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This is one commandment I’ve been re-evaluating lately. If you take what we hear at Church, we keep the Sabbath Day Holy as a time for self-renewal, for sheer obedience, and promised blessings. It’s been interpreted by some as a family day, or a time to just rest. Also, the act of staying away from stores has been described as making sure you don’t force others to work on Sunday. However, I have found that keeping it Holy actually adds to a lot of stress in my life. For example, there are things I can do in my work which can occur on the weekend, which make the week go MUCH smoother. Often it’s computer work that takes two or three hours on a Sunday morning when the kids are sleeping and Church hasn’t started yet — this after I’ve spent Saturday away from work and doing fun or work things with my kids.
Other things involve a short trip to a store, but I can’t do them because they might involve making someone work or changing money. And these are often simple things, like a trip to the Home Depot for a small home repair that takes an hour or so, or a trip to a UPS store to mail off someething to a relative that is urgent (they ship stuff to my house for me to send on).
Personally, I believe the purpose of the Sabbath Day rule is to ensure that people are free to go to Church. Plain and simple. The rest of it — about self-renewal and such is peripheral to that goal (particularly since Church can actually detract from spirituality if lessons are poorly planned etc). I’m starting to think (only tentatively) that as long as I go to Church, hold FHE with my kids at some point during the week, maybe even Sunday, and reduce my work to only a couple hours or so on that day, and devote time to my family in some kind of wholesome, family-centric activity, then I’ve kept the Sabbath Day Holy. Short trips to the store aren’t a big deal if the time is right. Naturally, one tries to do those trips at other times, but sometimes, it doesnt’ work out that way.
Just curious what others think. I know this Sabbath Day rule is one of the more flexible we have in our religion, but I’d like to hear more from others and their thoughts in this forum where people think differently than many — perhaps even reaction to what I’ve written here about my own developing philosophy..
I find keeping the sabbath day holy a commandment that is too easy for Pharisaical interpretation. For instance, a bishop once gave a talk on keeping the sabbath day and gave many examples of things we should not do and the reasons why. One was listening to the radio because if we listen to the radio someone has to work at the radio station. I took it a step farther and reasoned that we couldn’t attend church on Sunday because the police had to work to make sure our streets were safe. I also thought about the electric plant workers ensuring that our buildings have electricity on Sunday. Man was not made for the Sabbath; the Sabbath was made for man. That pretty well sums up how I feel about it. I try to keep it holy and do things differently than I do the rest of the week, but I’m not about to get bogged down in a list of rules.
My philosophy at this point is that: a) It is good and wise to have a day set apart each week to focus on spiritual things that is different from all the rest of the days.
b) There are a number of ways to achieve a sense of spirituality on a Sunday, none of which are actually fretting over a can do/can’t do list. I personally have had some very spiritual connected experiences this summer on Sunday morning bike rides and hikes. I know that flies in the face of conventional LDS cultural wisdom, but I’m just saying what I find.
C) I’m really done worrying about what other people thing, or about what I think other people thing. Okay, that’s easier to say than do, but that is what I am striving for.
To me, if Sunday feels different than other days, it meets the qualification. I can tell the difference, and that’s all that matters. I’m a semi-Sabbatarian, if there is such a thing. I think it’s great to have a day off for everyone, but certain people do need to work, and certain “fun” things shouldn’t be excluded. By the way, it’s difficult if you live on your own IMHO.
hawkgrrrl wrote:To me, if Sunday feels different than other days, it meets the qualification. I can tell the difference, and that’s all that matters.
I had a companion that had a sort of hard time with Sabbath Day withdrawal. As missionaries we did the same things every day both in terms of work and traditionally “spiritual” activities like prayer and scripture study. He explained to me that in his house there was gentle gospel music in the background when he woke up and the family gathered together for the only family breakfast eaten at the dining room table all week. There would be down time reserved for scripture study and contemplation etc. It was more than just church day or family day, it was refuge and respite day from a busy and demanding world.
I have never experienced this kind of Sabbath, maybe I would be bored out of my gourd being deprived of technological connectivity etc. But for this missionary companion the Sabbath did seem to be a special time for self-renewal, family re-investment, and introspection and he missed that.
Here’s my take on the not making people work. When they turn the lights on Sunday morning, they making people work at the Power Company. When you go out in public your causing the following people to work: Hospitals, ambulance drivers, police, gas station attendants. Making phone calls causes even more. TV, radio, the internet. Missionaries calling home for Mother’s Day even causes international work!! IT Professionals and customer service operators, etc…
I’m just having a little fun with this one
I was listening one morning to the radio as a panel of rabbis were discussing sabbath observance, and the hypothetical situation that if you were lost in the desert and became disoriented with time, and had no idea what day it is…how do you keep the commandment? Pretty much, they agreed, it didn’t matter what day it actually was…just start counting and on the 7th day, observe it.
