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The first thing he noted was that, like so many primitive
life forms, the people of this planet were sun worshipers.
Previous research had indicated that one day in seven was set
aside for the adoration of their god (weather permitting). The
rituals would vary, and each required a different form of dress,
but most all were conducted in the open air.
What the student saw fascinated him. Some creatures
gathered in vast arenas to watch strangely garbed priests perform
elaborate ceremonies involving a ball (which every Martian school
child knows is symbolic of the sun), some strangely-shaped pieces
of wood and certain ritual expressions chanted either by certain
priests (like "STEE-RIKE ONE!") and occasional responses from the
worshipers (like "KILL THE UMPIRE" whatever that means). There
were even appointed times during the service for the worshipers
to rhythmically stand and then quickly sit creating a great human
wave as if to pay homage to some unseen god of the sea (perhaps a
brother or sister to the sun god).
Speaking of the sea, others stripped themselves almost
naked, went down to the shore, and performed their rites there.
Often they would hurl themselves into the waves with frenzied
cries. Many would carry with them, as might be expected, a ball,
this one brightly colored. Then after the ceremonial immersion,
the devotees would anoint themselves with holy oil, stretch out
full length with eyes closed, and present themselves as a soon-to-be-burnt offering to the deity.
Still other earth creatures, no doubt the mystics and
solitaries of their religion, either by themselves or in groups
of two or four dressed in gaily-colored liturgical garments,
traveled to quiet fields for their ritual. There they would
place their ball on the ground, hit it with a long stick, chase
after it, and hit it again until it finally would fall into the
hole of some underground animal. It struck the Martian student
as a really rather strange process because after striking the
ball the worshiper would often chant "GO IN, GO IN," but once it
went in, they would promptly retrieve the ball and repeat the
process all over again.
Another group apparently had blood sacrifice as a part of
their tradition. Thousands gathered in huge sanctuaries, semi-clothed, most sipping a foamy sacramental beverage from shiny
cylindrical containers (which appeared to the Martian, by the
way, to cross all religious lines - all righteous earthlings
seemed to share this practice). This throng would watch their
priests enter large and noisy wheeled cubicles called cars which
they propelled round in circles at terrific speed until one of
the priests would be injured or killed. The worshipers
frequently mimicked the practice outside the sanctuary with their
own cars, running them at high speeds until they dashed
themselves to bits against other cars or stationary objects.
Many, particularly after one of their religious services, would
enter their cars in unison and thus be too closely packed to
move. They would then allow the sun god's rays to beat down on
the metal which then cooked them slowly to death.
Finally, there was a small group of dissenters or heretics
which did not practice sun worship. These could be identified by
their habit of clothing themselves much more soberly and
completely than the sun worshipers. They too gathered in groups
(albeit much SMALLER groups) but they congregated in buildings,
many of which had colored windows which blocked the light making
certain that there would be no temptation toward sun worship. It
was not clear to the student whether these buildings were places
of punishment or not, nor was it clear whether these creatures
had been excommunicated from the larger worship community or were
simply unbelievers. The one thing that was clear was that their
faces and gestures showed none of the joyful religious frenzy
with which the sun worshipers pursued their devotions. The only
conclusion which the Martian felt could be legitimately drawn was
that this poor group was obviously not happy. And so ended one
extra-terrestrial student's adventure.
One is forced to wonder: was the Martian wildly wrong or
wildly right? We would have to admit that his descriptions of
Sunday activities are easily recognized.
To be sure, Americans do think of Sunday as a special day, a
holiday, a "holy" day, a day set apart from the rest of the week.
But no longer is it "holy" or set apart as it was when many of us
were growing up. We heard our preachers solemnly intone the
fourth commandment:
At any rate, those sermons we always heard about keeping the
sabbath were not really about the sabbath - the seventh day,
Saturday - they were talking about Sunday. But was that right?
Nowhere in the Bible is there any instruction for Christians to
consider the Lord's Day as a replacement for the Jewish Sabbath.
