Have you ever woken up from an afternoon nap and forget what year it is? I know there are a lot of people who are not able to or don’t want to waste their day with a nap. But for me, I look forward to my Sunday afternoon post-church nap every Monday morning. In a world of bust and boom markets, student loan debt, deforestation, #girlboss, and mommy bloggers, the glorification of busy and toxic capitalism has led to the oppression of humanity and nature. We have forgotten our identity and our relationship with the earth. Rest is a sacred tool of liberation, modeled by God in the last day of creation.
In the first creation story, God performs an impressive amount of work in six days. God speaks light into existence, God separates sky and waters, God gathers water in order to make land, God commands plants and animals to grow and produce. Most importantly, God forms humankind in God’s own image. Finally, on the seventh and last day, God rested. According to Strong’s Concordance, the word rest in the original Hebrew is translated to Shabath, meaning, “To cease, desist, rest”. God ceased and desist from work, and rested while admiring the goodness of creation. This rest became sacred, sanctified, set apart from all of the other days. It marked the completion of a very busy work week.
Fast forward to the Exodus story. God’s people become enslaved for generations by the Egyptians, working night and day in the fields and homes. Their whole identity and existence was based on their productivity and what they did for work. Part of being a free person means that you have the choice to rest, and the Israelites did not have such privilege. The Israelites were under the oppression of one of the most influential civilizations in history, and they cried out for deliverance. God heard their cries and liberated the Israelites from slavery and oppression through Moses.
Just because you take the people out of Egypt, doesn’t mean you take the Egypt out of the people. It took quite some time for God to teach the Israelites how to be human again, after generations of not being treated as such. The Law given from God to Moses was an act of grace. The law taught the Israelites how to please God (no guessing games like pagans). The law also showed them how to treat others with dignity.This includes keeping the sabbath day holy.
“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 NSRV)
God spoke to Moses and commanded that the seventh day of the week to be a day of rest, modeling what God did in creation. They had to learn how to be a human being, not a human doing. This is not just limited to the Israelites, but the sabbath is extended to people who are enslaved (because they were once enslaved and now free), and to the foreigners (because they were once living in foreign land). Rest restores one’s view of humanity and affirms one’s identity as a child of God, not by your ability to produce or what you can get others to produce for you.
Rest helps us to maintain a proper relationship with the earth. Notice that when God was resting, the rest of creation did not stop growing or producing. God liberated creation to flourish by setting it into motion as it is naturally intended. In God’s commandment to keep the sabbath holy, God not only wants rest for the Israelites, but for the earth, and livestock.
“…but the seventh year you shall let it rest and lie fallow, so that the poor of your people may eat; and what they leave the wild animals may eat. You shall do the same with your vineyard, and with your olive orchard” (Exodus 23:11 NRSV).
This rhythm of rest and work sets the framework for sustainable farming practices, limits deforestation, and prevents over hunting. Through the sabbath, God commands that the land and other ecological resources are not to be exploited, because everything God creates is worthy of rest and treated with honor. This practice resists one of the trappings of capitalism which exploits the earth’s resources.
Since God modeled sacred rest through the sabbath on the last day of creation, we are commanded to not only see ourselves as valued outside of our work, but to also see all people and all of creation as worthy of honor and rest. This is counter-cultural to the world we are experiencing today. Therefore, rest is a tool of liberation from oppression. We live in a society which demands us to work in order to survive. Toxic capitalism causes us to pay as little as possible for the most work to be done. As a result, people are in debt, live paycheck to paycheck, and have illnesses related to stress. This is especially harmful for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color who are historically and are presently being marginalized economically. In addition to all of this, the earth is being plundered of its natural resources, causing drought, famine, and other effects of climate change. We have once again become human doings, not human beings.
Rest is a subversive act which undermines the oppression of empire by remembering our identity as children of God, created in the image of the divine. During the Holocaust, Jews were forced into labor camps where they were starved and worked until their bodies failed and then executed. One of the most notorious camps was Auschwitz in Poland. Even though they were enslaved, tortured, and worked to the bone, the Jewish people still found a way to hold on and adapt their religious practices and traditions. This included the Seder during Passover. During the Seder, Rabbi Eliyahu Kitov writes,
“…One is required to recline on a couch, an armchair, or on pillows. This is how royalty and nobility used to eat and on this night the people of Israel are entitled to conduct themselves like royalty…even the most humble or poor Jew, is required to recline at the Seder as if he were a nobleman”.
In Auschwitz, there is a famous gate entrance with the slogan written on it “Arbeit macht frei” meaning, “Work makes one free”. Contrasting this, the Jewish people reclining at the Seder table inside their bunks courageously declare with their resting bodies that they already are free. This is rest as resistance.
Today, we see rest as resistance when we chose to put down our cell phones and walk away from our computers. We return to our humanity when take the time to be embodied individuals who exist outside the internet. Resistance looks like not answering work emails or calls outside of office hours and utilizing all of your vacation days.
Rest is a right and is a justice issue. Our essential workers have been more busy than ever and are risking exposure to the virus daily. There are many people who cannot afford to take a pay cut or take time off work. This is our opportunity to use what privileges we have to advocate for safer working conditions, for mandatory paid family leave, and a higher minimum wage. We must ensure that every human has the opportunity to get adequate sleep and rest for their bodies. Rest is reparations for people who have been oppressed by a system which exploits their labor and degrades their humanity.
Imagine a world where everyone had at least eight hours of sleep. Where everyone’s financial needs are met without having to work overtime and all are able to take over two weeks of vacation in a year. Imagine a world in which we farm sustainably, consume less, and go outside more. A world where we have time to daydream, move slowly, and tend to ourselves and our relationships. I believe this is what the kingdom of God is like…and by the grace of God, I believe we can experience this rest if we are willing.
Therefore, children of God…
May you begin from a place of rest, instead of working to rest.
May you remember that you are a human being, not a human doing.
May you resist the temptation to consume and exploit.
May you declare with your resting body that you are already free.
And May you be like the liberating creator God, and take a nap.
Amen.