Aunty, why is it expected that church employees have to work on Sabbath?
9 December 2024 |
Dear Aunt Sevvy,
Why is it that the same church that defends religious liberty and helps employees outside the church defend the right not to work on Sabbath, also requires its employees to work on Sabbath? Why is it suddenly okay to work on Sabbath if the employer is the church? This seems hypocritical to me.
Signed, Frustrated
Dear Frustrated,
Aunty feels your frustration. If an Adventist is cooking in a restaurant, she’s breaking the Sabbath. If she’s cooking for the gathered General Conference staff at a meeting and turning in a time card for it, she’s doing God’s work.
But there has never been a bright line here. There has always been some work that needs to be done on Sabbath. Patients in hospitals need to be cared for. Emergencies need responding to. Children need care. Pastors need to preach and teach and lead. Animals (though they’re specifically mentioned in the Sabbath commandment as being able to rest) still need to be fed.
We say that necessary work needs to be done. But how do we decide what is necessary, and what isn’t? Should everything grind to a halt on Sabbath—cooking, driving, preaching, nursing, feeding children, milking the cows?
Jesus said that the Sabbath was made for the blessing of people, not people created to serve the Sabbath. If Sabbath had been seen as a day to receive God’s blessing rather than a demand by a stern and possibly angry God, perhaps we wouldn’t have these conflicts. But there’s also this: taking a less restrictive view of the Sabbath might make it harder for us to make the case to our bosses in secular businesses that we need that day free to deepen our spiritual and family life.
So, what should the Sabbath be to us? Aunty has known Adventists who ask the pastor for a letter for their employer stating that the Sabbath is their religious obligation—but then spend their Sabbaths doing things that may be restful but aren’t spiritual, like going to a football game.
I think we need a conversation about this matter, and perhaps it can start here.
Aunt Sevvy
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