The Reformers were clear on that: Luther liked the principle of a
day off each week for rest, refreshment, and worship but said it
did not matter WHICH day; Calvin said, "The Jewish holy day was
abolished...the observance of days among us is a free service and
void of all superstition."(2) Still, we were taught that Sunday
had become the new sabbath anyway. And it resulted in a set of
restrictions being set around Sundays that were almost as bad as
the over-1500 which the Jews had placed around the sabbath.
You have heard about some of those Jewish regulations, no
doubt. For example, under the general law "You shall bear no
burden on the sabbath," the scribes solemnly set down, as a by-law, that while a woman could have a ribbon sewn onto her dress,
it must not be merely pinned on. If it were only pinned, it was
not secure enough to be considered a part of the dress, and in
wearing the ribbon with a pin, she was carrying a burden. Under
the same heading, it was decreed that false teeth were not to be
worn on the Sabbath...they were a burden. I am afraid some
Jewish brothers and sisters looked less than their best on
Synagogue days.
In Mark's gospel, the Pharisees complained to Jesus that his
disciples were gathering corn on the sabbath...reaping.(3) That
was work, a violation of the fourth commandment. But consider
this: a woman was not allowed to use a mirror on the sabbath to
prevent exactly the same sin: reaping. You see, they were
concerned that she would see a gray hair and pull it out, and
pulling out gray hairs was reaping. Crazy. The healing of the
man with the withered hand?(4) Jesus put that in perspective with
his question, "Is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the
sabbath, to save life or to kill?" Yes, healing is work - ask
any nurse or doctor. But...
No wonder Jesus got into trouble. He hated sham and
hypocrisy. He despised DISPLAYS of righteousness. When it came
to the observance of the sabbath, he put everything into
perspective in one sentence: "The sabbath was made for humankind,
and not humankind for the sabbath." All those ridiculous
restrictions had nothing to do with God's intention in giving the
commandment and Jesus knew it. This was social legislation to
guarantee that people would not be overworked. There is nothing
in it that talks about wearing ribbons or false teeth or pulling
gray hairs or even healing; there is nothing in it about going to
church or synagogue; there is nothing in it about avoiding
certain kinds of physical recreation; all it really says is that
there should be a day set apart - kept "holy"...different - for
folks to take a break.
Jesus would probably have gotten into just as much trouble
with church folks through the years. After all, beginning in
about the eighth century, our people began that identification of
the sabbath with Sunday and ended up doing to Sunday almost as
much as the orthodox Jews did, and still do, to Saturday.
For awhile having Sunday thought of as different was easy.
In America, for example, the traditional 11:00 AM worship hour
that many churches still hold to was set to accommodate farmers
who, considering morning chores and travel time by horse and
wagon, could not arrive until that hour. A two-hour service
might be followed by a picnic lunch on the church grounds. Then
a period of Bible study (Sunday School, if you will), another
time of music and worship, a picnic supper, a vesper service, and
finally the long trip home. (For those who keep calling for a
return to the "Old Time Religion," this is what they would have
if they got their way.) Sunday was automatically special because
there was no time for anything but church. Society was geared to
that, so no one planned to conduct business on that day.
Everyone was otherwise occupied.
But as the rural character of the nation changed, as
transportation became more efficient, people had more time to do
things on Sunday beside go to church. Businesses began to
operate since there were opportunities to "make a buck" that had
not existed before. Sports events began to be scheduled on
Sunday afternoons because folks were no longer spending that time
in church.
Of course, there were raised eyebrows among the faithful.
There were attempts to legislate reverence for the Lord's Day
with the enactment of Blue Laws around the nation which tried
(unsuccessfully) to force Christianity on everyone. That should
never have happened because it turned people AWAY from the church
rather than toward it. The English writer John Ruskin said that
Monday morning was the happiest time of the week for him (he is
about the only one I ever heard of being happy on Monday) because
that meant there were six days until the dreaded, miserable
Sunday would come around again.
