The Word Of Peace
Homiletic Reflections On Peacemaking

Deacon Robert M. Pallotti, D. Min.

9th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B

March 2000

Remember to Keep the Sabbath

As I reflected on the readings of this Sabbath day I was struck by one overpowering image—a person with the ever-present cell phone in the ear. It seems everywhere we go people are talking on their cell phones. I have encountered this phenomenon in many and varied places. Each day I drive to work and see people talking on their cell phones in the car. Eating in a restaurant, I am suddenly jolted by the ring of a cell phone, and then the person next to me engages in a conversation while I’ll trying to eat my fismajig sandwich-- the result is stress and indigestion. These cell phones go off everywhere like crowded theaters, and I have even had the experience of having one go off in the men’s room. What is happening? Is there no time for peace? Is there no time for rest? Where are we going in such a hurry?

The Sabbath was made for humanity! These words of Jesus remind us that God gives us the gift of the Sabbath so that we may rest. But not only that we may rest but that the animals and the creation may rest as well! It is also a time for communal worship that affirms that we stand in God’s presence and God is our presence. It is a reminder that there is more to life than the next appointment, phone call or business deal. There is more to life than our busyness. In fact, the stress level of modern living is manifesting itself in forms of violence that continue to stun this nation.

Is it that we as a culture can no longer relax? Have we a culture that lives a weird kind of death denial by going faster and faster?

In the ancient Near East people would work fifteen straight days without rest. Israel differed from her neighbors by insisting on every seventh day as a day of rest. Not only that, Israel also had the Sabbatical year every seventh year in which the land was to lay fallow and debts were to be forgiven. The central thrust of that year was a restoration of the land and a reminder that creation is on loan to us. It was a reminder that the Lord demands justice and freedom for people and debt release set them free to begin again. It was a reminder that the Lord is the Lord of history—not production, wealth or gold. These things hold true in a special way during this Jubilee year.

What is meant by, "the Sabbath was created for human beings and not human beings for the Sabbath?" Put simply it means we are loved with no bounds by God. God desires our health, freedom and well being. God desires and demands that people be treated humanely and justly. And God reminds us that creation itself needs rest.

These are simple enough truths to understand but harder for the culture to embrace. When profits are more important than the lives and health of people then the Sabbath is not honored. We live in a world where the gap between wealthy and poor nations is growing dangerously wide. In the United States great wealth and power are concentrating into fewer and fewer hands. Today, what matters most is wealth not work. In fact, most people are working longer and harder each week. Many families require two incomes just to make ends meet. Yet we are in the midst of the longest economic boom—so who is really benefiting? A very small amount of people!

The Sabbath was made for the creation and us to rest from work and its impact on the earth. We were to rest from work that ennobled the human spirit that gave one a sense of pride in being able to produce a livelihood for one’s family. Now, even that pride in work is being threatened and attacked. In the book, The Judas Economy: The Triumph of Capitalism over Work, economist Lester Thurow remarks:

There is reluctance to acknowledge that the world has changed profoundly since the 1950’s instead, Americans lash out wildly against the federal government, those deemed lacking in morals, illegals sneaking into the country under the cover of darkness, or welfare matters. Even though they have chosen the wrong targets, their anger is justified: everyday pleasures, such as pride and contentment in one’s job, are slipping away and now often seem unattainable.

Is there a connection with the forgotten Sabbath and the slipping away of the worth of work in our time? A tough question to be sure. And we must look at the fate of the earth as well. The environmental concerns we face and how we deal with them will depend largely on whether or not we recover the Sabbath. The earth is groaning and rebelling against its misuse. Pope John Paul II, in 1990, put it this way:

…Often, the interests of production prevail over concern for the dignity of workers, while economic interests take priority over the good of individuals and over entire peoples.

The Sabbath was made for us to celebrate the love of God for us in God’s eyes. It was mean to celebrate justice and freedom and the integrity of creation. The loss of the Sabbath for our culture is leading to a world that sees the pursuit of wealth more important than the pursuit of the Lord. This pursuit of gold without responsibility is generating a profound human and ecological crisis. Today the Lord summons all believers and humanity itself to retrieve the Sabbath. In the words of William Jennings Bryant:

Having behind us the producing masses of this nation and the world, supported by the commercial interests, the laboring interests and the toilers everywhere, we will answer their demand:

You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns; you shall not crucify humanity upon a cross of gold.

Deacon Robert M. Pallotti, D. Min.
Uploaded March 4, 2000