May 31, 2026 · Rev. Susan Moran · Exodus 20:1-17
Rev. Susan Moran calls the fourth commandment, to honor the Sabbath, the hardest of all, especially for activists and list-makers. With help from Thomas Merton and Wayne Muller, the sermon argues that rest is the root of the wisdom our work needs, and offers two places to start: give yourself more time than you need, and take a walk.
Transcript
Thank you Rick. Let's agree that none of them are easy. All of the commandments are the stuff of sermons and stories, legends of horror and hardship and glory.
This morning, I want to focus on the fourth commandment. Do you remember what that one was? It is simple and straightforward. Honor the Sabbath. Just as God rested on the seventh day. The God of Mount Sinai required of his people that they too shall rest. God was quite specific about this. Not only are we. And by that he meant the men required to rest, but so is everyone in your family, as well as your servants, your animals, even the stranger or sojourner who shows up at your house.
Now, some of you, like me, may remember when our society made it easier to set aside Sunday as a day of Sabbath. There were no stores open. There was no children's sports games. My family went to the Unitarian church and came home to find an array of food brought by my grandparents. It was a time to be with your family and not your friends. Although friends were included at dinner from time to time, honor the Sabbath.
Now, Sunday was indeed a family day for me, but I don't remember much rest at my house When I was in my twenties, I dated a man who visited us in Maine when we were all still living under one roof. On day three, he asked me, when do you people sit down? I was thinking we had done a lot of sitting. We sat on the sailboat. We sat on the motorboat. We sat on the bench in between playing tennis. We sat while working on a jigsaw puzzle. I had no idea what he was talking about. Raised by two triple A personalities, it took me a very long time to even attempt to know what rest and honoring the Sabbath means.
Shabbat, as Jewish people call the Sabbath, is made holy or set aside from other days according to the Torah, at the creation of the world. God rested on the seventh day and hallowed. It is what it says in Genesis. Author Arthur Green explains, this is Tora's way of saying that human life is not even conceivable without a day of rest. It was there from the outset. Those of us who believe in evolution, which I hope is all of us gathered here know that the origins of life took millions of years. It's taken millions of years for the earth to be populated by plants and animals, and then us. And nature, by definition, includes long periods of dormancy.
Still, to honor the Sabbath requires a mindset that is contrary to the times we live in. Times are very hard right now for so many of us. With this current administration, one often feels dizzy with what to do, which protests to attend. I hope everyone gets to the Gloucester UU tonight. There's always one more chore to accomplish. I love to make lists, but mostly I love checking the list off. No matter who we are and what we do, regular intervals of Sabbath of true rest is vital.
Liberal Christian denominations like the UCC, are known for focus on social justice and like the US, I love that so many of us engage in that kind of work. But we must be careful. Trappist monk Thomas Merton tells us there is a pervasive form of contemporary violence to which the idealist most easily succumbs. Activism and overwork, the rush and pressure of modern life are a form perhaps the most common form of its innate violence. To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns. To surrender to too many demands. To commit oneself to too many projects. To want to help everyone in everything is to succumb to violence. The frenzy of our activism neutralizes our work for peace. As a colleague of mine said, never has she seen people behave more badly than at a conference about peace. This destroys our inner capacity for peace, Merton goes on to say. It destroys the fruitfulness of our own work because it kills the root of inner wisdom, which makes work fruitful.
Remembering the Sabbath puts an end to the frenzy. It allows this inner wisdom to take hold. Without it, we are operating on empty. If you are not filled up, you cannot have anything to give.
Remembering the Sabbath does not necessarily mean sitting at home all day on a Sunday or any other day. We can have a Sabbath hour. We can have a Sabbath afternoon. It is the intention, with how we spend time and our attention to the present moment that matters. One does not need to fast for days and meditate for hours at a time to experience the sense of sublime mystery which constantly envelops us. All one needs to do is notice. If even for a brief moment, a blossoming tree, a forest flooded with autumn colors, an infant smiling Sabbath is more than an absence of work.
Wayne Mueller reminds us it is not just a day off When we catch up on TV or errands. It is the presence of something that arises when we consecrate a period of time to listen to what is most deeply beautiful. Nourishing. True. The invitation to rest is rooted in an undeniable spiritual gravity that allows all things at rest to settle, to find their place. There comes a moment in our striving when more effort actually becomes counterproductive. When our frantic busyness only muddies the waters of our wisdom and understanding.