I know how he felt. As a boy, I was told over and over
again that there were certain things done and not done on
Sundays. "Six days you shall labor and do all your work; but the
seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God." Church and
Sunday School were automatic, of course. But since the Lord's
Day, the new Sabbath supposedly, was a day of rest, other
organized activities were out...no ball games, no shopping, no
picnics at the beach. Sundays were not much fun. Perhaps some
of you experienced the same thing.
By about age four, I began to rebel against the entire
program. My father had a kid sister who was young enough to have
been my sister...she was only eight years older than I.
Occasionally, she would be allowed to visit us where we lived in
Atlantic City from her home in Pennsylvania. On a Sunday
afternoon, we would convince the folks that Dawn and I should be
allowed to go for a stroll on the Boardwalk. We would be
permitted to do so with the proviso that no money be spent.
Well, that was like holding a red flag in front of a bull. We
would get up to the Boardwalk, and immediately I would begin
whining about how much I wanted some ice cream. We walked and I
whined. Finally, she would relent and buy me what I wanted, but
she would sternly say, "Now don't tell your parents about this."
When we got back home, the first thing out of my little mouth was
"Mommy, Daddy, guess what Aunt Dawn told me not to tell you." I
was a delight.
No, I did not like all those restrictions - no one would.
And the older I have gotten, the more I have come to realize
that, as noble in their aim as those regulations might have been,
they were a mistake. No day is made special, set apart, made
"holy," by making it restrictive or unpleasant or boring, by
making it more like hell than heaven. People cannot be made to
enjoy God by forbidding them to enjoy anything else.
Of course, some will object, "How will you get people to
come to church if they do not HAVE to?" Good question. How are
we doing it now? Poorly, obviously. That is why the Martian
would see so many sun worshipers. The answer is not in a
legalistic approach - that does not work. Folks will come to
church when they feel that doing so really does give them a
break, a break from a rat race where it seems that only the rats
ever win, a break from a world that does not care whether I live
or die, a break from a world full of pain and suffering and hate.
Men and women, boys and girls will come when they begin to sense
their need of a loving and gracious God and for the company of
God's people, a God and a people who care when no one else does.
When the churches of this land begin to do a better job of
communicating that rather than making folks feel MORE unwanted
and unloved than they already feel, people will come. You could
not keep them away with clubs.
"Remember the sabbath day and keep it holy...no work...take
a break." This commandment was one of the most gracious gifts
that a loving God could have ever provided. It was as if Yahweh
had created an oasis for Israel in the midst of a week-long
desert. Then a fence was put around it and a sign on the gate
that said, "Use this oasis freely, but leave the desert outside."
For Christians, by tradition Sunday is our little oasis...
our place apart in the noisy din of a hectic week. What will
make the day "holy" for you? Worship? Prayer? Praise? Study?
Cannot go wrong there. Family? Terrific. Recreation? Fine!
The point is that it is UP TO YOU. Rejoice, Beloved, that Jesus
taught that one day in seven was made for you and not you for the
day...a day to take a break. "Remember the sabbath day and keep
it holy...set apart; six days you shall labor and do all your
work, but the seventh day"...ah, the seventh day...is a gracious,
wonderful gift from your lavish, loving Lord.
Let us pray.
O God, we are grateful for a day set apart. But most of all
we are grateful for your Son, our Savior, who came to free us
from the bonds of legalism so that we might know an abundant
life. Forgive us when we fail to communicate that properly and
turn the faith we try to share from good news into bad. Give us
guidance. We pray it in the name of Jesus. Amen!
1. Embellished from a story by Joy Davidman, Smoke on the Mountain, (Philadelphia:
Westminster Press, 1954), pp. 49-51 2. John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 2.8.32, 34 3. Mark 2:23-27 4. Mark 3:1-5
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.
I do not know whether you noticed it, but in that list of
all those who are not supposed to work on the sabbath, there is
no mention of mother. For the one who has had to get the
breakfast, the kids, the dinner, and herself ready to try to make
it to church almost on time, this is hardly a day of no work.
But then, the scripture never said it would be...not for Mom.
The Bible never expects the impossible.
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