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Remember the Sabbath
I have recently spent a few days with my younger daughter and her partner at their home in the village of Shawboston on the Isle of Lewis. It is a remote but beautiful place. Most of the inhabitants live in the town of Stornoway and the majority of the rest in villages along the exposed west coast. Here white-washed houses are scattered over the moorland, each surrounded by sheep-proof fences but with the moor stretching up to their doors for this is no place for a lawn or flower bed.
Life is very quiet with just a few cars on the road and only the bleating of the sheep on the moorland. No-one locks their doors when they go out and cars too are rarely locked. The nearest shop is likely to be some miles away and many houses have honesty boxes outside stocked with home-made foods such as bread, cake and jams, often with a refrigerated area full of sausage rolls and pies. One takes what one wants and leaves the money in the box or pays via the QR code displayed. Down in the bay, one house sells ice cream on warm days and cooks fish and chips every Friday evening which can be ordered in advance and collected when ready.
Sunday is still observed by many of the population. Families walk to church for the morning service or drive if it is too far away. Shops are closed, no sport is played and working in any way is frowned upon with the exception of checking on the sheep. Most incomers, and there are an increasing number of English settlers on the island, stick to the rules and avoid working on their homes or driving unnecessarily on a Sunday. I remember many years ago, being on the island at the time when the ferry company was threatening to introduce a Sunday service and the islanders were expressing their opposition by parking their cars outside the churches on Sundays in such a way as to completely block the roadway so that tourists couldn’t get by. Their action failed to have any effect. Keeping the Sabbath holy is the subject of the fourth of the ten commandments and it is actually the longest of all the commandments. ‘Six days you shall labour and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God.
On it you shall not do any work’ and it goes on to emphasise that no member of your family should work before setting the commandment in the context of the story of God creating the world in six days and resting on the seventh. I have always tried to keep it that way, worship in the morning and a good walk up the valley in the afternoon enjoying that very creation. Jobs can wait until Monday. And on the rare Sundays when I have to go into Halifax, I am horrified at how busy it is. It is like any other day with nothing to say that this is the Lord’s day.
Like many of you, I can remember when Sunday was still different to other days, shops and places of work remained closed, there were no sporting events and little public transport. And more people went to church. But legislation has gradually changed and to the casual observer, Sunday is just another Saturday.
However, we can each make Sunday into what we want it to be. We don’t have to be swept along by the crowds. We can spend as much time as we wish with God either in church or at home. We don’t have to drive the car or do our shopping. Jobs can wait until Monday. A day of quiet is in itself relaxing, a break from the rat-race of life today is refreshing in itself.
So let us remember that Sunday is God’s day, it is the other six that are ours.
Geoff
