November 7, 2006

Number 45

 VIEWPOINT

Life Demands Rhythm

Do you remember workaholic Jack? "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy." Playaholic Jack has problems too. "All play and no work means Jack is a lazy, good-for-nothing guy." Surely there is middle ground between frenzied work and habitual laziness, a happy midpoint between diligence and sloth.

The Ten Commandments envision a healthy rhythm between work and rest. "Observe the sabbath day and keep it holy, as the Lord your God commanded you. Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God . . . Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm; therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the sabbath day" (Deuteronomy 5:12-15).

If you are a Bible-reader and this language seems a bit different, it is likely due to the fact that I've quoted not from Exodus 20 but from a later re-statement of the Decalogue. In Exodus, sabbath rest imitates God's own after his creative labor. A second reason for the same command is given in this passage.

When the Israelites were enslaved in Egypt , they experienced work not as joy or partnership with God but as cruelty and coercion. They were slaves! The value of their work to them was negligible. It kept them from being beaten – sometimes. It let them stay alive – as if slavery is much of a life.

Believe it or not, your work is part of God's plan for good in your life. It lets you imitate him by being productive. You learn creativity. You get the satisfaction of looking back over a day or week or career and saying, "Ah! A job well done." That's what God said at the end of each creative day in Genesis, if you recall.

Our greed and its demand that we live beyond our means sometimes makes people little more than the ancient Israelites in Egypt – slaves. Work isn't productivity with joy so much as compulsion in service to the bank or credit card company. There's a lesson here about simplifying and living within our means.

But the point for now is rhythm. The sabbath principle tells us to stop at regular intervals. Catch your breath. Rethink all your activity in light of God.

"Sunday feels odd without church in the morning," says Prairie Home Companion's Garrison Keillor. "It's the time in the week when we take our bearings, and if we miss it, we're just following our noses."

A good life has healthy rhythm. Don't lose your balance.