscent of the pairing of faith and works in the New Testament, as well as the contemporary emphasis within the church of both correct belief and correct practice (orthodoxy and orthopraxy).

But while their complimentary calls to remember and observe pair well, the difference between the narrative rationale for the institution of the Sabbath law in Exodus and Deuteronomy produces the most interesting contrast for preaching.[3] In its Exodus 20 setting, the admonition to keep the Sabbath is based on the creation of the world and God’s seventh day rest. As such, the day of rest is seen as part of the divine rhythm to the natural world. The Sabbath is built into creation, and humanity is invited to live in a way that mirrors God’s own life and rest. But in Deuteronomy, the referent from which Sabbath observance flows is the Exodus.[4] Because God delivers his people from their ceaseless labor as slaves, they are invited to rest from their labors as a reminder of his deliverance.[5] Furthermore, because they have been delivered from their slavery, they too must extend this rest those who serve them as well, from their slaves – regardless of gender,[6] to their animals, and even to non-Israelite immigrants living among them in their land.

When framed in this way, the traditional division of the commandments shifts in its Deuteronomic setting. The first three commandments still center on the relationship between humanity and God, but the Sabbath commandment becomes one of the laws meant to govern relationships among people.[7] Observing the Sabbath becomes a means by which God’s people participate in his mission by inviting “Jew and Gentile, slave and free, male and female into the common life of God’s redeeming providence.”[8] Like the commands to not kill and not steal, keeping the Sabbath functions to bring about a more just and equal community for all. Brueggemann notes that this is especially apparent in Deuteronomy’s addition of the words “that they may rest like you” (“may rest as well as you” NRSV), to which he adds:

Sabbath is the great day of equality when all are equally at rest. Not all are equal in production. Some perform much more efficiently than others. Not all are equal in consumption. Some have greater access to consumer goods. In a society defined by production and consumption, there are huge gradations of performance and, therefore, of worth and significance. In such a social system everyone is coerced to perform better – produce more, consume more – be a good shopper! Such valuing, of course, creates ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots,’ significant and insignificant, rich and poor, people with access and people denied access. But Sabbath breaks that gradation caused by coercion.[9]

Preaching the Sabbath command, from either Exodus or Deuteronomy, is no easy task. Part of the difficulty lies in moving hearers of the text beyond simple, preconceived notions about what keeping this commandment looks like. Some may feel like just attending church services accomplishes keeping the Sabbath. Others may long for a return to the days gone by of more rigorous and extensive “blue laws” restricting what can and cannot legally take place on Sunday. But the preacher of this text would do well to invite her congregation to boldly use their imagination in fulfilling the call to observe the Sabbath. In its unique setting within Deuteronomy, maybe observing this commandment is less about us trying not to break the command. Maybe our call to keep the Sabbath is more about creatively looking for ways to not only rest ourselves, but also find ways for others in society to share in God’s rest.

Think about it this way: the average American church-goer “rests” on Sunday by indulging in a meal at a restaurant following the conclusion of the worship service (or at least that is the standing joke about many congregations). But who among us gives any concern to ensuring those working at such restaurants have the same opportunity to share in God’s rest as well? Sunday rest exists as a privilege for those with the socio-economic advantage to not go to work on this day of the week. Yet for the working poor and economically disadvantaged, such rest rarely (if ever) becomes a reality. Our Sabbaths might be much more holy if we spent less effort on not working ourselves and found ways to bless others as we enable them to share in God’s rest.

For more resources on Sabbath keeping and its relevance for today, an abundance of literature has been produced lately. The preacher looking to dig deeper into this subject matter beyond this Sunday’s lectionary reading may wish to check out the following: Walter Brueggemann’s Sabbath as Resistance: Saying No to the Culture of Now, A. J. Swoboda’s Subversive Sabbath: The Surprising Power of Rest in a Nonstop World, Dan B. Allender’s Sabbath in the Ancient Practices Series, Marva J. Dawn’s Keeping the Sabbath Wholly: Ceasing, Resting, Embracing, Feasting, and Norman Wirzba’s Living the Sabbath: Discovering the Rhythms of Rest and Delight. From a Jewish perspective, there is Abraham Joshua Heschel’s The Sabbath. Also, I highly recommend viewing some of the historic Protestant catechisms of the church to see their teachings on the Sabbath commandment, such as the Heidelberg Catechism (1563), Westminister Confession of Faith’s Shorter and Longer Catechisms (1646), and Martin Luther’s Large and Small Catechisms (1529).

Even as you faithfully prepare to preach this week, may God bless you with his Sabbath rest!

[1] James Robson, “The Literary Composition of Deuteronomy,” in Interpreting Deuteronomy: Issues and Approaches, eds. David G. Firth, Philip S. Johnston, (Downers Grove, IL: Inter-Varsity Press, 2012), 35.

[2] A. J. Swodoba, Subversive Sabbath (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2018), 6.

[3] Walter Brueggemann, Deuteronomy (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 2001), 69.

[4] Deanna Thompson, Deuteronomy: A Theological Commentary on the Bible (Louisville, KY: Westminster John knox Press, 2014), 62.

[5] Patrick Miller, Deuteronomy (Louisville, KY: Westminster John knox Press, 1990), 81.

[6] Tikva Frymer-Kensky notes that “the inclusion of the daughter and the female slave shows that women are to stop working on the Sabbath… The omission of the phrase ‘and your wife’ shows that the ‘you’ that the law addresses included both women and men, each treated as a separate moral agent,” in “Deuteronomy,” The Women’s Bible Commentary, ed. Carol A Newsom and Sharon H. Ringe (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1998), 54.

[7] Daniel Block, Deuteronomy (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2012), 165.

[8] Telford Work, Deuteronomy (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2009), 81.

[9] Walter Brueggemann, Sabbath as Resistance: Saying No to the Culture of Now (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2014), 40. For Brueggemann’s thoughts on Sabbath as specifically noted in the entire book of Deuteronomy, see chapter 3, “Resistance to Coercion.”

About the Contributor

Kristopher Adams

Pastor, First Church of the Nazarene, Elizabeth City, NC