So how do we remember the Sabbath? On a practical level for so many of us, even those of us who are retired. There seems to be a frantic pace to our lives, and a sense that we cannot stop doing what needs to be done. This can be exhausting.
I have found that remembering rest and restoration can be made easier if we follow a couple of suggestions that believe me, I have learned the hard way. In whatever activity we are engaged in, let's give ourselves ample time to do it. Rushing kills the spirit and makes us all a little crazy. You know this whenever you go down. One twenty eight. If we have chores to do and places to go, let's give ourselves more time than we think we need. This will allow us to stay calm when the cars in front of us are all stopped because of the beach traffic or construction. This feeling of having all the time in the world gives us a sense of spaciousness and abundance that is sorely missing from so many lives. This is true for any age person. When we give ourselves time, we find it is more precious than all the world's gold.
My second suggestion is to walk. To walk without destination, right in the middle of a work day. Right after lunch, before breakfast. There is really never a bad time to take a walk. No matter how busy we feel, we can spare ten to twenty minutes. Put on some decent shoes and leave where you are. When we return, chances are we will be less anxious, more focused and have more energy to address what actually needs to be done on a walk. We may notice things that rush by us when we're in the car. On a walk, we may have thoughts and feelings arise that were forced over there during our busyness.
Indeed, perhaps one reason we don't take time for Sabbath is because we don't want to sit with our feelings. Our willingness to rest depends on what we believe we will find there. I believe many of us do not honor this commandment because we are scared of what emerges in the silence. Scared of the feelings that might arise. Scared of our guilt. Of our shame. Of the emptiness at the heart of our being.
Again, please hear from Wayne Mueller, one of my favorite teachers of the spirit. This is one of our fears of quiet. If we stop and listen, we will hear this emptiness. If we worry we are not good or whole inside, we will be reluctant to stop and rest. Afraid we will find that lurking emptiness, a terrible aching void with nothing to fill it, as if it will corrode and destroy us. But this emptiness has nothing to do with our value or our worth. All life has emptiness at its core. It is the quiet, hollow reed through which the wind of God blows and makes the music that is our life. Without that emptiness, we are clogged and unable to give birth to music, love, kindness. Let me say part of that again. All life has emptiness at its core. It is the hollow read through which the wind of God blows and makes the music that is our life.
Kabir put it this way when the guest is being searched for, it is the intensity of the longing for the guest that does all the work. Do not fear your longings. But searching for wholeness or God or spirit. It can be lonely. An emptiness can feel really terrible. To sit with the silence of ourselves. To endure the feelings of emptiness is so much more difficult to practice than not rushing or taking a walk around the quarry.
It is countercultural to admit weakness or vulnerability. People still do not know how to ask for help. We tamp down our fears and our sorrows in busyness and denial. But at some point, our fear of finding out about ourselves might be overridden by courage and desperation to work through that fear or that sorrow. If we are quiet, we may begin this work.
At this moment in our country, there is so much happening that makes us sad, angry, confused. Regardless of what's happening in our personal lives, which always present challenges of one kind or another. Our country is beset with a host of very serious problems. Remembering the Sabbath, getting the rest and renewal we need is particularly important when we are bombarded on a daily basis with the news of violence, of death, of greed. Our activism, our public service, our personal goals. All of these require Sabbath.
I'm going to Maine in a couple of days, and it will be my goal to honor the Sabbath on a daily basis. I am hoping at least to feel less shame about the need for Sabbath this summer. hopefully approaches. Let's take long walks. Noticing the beauty around us. Let's feel our feelings and perhaps share them with someone we trust. This will allow us to be more productive and feel more connected to ourselves and one another.
Remembering the Sabbath is not a luxury or the province of the privilege. It is a necessity for a good and purposeful life. It's built into humanity right from the beginning. Thomas Merton tells us, you do not need to know precisely what is happening or exactly where it is all going. What you need is to recognize the possibilities and challenges offered by the present moment, and to embrace them with courage, faith and hope.
I've had a period where three good friends died in the last two months, and it triggered some PTSD from the sudden death of my husband. And I cried and I cried and I cried, but I knew that there would be an end. And that crying is cleansing. It will not last forever. Remember the Sabbath. We will find that it provides us with peace, with energy, and more love. May it be so now and always. Blessed be.