The Art of Remembering: It Matters how We Tell the Sabbath Story
Sabbath is a story without peer. She is ancient, but a constant challenge to the contemporary. She ceases all things but remains unceasing. Her exquisite prestige, her dignified memory, are not indifferent to the sorrow of creation. Cries and tears and wounded bodies find space and embrace in the sa...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | |
| Interlibrary Loan: | Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany) |
| Published: |
2021
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| In: |
Spes christiana
Year: 2021, Volume: 32, Issue: 2, Pages: 7-22 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (kostenfrei) Volltext (kostenfrei) |
| Summary: | Sabbath is a story without peer. She is ancient, but a constant challenge to the contemporary. She ceases all things but remains unceasing. Her exquisite prestige, her dignified memory, are not indifferent to the sorrow of creation. Cries and tears and wounded bodies find space and embrace in the sacredness of Sabbath. Sabbath cannot be pressed into a doctrinal argument, confined into a rule book, or quarantined within church walls. Sabbath is of spirit matter "never to pass away," "eternity in disguise," as Abraham Joshua Heschel so eloquently put it. Freedom is her essence. In this article, I attempt to retell Sabbath’s story with reverberations from the world and language of biblical eras. The commitment is to not ignore the Sabbath’s inner life, to not distort her audacious vision, and not fault her for her vulnerability. Two texts from the book of Exodus will serve as paradigms. The first is from the narrative of Exodus 5, announcing the Sabbath’s subtle but intense destabilizing power of oppressive systems, inasmuch as we will hear her voice coming from an unlikely place, from a tyrant’s mouth. The second text is part of the Covenant Code in Exodus 23:12. Here, God’s compassionate listening to the cries of the oppressed urges us to receive the other, the stranger, the immigrant, the refugee, as one of us. Sabbath disrupts the dehumanizing power structures of this world and demands of us to make room for the defenseless, the weak, and the marginalized. |
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| ISSN: | 0935-7467 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Spes christiana
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.17613/3hbd-1142 |