Observe the sabbath day by keeping it holy, as the Lord your God has commanded you. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God.
—Deuteronomy 5:12–14
Theologian Cindy Lee explains how Moses and the Israelites practiced Sabbath as a liberating rhythm of life:
Work and rest are justice issues that affect our everyday spiritual formation…. We cannot rest well unless we unform our distorted practices of work. We also cannot truly find rest as individuals until all in the community can also find rest. In the Old Testament Scriptures, the commandment to keep the Sabbath was not just an order to rest. Rather, the Sabbath establishes a liberative spiritual practice to address our unjust and unethical systems of work….
The Sabbath laws establish a new rhythm of life for the Israelites after they are freed from Egypt. The Sabbath laws counteract the unjust and abusive economic system of slavery. The way of Sabbath is detailed in the fourth commandment in Deuteronomy 5:12–15….
In this passage, Moses explains to the Israelites that they can rest now because they’ve been saved from the economic oppression of slavery. They no longer have to live according to that violent rhythm of production. Sabbath breaks the nonstop, violent cycle of production and consumption. It breaks our greed by forcing us to stop continually trying to do more and gain more. The Sabbath system is a just and equal system because all—animals, land, landowners, servants, and foreigners—enjoy the same rest. None of us has ever truly experienced a Sabbath, however, because we still live in a world where foreigners, servants, land, and animals do not get sufficient rest. Imagine a world where we all had equal rest.
The healing power of the Sabbath comes when we embrace it as a collective practice:
The Western church has taught Sabbath keeping as an individual practice of taking a day off and missed the understanding of Sabbath as a collective posture that orients us toward a just society where all can find rest. Therefore, even as our individual rest is important, we also need to help others in our communities to rest. Keeping the Sabbath rhythm requires everyone in the community, including those with privilege and power, to participate so that all can rest. The practice of communal rest is meant to train us into a way of living as a society. As someone who is privileged to take days off and go on retreats, I need to look at my community. These are questions I’ve found helpful to ask myself: Who can I free to rest? Who is exhausted? Who is not getting enough rest? And what little part can I do to help lessen their load so they can rest too?
Reference:
Cindy Lee, Our Unforming: De-Westernizing Spiritual Formation (Fortress Press, 2021), 88–91.
Image credit and inspiration: Wei Feng, untitled (detail), 2025, photo, Unsplash. Click here to enlarge image. Like this person in the field, arms unbound and outstretched, we explore the freedom that rises when we support economic justice, no longer tethered to endless and oppressive debt relationships.
Story from Our Community:
Thank you to Randy Woodley’s insights in “A Harmonious Goodness.” We have drifted away from this unified whole and seem to be galloping headlong toward a precipice of nuclear annihilation, climate chaos, shootings, pollution, and disregard for the poor, sick and marginalized. But we have a choice: We don’t have to accept this scenario as an inevitable outcome of human greed and domination. We can choose the way of God’s love, compassion and justice. We can be filled with the Spirit and treat every encounter as an opportunity to share God’s goodness.
—Andy H.
