Saints and Sinners: Sundays becoming less spiritual
Remember the Sabbath Day, to keep it holy (Exodus 20:8 and Deuteronomy 5:12).
There are several possible reasons why the Sabbath (the word means rest) was instituted in ancient Israel.
It may have been in commemoration of the seventh day of creation when God rested. The Israelites probably did not think of it so much as a holiday in remembrance of the last day of creation as a command to “imitate God.” To rest on the seventh day would be to express this aspect of God’s nature in their own lives.
But this commandment as it is recorded in Deuteronomy suggests the Sabbath was also to be a weekly thanksgiving to God for what he had done in rescuing the Israelites from slavery in Egypt and bringing them to the Promised Land.
Deuteronomy also adds a social and humanitarian motive for keeping the Sabbath. It was less perhaps that the Israelite should rest himself than that he should give rest to others — the hard-worked cattle, the hired hands (“thy manservant and they maidservant”) and the “stranger within they gates.”
A church in Michigan excommunicates members who do not faithfully attend church on Sunday. Harsh as it seems, it has the effect of restoring this neglected commandment to an importance it has unfortunately lost.
We all ought to be concerned about what the exploitation of Sunday by commercialized entertainment (and commercialism, generally) is doing to us. It has given the quest for a good time and the quest for bargains in the store precedence over the cultivation of the spiritual resources by which mankind ultimately lives.
This lack of relaxation in our lives and our frantic misuse of leisure is also, some doctors say, exacting a toll on our heart valves and arteries.
Some critics of the state of modern culture are inclined, moreover, to trace the decline of the arts to “the acceleration of life and the loss of the capacity for rest and reflection and that serenity of spirit, which is the parent of all creativity.”
I predict that before this century is over, we will be commemorating the Sabbath by going to church in the evening, not in the morning. We will have discovered that, psychologically, a morning service is all wrong.
Earlier in the day, our mental faculties are keenest. We are more alert and less likely to accept uncritically what the person speaking has to say.
But when we are tired and the evening shadows have their relaxing effect on us, our minds are more receptive. The artificial darkness and candlelight in some churches can produce the same hypnotic effect. Spiritual truths planted in our minds in such a setting grow better.
“Slowly, through the sleeping hours,” as Robert Schuller reminds us, “these truths will find their way to the hidden hallways of the mind where powerful and silent and unseen forces gather.”
In the meantime, a good exercise for all of us would be to observe an old-fashioned Sunday for a month or so — or longer.
“Sunday used to be a day for having leisurely family dinners after church, getting to know your neighbors or taking an afternoon drive in the country. We got in touch with the values that made our country great and our lives more liveable,” in the words of one woman who looks back wistfully to the old-fashioned Sunday.
Our old-fashioned Sunday may not be exactly like that, but let’s make it a quiet, restful day.
A final thought on the third commandment: Most of us think we have fulfilled the commandment if we have gone to church on Sunday morning. It would be well to consider this commandment requires us to “sanctify the holy day” — not just one hour in the day!
(George Plagenz is a syndicated columnist.)