From Jerry Sittser and his book ‘The Will of God as a Way of Life’:
Gordon Dahl once said that most people worship their work, and play at their worship. I know from personal experience that I tend to worship my work, as do many of my colleagues. This commandment challenges our tendency to be workaholics. God commands his people to rest one day a week. Jews rest on the Sabbath, the last day of the week; Christians rest on the Lord’s Day, the first day of the week, which is an appropriate adaptation of this commandment because it is the day that Jesus rose from the dead.
The Old Testament outlines clear reasons why we should obey this commandment. We should obey this commandment because God himself rested after he had created the world.10 If God rested, we should rest. The Sabbath (or Lord’s Day) also reminds us that, as we have been shown mercy, we should extend that mercy to others. The Sabbath encourages holiness of life. As we discipline ourselves to become more holy on the Sabbath, so we will learn to live a more holy life, so we learn to live a more holy life all week long. Finally, the Sabbath is set aside to thank God for his blessings of provision. When we recall God’s generosity, it makes us confident that God will continue to provide, though taking the day off means we might appear to give a competitive advantage to others.
God created us to work. “Six days.” the commandment reads, you shall labor and do all your work,”11 which implies that work has dignity and value. The rule of St. Benedict is right-—idleness really is an enemy of the soul. God wants us to be industrious and creative. He commands us to be stewards and caretakers of the earth. Hard work is God’s idea, whether we build furniture or teach preschool or run a business.
Still, work has limited value. It can accomplish much that is good; but it cannot save us. The fourth commandment is that redemption is a gift, not a reward; a manifestation of God’s grace, not a product of human achievement. No matter how hard we work, it will never be hard enough. Only God can deliver humanity from the bondage of sin, fulfill our deepest longings, and give us true rest.
We enter that rest when we actually force ourselves to do restful things. I challenge students to try to experiment with this commandment. I encourage them to worship on Sunday mornings and then feast with friends in the early afternoon, preparing food together and in a leisurely way. I suggest that they spend the later afternoon reading something fun, like a novel or a Christian classic, or taking a long walk. A few students always take up the challenge. They report back to me from time to time; their reports are invariably the same. “It was so hard,” they say to me. “But it was so good. I didn’t know what a slave I was to work. I didn’t know how much I needed to rest.” ~Jerry Sittser, The Will of God as a Way of Life (Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49539 USA) 71-2
