4th Sunday of Lent, B March 10, 2024
Fr. Alexander Albert St. John the Evangelist, Jeanerette
From about 605 to 535 BC, God’s chosen nation of Israel went through the Babylonian Exile, described in the first reading. Our psalm today is a lament, a song expressing the sorrow the Jews felt when it seemed like God had abandoned. Why, though? Why did God allow the Babylonians – a pagan empire – to conquer Jerusalem, destroy the temple, and exile His people to a foreign land? [ ] Sin, obviously.
God promises never to abandon his people. Yet, he also promised to punish them if they broke the covenant. That’s exactly what they did. Israel sinned, “added infidelity to infidelity.” But which sins? What specific choices prompted God to allow his own house to be destroyed? All sin is bad, but we see three things mentioned: the abominations of the nations, polluting the Lord’s temple, and not honoring the sabbath.
Yes, not resting on the Sabbath really is one of the reasons God himself lists for the exile. The prophet Jeremiah says right here: “Until the land has retrieved its lost sabbaths, during all the time it lies waste it shall have rest while seventy years are fulfilled.” Almost a 1000 years before this moment – as we heard last week – God established his covenant with Israel through Moses, giving the 10 Commandments. One of them was to rest on the Sabbath day. That means that, for 52 days out of each year, they were supposed to rest, letting even their land and animals rest too. Over 1000 years at 52 days per year comes out to about 140 years’ worth of sabbath rests. Jeremiah says the land “lost” 70 years of rest. Not that the land is literally tired… it’s a metaphor for the Israelites breaking the 3rd commandment 50% of the time.
Now, maybe breaking the 10 commandments half of the time doesn’t sound so bad to you. But it’s a covenant! Let’s put it like this. If you caught your spouse cheating on you, would it really help much for them to say “well, I only cheated half the time!” Hardly!
God takes this seriously. As I said last week, Jesus is not focused on nitpicky technicalities. He’s clear that the sabbath is for man, not man for the sabbath. Necessity, reasonable adjustments, charity, lack of other options – these factors all matter in how you observe the sabbath. But you do still need to observe it. God tore down his own temple in part because the Jews outright ignored this command. We have Jesus! We have even less excuse than the Jews. Don’t think we get a pass on this.
But why? Why does God care so much about us resting on the sabbath? In part because of the other two sins that led to the Babylonian exile. Polluting the temple, for example. Last week, Jesus turned over tables because they were “polluting the temple.” It was even worse before the exile. Time and space are connected. If we’re willing to disrespect God’s time, we are also willing to disrespect his space.
It’s no accident that people started making ugly churches around the same time they started working more on Sundays. It’s no accident that people literally tore beautiful things out of the Churches at the same time they started tearing away their rest on the weekend. Human beings need times and places that are set apart. It’s why we don’t do certain things inside a Church. I imagine it would horrify at least some of you if I tried to use the Church building as a skate park on weekdays or walked down the street sipping rum and coke out of the chalice used for Mass.
Disrespect of sacred time leads to disrespect of sacred places leads to disrespect of sacred things leads to disrespect of sacred people. We’re all sacred, made in God’s image. Note that “adult entertainment” also increased with the ugly churches and busy Sundays. The Sabbath is for us… for us to remember who God is and who we are.
All of this ties into the worst sin, the first reason given for the exile: “practicing all the abominations of the nations.” Translation: Idolatry, debauchery, and murder. I already mentioned the rise in lust, but you know what else got really popular at the same time that people stating working more on Sundays and uglifying churches? Child Sacrifice. Sure, some hide it behind the name “choice,” but there are groups of people literally claiming that abortion is a “sacrament” in their religion in hopes of keeping or making it legal in their state. It’s all tied to idolatry. For most people, it is a subtle, hidden idolatry – worshipping themselves, money, power, or popularity. Yet, it’s not hard now to find ancestor and nature worship, witchcraft, rituals of Norse gods like Odin and Thor, and religions built around aliens and UFOs.
In short, the Israelites were exiled because they broke the first commandment and worshipped other gods. One of the main reasons they got to the point of being willing to break that commandment was because they so often broke the command to keep holy the Sabbath. All the commandments hang together, but the 3rd is a powerful lynchpin because it very directly sets us apart from the world. It allows us to experience the fact that we’re set apart. Without it, we inevitably end up in exile. Maybe we won’t be literally taken to a foreign country, but we will find ourselves held hostage by a culture that not only doesn’t share our faith, but actively prevents us from practicing it. Does that sound familiar to you? A culture that goes from serving God to ignore God to persecuting those who follow God?
The Sabbath rest gives us the time and space to look at our lives in the light of God’s plan. And that light is the real reason this is so important. That “light came into the world” in the birth of Jesus Christ. Although he transformed the sabbath and moved it to Sunday, he nonetheless solemnly commands us to “do this in memory of me.” That light dies and rises from the dead. But why wait? Why die on Friday, but only rise on Sunday? Why do nothing on Holy Saturday? Because it’s the sabbath and the sabbath is meant for rest. Do you get that? Do you feel how significant that is? The most important historical event in the universe is Jesus’ death and resurrection, and he puts the Sabbath rest smack in the middle of it. It’s not an extra, an optional add-on to follow if you feel like it. It’s an integral part of your very salvation.
“But people preferred darkness to light, because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come toward the light, so that his works might not be exposed.” To rest, to really set aside worldly concerns allows us to step into the light. It’s why people fear silence, why people make themselves busier even when they complain they are too busy. This is why rest, real rest, is actually quite hard. To truly rest requires a choice to simply be in the light. This is done through worship, through prayer, through reflective engagement with truth, goodness, and beauty. It’s done through a healthy, virtuous enjoyment of good things given us by God. It is done through the choice to admit your limits, put down your efforts to do it yourself, and simply trust. It’s why adoration – doing nothing in God’s presence – is so highly encouraged. Even if these things cannot always be on Sunday – though you really should prioritize that – they can be built into your life each and every week, even daily.
This kind of resting in the light exposes your heart and mind… it reveals to you your own intentions, exposes your faults, and questions your integrity. We run from Sabbath rest because maybe if we work enough and distract ourselves enough, we won’t notice just how in love we are with sin and how far we are from God. But we can’t hide forever. Either we learn to rest in the light… or we’ll be dragged into exile.