Dear ALC Family,
Happy Labor Day weekend. It seems fitting that we are concluding this journey through the
book, “Sabbath as Resistance: Saying NO to the CULTURE OF NOW,” with a Sabbath rest for the
congregation. As shared earlier in the summer, we decided to have a “no labor for Labor Day”
weekend as a way to cut expenses for our congregation.
My hope is that in place of worship in the church this week, we find ways to worship within
our homes and communities. Maybe a visit to a farmer’s market or a walk in the hills or in your
neighborhood would be a way to connect with God and place.
If you choose to venture out on Sunday (or any day), I and the Transition Team invite you to ask those you encounter a few questions.
Are they familiar with ALC? Do they participate in a worshipping community? What
needs do they see in the neighborhood? What would they like to see in a church? Or…what
would you like to know?
In the final chapter of the book, Walter Brueggemann explores the 10th Commandment as it
relates to the 4th Commandment. His thoughts are very similar to Martin Luther’s as expressed
in the Small Catechism.
The Tenth Commandment
You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or male or female slave, or ox,
or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.
What is this? or What does this mean? We are to fear and love God, so that we do not entice, force, or steal away from our neighbors their spouses, household workers, or livestock,
but instead urge them to stay and fulfill their responsibilities to our neighbors.
Brueggemann explains, “Coveting is understood, in biblical tradition, as including both an
attitude of craving and forceful action to secure what is craved.”
I appreciate this explanation because I hadn’t thought about the “forceful action” part. He then takes the reader through (lots of) scripture that works as a commentary on the commandment. His final reference is Psalm 73. I invite you to go to your bible and read it. It’s a description of life that seems to be “ok” until the psalmist realizes that the things of this world have no “staying power.” What does have staying power is God’s loving presence.
Brueggemann describes this presence in a story that he uses to conclude this helpful little book:
I recently heard a Lutheran pastor describe a woman who had walked seven hundred miles as a
refugee to escape a violent war and was finally able to cross a national boundary out of the war
zone. She walked all that way and brought with her an eight-year-old girl, who walked beside
her. For seven hundred miles, the child held her hand tightly. When they reached the safety, the
girl loosened her grip, and the woman looked at her hand. It was raw and bloody with an open
wound, because the little girl had held on tightly in her fearfulness. It is like that in Psalm 73:23
(Nevertheless I am continually with you; you hold my right hand).
This in no casual hand-holding. This is a life-or-death grip that does not let go.
“No Sabbath” existence imagines getting through on our own surrounded by commodities to
accumulate and before which we bow down. But a commodity cannot hold one’s hand. Only
late does the psalmist come to know otherwise. Only late may we also come to know. We
may come to know, but likely not without Sabbath, a rest rooted in God’s own restfulness and
extended to our neighbors who also must rest. We, with our hurts, fears, and exhaustion, are left restless until then.
I think these are my favorite paragraphs in the book! See you all on September 8, it’s a special
God’s Work Our Hands Sunday.
Peace in Christ,
Pastor Nancy
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