As Ray said, the Sabbath was made for man.
Interestingly, I was just reading with my 12 yr old son this morning about it. We learned that the Church was organized on April 6, 1830…which was a Tuesday. The first services after the church was organized were often held during the week. It slowly became customary to hold the services on Sundays, because most converts to the church were used to Sunday worship from their Protestant background. Sometimes things come from traditions…but they can still be good things and still teach us things that help us respect and honor things beyond ourselves…and that can push us to become better through the observance of man made traditions. Kinda like wearing white shirts. You just gotta stay focused on the meaning behind things.
I’m resurrecting this thread because the “Sunday, lists, and delight” thread is specifically about recent stake trainings. Does anyone have any thoughts about Isaiah 58:13-14? Here’s the NIV version:
Quote:“If you keep your feet from breaking the Sabbath
and from doing as you please on my holy day,
if you call the Sabbath a delight
and the Lord’s holy day honorable,
and if you honor it by not going your own way
and not doing as you please or speaking idle words,
then you will find your joy in the Lord…”
What does it mean to keep “from doing as you please”?And what’s the deal with D&C 59:9-13?:
Quote:And that thou mayest more fully keep thyself unspotted from the world, thou shalt go to the house of prayer and offer up thy sacraments upon my holy day; For verily this is a day appointed unto you to rest from your labors, and to pay thy devotions unto the Most High; Nevertheless thy vows shall be offered up in righteousness on all days and at all times; But remember that on this, the Lord’s day, thou shalt offer thine oblations and thy sacraments unto the Most High, confessing thy sins unto thy brethren, and before the Lord.
And on this day thou shalt do none other thing, only let thy food be prepared with singleness of heart that thy fasting may be perfect, or, in other words, that thy joy may be full.
It seems to say we can do the following andnothingelse: -Offer up sacraments and oblations
-Confess sins
-Prepare food with singleness of heart
Thanks for bumping up this thread, Shawn. It is a topic being discussed right now across the church. It is good to remember good teachings.
But I still look at these scriptures and teachings as advice. Finding what to apply that is meaningful is still our journey.
SilentDawning wrote:Other things involve a short trip to a store, but I can’t do them because they might involve making someone work or changing money.
Can one make a good living as a Shabbos goy in the MorCor? Need to go to the store on the Sabbath but don’t want the guilt? I’ll go to hell for you… and bring you back a cheeseburger. Call me at 1-800-MIRED-OX.
I’m not saying anything new, just repeating. I find the day of the week immaterial. Each individual can chose their day. Of course it’s easier for groups of people to side on one specific day so that they can meet together oft.
Making a day “special” is also open to all kinds of interpretations. If I had my way I wouldn’t go to work or go shopping every single day of the week. Maybe making one day out of the week special for me would mean going on a shopping spree.
Isn’t the Sabbath about making one day distinct from the others such that life doesn’t start to feel like Groundhog Day? To quote Shakira (yes, real spiritual): I don’t know if I’ve lived 10,000 days, or one day 10,000 times. In my mind setting apart one day a week helps stave off the more depressing side of that supposition.
Roy’s comments brought back some memories. Sundays were the most difficult days on the mission. The workload was the exact same as any other day except Sunday was the day where you’d see all the people that you had worked so hard with during the course of the week welsh on their commitment to come to church. It was demotivating to say the least. Preparation day was as close as it came to having a special day on the mission, and in true old school fashion preparation day would begin with sundown on the night before and end on sundown on the day of.
nibbler wrote:Preparation day was as close as it came to having a special day on the mission, and in true old school fashion preparation day would begin with sundown on the night before and end on sundown on the day of.
Now that you mention that, I think I felt the same way. P-Day was the day I recharged my batteries and I remember a few times when P-Day was missed or something like that and it was a tough week the following week.Not to get this too far off topic – but I think we do missionaries and the Sabbath all wrong. Is it not a commandment for them as well? nibbler wrote:
Can one make a good living as a Shabbos goy in the MorCor? Need to go to the store on the Sabbath but don’t want the guilt? I’ll go to hell for you… and bring you back a cheeseburger. Call me at 1-800-MIRED-OX.Love it! You should go into standup comedy Nibbler!!
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