Narrative Lectionary Key Verse for Today
“Observe the sabbath day and keep it holy, as the Lord your God commanded you.”
NL Daily Devotion for Sunday, August 20, 2023
by Madison L. Johnston, Clergy Stuff
Main Idea: Rest is an act of witness to the fullness, liberation, and love of a life with God.
Have you ever noticed that the Third Commandment isn’t a commandment to rest? It’s a commandment to observe a time of rest. To differentiate and keep holy a time of rest. That’s a subtle distinction, but very important, because it tells us why rest matters so much: because rest is about remembering the origins of our faith story. Rest is about resisting the people and the powers that have oppressed us. Harmed us. Gotten in the way of our thriving. Rest is about recentering ourselves in the gift of liberation—delighting in the gift of liberation—that comes directly and solely from God.
Our Deuteronomy passage very explicitly names the long period of enslavement in Israel’s history as it calls God’s people to remember rest. It is telling God’s people to act in a way that flies in the face of the oppression they and their ancestors used to know as normal. It’s almost like, through the 10 Commandments, God is asking God’s people to live into their fullest selves—their most free and most loved selves.
Our passage from the Gospel of Matthew shows Jesus asking God’s people to go one step further and to remember that fullness and love come straight from the divine. God is the giver of fullness. God is the giver of freedom. God is the giver of love. God is the active agent in times of rest, removing heavy burdens and offering relief in their place.
When we remember rest, we give ourselves a chance to deny and defy the things that try to separate us from God—to resist them. When we remember rest, we testify. When we remember rest, we witness.
