In some of the first passages in the Bible that we read about sabbath, the idea of sabbath is connected to land. 

• Sabbath was set up by God as a day for those who worked the land to find rest (Exodus 21 and Deuteronomy 15). 
• Sabbath was a day for giving the land a rest (Leviticus 25). 
• And sabbath is for canceling the debts that people racked up relating to the land (Deuteronomy 15). 

Biblical Scholar Walter Brueggemann points out that God’s people still don’t fully understand just how radical sabbath is for people and land (pg. 59). God gave us the sabbath to remind us that our well-being is not dependent upon business (buying and selling things). 

Now this is not how our world operates. We live in a world where money is very important. Money determines where we live, where we go to school, what kind of health care we can get, and many other things. God gave us sabbath to protect us. Walter Brueggeman points out that sabbaths are the only events that prevent the poor from being bought and sold because they stop commerce.

We saw what happens when people are not protected by sabbath when COVID-19 began to sweep through the United States this spring. The people who were impacted first by COVID-19 were the people who had to work the most, Black and Latino people in food production and services, and nursing homes in urban communities. Pray that God would help you see how you can protect those people who need the opportunity for sabbath rest.

Question to Ponder: How can we live in ways that do not demand that people work all the time without receiving a sabbath?

This week’s devotions are adapted from the book, The Land: Place a Gift, Promise, and Challenge in Biblical Faith  by Walter Brueggemann. Fortress Press, Minneapolis. 2002.