What can your cat teach you about keeping Sabbath holy?  Most Christians have given up any and all concept of Sabbath, and those who try to keep it are far removed from our Jewish brothers’ and sisters’ understanding of what it means to keep a day “holy.”

John Wesley was no stranger to excuses for ignoring the Sabbath.  In a sermon written in July of 1730, (On the Sabbath), Wesley countered any excuses we might make with a few simple points… Keeping the Sabbath was not only the 4th of the 10 commandments (Exo. 20:8), it was established as a pattern of living from the very dawn of Creation (Gen. 2:3).  Wesley refers to God here as our Creator, our Sanctifier, and our Pattern, and sees Sabbath-keeping as a means of grace where we rest in the goodness of God’s creation, the perfection of God’s new creation through Christ, and therefore become more like God as we imitate God’s pattern.  By taking a weekly day off, the Sabbath-keeper will begin “to make God’s mercy, justice, and holiness the pattern of all his [sic] thoughts, words, and actions.”

But keeping the Sabbath holy means more than not going to school or work on Saturday.  A day is set apart to remind us that we can no more create ourselves than we can sanctify ourselves.  To keep a day holy is to dedicate the entire day to the service of God and therefore, the renewal of the soul.  Christ showed that the Sabbath need not be bound to strict guidelines of what counts as “work,” and so for Christians, keeping the Sabbath can include works of piety and works of mercy that benefit themselves and others for the glory of God.  Christians may also entertain recreation that deepens their devotion to God.

If keeping the Sabbath holy is difficult for Christians because we’re not interested in an entire day without checking our emails or doing just a tiny bit of work, it feels IMPOSSIBLE if you add to it that we shouldn’t make any business transactions on the Sabbath.  You see, it’s not enough that you keep the Sabbath holy for yourself, God has created the Sabbath as a communal experience.  Eating out, shopping, and the like may prove recreational and relaxing for you, but you are depriving another person of their Sabbath by requiring their services on yours.  Watching Netflix for 12 hours may feel recreational to you, but is it deepening your devotion to God?  Signing up for sports teams that practice and compete both days of the weekend may feel recreational, but is it perpetuating the myth that Sabbath doesn’t matter?  If Sabbath is going to become a communal experience again, I think it’s important to put ourselves into communities of people who will keep the Sabbath holy along with us.

Don’t create the excuse that the Sabbath is no longer a particular day, so it doesn’t matter if we spend money or not, if we compete or not.  After all, Jews keep Sabbath on Saturday, Christians (supposedly) on Sunday, and pastors and church workers keep their Sabbath on Mondays or Fridays depending on their schedule.  Sometimes we convince ourselves that we’ve kept Sabbath if we just took a morning “off.”  But I don’t think that we’re really getting it when we start making excuses.  Who can you team up with to keep the same Sabbath holy?  If it’s just you and your family, you will never, ever keep it.

So learn from your cat, who literally takes Sabbath every day.  Learn from your Jewish neighbors and Seventh Day Adventists, read Abraham Heschel’s The Sabbath, that keeping the sabbath holy is definitely WAY more than most of us care to think about.

PS. Even though Wesley is keeping the Sabbath in appropriate ways for a Christian, can you find in the comic all the ways he violates the Jewish keeping of the Sabbath?