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I am writing this from a noisy coffee shop and if what I am about to say makes little sense, let’s blame it on that. I usually write in the quiet of my breakfast nook, but that was not the will of the universe for today. Somewhere around five in the morning a big tree fell a couple of houses down the street from us and knocked out our power line. The good news is that I didn’t even notice till six-thirty when I woke up and couldn’t find the bathroom. (Like where did it disappear to? Isn’t there usually a nightlight?) More good news: the tree did not fall on our house. I’m sure you all remember what fun that was last January. (If not, here let me alert you again.) But the bad news is that today I will not get done what I thought I was going to get done and I am all jittery inside.
Of course, the “all jittery inside” could be due to the fact I’ve had a bit too much caffeine after sitting in a coffee shop for three hours straight now holding an electrical outlet hostage. But equally likely, it is because I know I am preparing to do battle this evening with my evil archnemesis: Unproductivity. I’m going to go home to a dark house in a little bit minus that lovely buzz I enjoy when my work goal for the day has been met. It’s better than caffeine, and it’s not going to happen. Sigh.
But if this year has tried to teach me anything (emphasis on tried), it is to stop calling Unproductivity my archnemesis (especially if I’d like to stop being all jittery inside all the time) and to recognize that unproductivity is not (always) a bad thing. Ironically, the scripture reflection I’d imagined myself working on today has to do with that passage from Matthew 12 in which Jesus calls himself the “Lord of the Sabbath”—Lord of the Day of Unproductivity.
The Gospels give us many ways of pondering the mystery of who Jesus is. He is Messiah, Prince of Peace, Light of the World. He is Good Shepherd. For this past Sunday, I wrote about the image of Jesus as the True Vine. There are many more titles that could be included in this litany. But I realize that as I come up on the one-year anniversary of my brain seizure (October 7) and its subsequent diagnosis, the face of Jesus that I’ve come to know in a new way this year is precisely that: Lord of the Sabbath.
It’s not a name I’d ever given much thought to before. I’d known Sabbath was supposed to be a day of rest. I’d even known sabbatical as (theoretically) a year of rest. I never honored either of those particularly well. But for our Jewish ancestors in faith, Sabbath always had much deeper meaning and was meant to be taken far more seriously than I ever took it.
Each week Sabbath was a day set apart. The six days of creation in Genesis leading up to the seventh were described as “good”, even “very good”, but only Sabbath—the seventh day—was described as “holy”, meaning set apart from the remainder of the week as something to be honored. This was because Sabbath was the “end” of the week, not only in the sense that it was the week’s last day, but that it was the week’s purpose. A reminder of the purpose of time itself. The well-known 20th century Jewish rabbi Abraham Heschel reminds us in his classic book The Sabbath, that the Hebrew word for rest—menuha—means far more than what we understand in English. It is peace, wholeness, satisfaction. It is the harmony God has always intended our planet to enjoy from the beginning.
Over the centuries, Sabbath eventually became one of the treasured names of God, because ultimately life with God is the purpose of creation. God is where all of time is headed toward. In Matthew’s Gospel, when Jesus claims to be “Lord of the Sabbath” you can see why it was a controversial move. He was claiming that he is the rest and wholeness we long for. He is our peace. He is our end represented not in time but in a person. He is God.
But it feels controversial to me for slightly different reasons. It is because I have very little practice welcoming Sabbath. I have lots of practice trying to work and be productive for six days each week and then I see the seventh as an extra bonus time to get just a little more ahead on where I want to be before the next week starts. The idea of napping on Sabbath is a subtle form of torture. And on days like today, where the possibility of Sabbath time springs itself out of the closet without warning, everything feels particularly unjust. I’m going to need lots of Sunday afternoons to feel like I am caught up to where I should have been because of this unexpected one. It’s simply dreadful.
Except when it doesn’t have to be. Which is something I am slowly learning this year (emphasis on slowly). It has to do with the gradual dawning that this day is whole already whether I ever get a darn thing done with it, because I am whole already without needing to do anything at all. Peace is not dependent on accomplishment. And Sabbath isn’t something I earn because everything on my list got checked off. It is always a gift. In order to receive it, we need only accept rest/harmony/wholeness as something God wants to give us once a week… and occasionally more. Surprise!
As I come up on this one-year anniversary of my brain seizure there is, honestly, still a piece of me that sighs when I think about this whole shebang. A whole year of feeling so unproductive. I remember the hours spent in the waiting room of the cancer center. The canceling of events. A winter more isolating than Covid. The unknowns of the future. The accursed falling trees. But there is, of course, another way to tell this story of this past year. It was a year set apart as holy. A year to be spent with the Lord of the Sabbath. Depths of feeling I am not usually aware of because for so long there’d been too much going on at the surface. Sweet conversations that wouldn’t otherwise have been had. A couple of naps that weren’t as torturous as imagined. A bird feeder that draws cardinals. Surprisingly deep breaths. Lots of trees that do remain standing tall and rooted. Good food and wine. It’s been a time of learning what Sabbath always wanted for me but I didn’t know how to receive. And so, yes, I do still feel a little sad in the morning, but mostly just grateful. Very grateful. How good the Lord of the Sabbath is and how patient with me even when I am all jittery inside. May the mercy continue.
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Broadcast Update: Here is a link to the very sweet conversation I got to have with my beloved colleague Kevin Baxter who runs the Mary Ann Remick Leadership Program at University of Notre Dame. Kevin has a brand new podcast that is going to be great for those involved in Catholic education leadership called “Now. Here. This.”—a brilliant title that I should probably adopt as the motto for my own life. I was his first guest so you will not have a hard time finding my episode, but you might want to subscribe for future ones!
Health Update: I have my next MRI on Thursday, October 8 at noon. Prayers that morning are especially welcome. Small, funny, specific prayer request: that I don’t sneeze. I am having lots of fall allergies of late and I have a feeling that raucous sneezing inside the machine would cause more problems than any of us want. Will find out what the results are the following week after they get run by “the tumor board.” I’ll post when I have more information.
Photo Credit: Jyoti Sahi