Sabbath Joy?

I have recently been reading a book by Joy Davidman, wife of C.S. Lewis later in his life.  The book, Smoke on the Mountain, is a look at the Ten Commandments from a modern perspective, evaluating how the commandments are expressed in our lives now.  It is a thought provoking book and the chapter I read today on the 4th Commandment, "Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy," resonated so much with how I feel about the church on Sundays in this day and time.  Here are the relevant sections that made an impact on me:

"One cannot escape the conviction that certain elements in the churches have themselves unintentionally done much to make the Sabbath unholy. It took the strict Puritans of England only ten years-from 1650 to 1660-so to disgust the people with legislated piety that they reacted into a licence undreamed of before. Perhaps the wilful licence of our own Sundays originated partly in a kind of bravado, a resentment of legislated controls and negative virtues. When bigots interpreted the Fourth Commandment to mean Thou shalt not enjoy life on Sunday, did not all Pandemonium raise a howl of triumph? The Puritan tradition has given the world great things-education and freedom and a concept of ethics in government; yet alas, for many people today the name 'Puritan' has become a scoffing and a byword, synonymous with kill-joy. Not that the Puritans were really foes to all joy. But they did think a purely intellectual and spiritual concentration on God was the only religious experience worth seeking. They did smash stained-glass windows in Old England, and frown on children at play in New England -see their school advertisements. And, like all who lack charity, they preferred negative methods; they believed you could make people enjoy God by forbidding them to enjoy anything else.

Question a dozen modern infidels about their childhood, and half of them will trace their atheism to endless dull, bleak Sundays in a negatively 'Christian' household which made a child's life seem hardly worth living. The football matches, the dances, the speeding cars, the crowded beaches of today's Sabbath-they are fugitive and inadequate pleasures, no doubt. Yet for many they may be an attempt, however fumbling, to restore to the Sabbath some of that holy gladness which it had before over-zealous reformers turned the Fourth Commandment's 'thou shalt' into a 'thou shalt not.'

Cast back into history, and the true meaning of the Sabbath is easy enough to find. 'Thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates.' On this one day, man returned to Eden. The curse of Adam was lifted, the primal Fall undone somewhat, and all creatures caught a glimmering of the paradisal state in which everything God had made was very good. On this one day a man was commanded to enjoy himself."

"The words shattered, for a time, the whole iron prison of prohibitions which had turned a day of joy and love into a day of sullenness and fear. The Christian Sabbath was a feast indeed -the love feast, the communal meal or worship. No one thought of it as renunciation of pleasure; it was every man's pleasure and supreme delight. The ancient Romans, their own religion long since dwindled to spiritless and sceptical routine, suspected the Christians of perpetrating obscene orgies on their Sabbath-on the ground that Christians obviously enjoyed the Sabbath so much!"

"Every church, always, must wrestle with the temptation of forcing people to come to God. Force is such an easy and obvious means! As long as one can use force, one need not interest men, need not inspire them, need not humble oneself to be amiable and cajoling-the poor wretches have no escape. They are in the truest sense a 'captive audience.' The trouble is that a captive audience is a very different thing from a church.

In other words, churches that use force destroy themselves and their goal. During our early history non-attendance at church was punishable by law. When the public conscience revolted at this, some churchmen resorted to indirect force; they no longer insisted that men attend-but they saw to it that all other places a man could go were closed. If this seems a justifiable expedient, let us remember that in the early days of industrialism working people had hardly any free time except on Sunday; when nineteenth-century Sabbatarians denied men recreation on the Lord's Day, they came close to denying it altogether.

No doubt their intentions were good. Yet what has the end been? A materialist generation and a secularized Sabbath. Whenever churchmen ruled out one of mankind's earthly joys as unholy, they narrowed the scope of holiness. It was inevitable that ultimately everything worth doing should be regarded as purely secular; and that God himself, by fugitives from negative religion, should be conceived, not as the Source of joy, but as a foe of all joy."

"Similarly, there is not much value in drawing up a point-to-point programme for spending the Sabbath devoutly. A formal service in the morning, informal prayer meetings or question-answering sessions or church outings later, would no doubt make a good day. But we have all these things already, often very well organized, and yet they don't seem to draw the crowd. It might help if we thought less of the dignity of divine worship, and more of the sheer fun of it; if we took over all God's pleasures of body and mind and showed how, rightly used, they are faint foreshadowings of the supreme pleasure. Perhaps what we need, in this connection, is to revive the ancient concepts of sacred dances and sacred games. A well-organized church festival of sport and music and theatricals would certainly be more attractive to many people than the disorganized and murderous traffic of our Sunday highways."

How wonderful, how uplifting, how freeing would it be if our Sundays were not simply days to be preached at or to, days not just to sit in classes, days not just to sing the same songs, but days of feasting and fellowship and dancing and games!  In America, we have lost the joy of the Sabbath.  This is not to say that we are never inspired by the sermon or enjoy talking to our friends at church and over lunch or that we dislike the music.  But I suspect much of church is stuck in a pattern that cannot change for fear of being seen as paganly hedonistic.  We go to church and it is the same every time: sing, announcements, offering, sermon, go home.  It is not that it is bad, but it is at times boring and has produced much apathy, Christians showing up in duty but leaving with an empty soul.  I admit feeling this many a time.  Indeed, most of the time, I have to work, to force myself to enjoy.  To say over and over, "You may feel nothing, but you are not here for you.  You are here for God.  Sing even if you have heard this a million times because it is sung to God.  Listen and agree with the sermon because it has been given to the preacher by God."  But wait!  What did Jesus say?  "The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath."  The Sabbath was made for man?  Not God?  God is in it, yes, but could it be the Sabbath is meant for man to enjoy God?

I suspect most of modern American churches have made man for the Sabbath.  We conform our Sundays to the schedule.  We sing not what is in our souls, but what has been planned for us.  We ask no questions of the preacher, we have no discussion about his words, because it has been planned for us to simply listen.  We interact but a brief amount in service because we don't have time to spend in much chatting with one another because the service has been planned for us and is timed.  Oh my soul!  No wonder you feel empty as the church door closes behind you, for you have little part in the Sabbath at all!

As a teacher, I will tell you that the best classes are those that are interactive, active and creative.  But this has been washed out of Sabbath.  Do you know what really happens?  We put all the joy into children's and youth Sunday school and remove it when they leave.  We forget that adults have souls that need joy, too.  We forget that Sunday does not have to be about the difficult and the solemn.  There is a time for it, a need for it, but it does not have to be always.  Isn't it interesting that adults work five days, play on Saturday (the secular separated from God as Joy said above) and then go to church and get told how to work at God?

How could we change?  How would church be interactive?  Imagine you come into church and a large banner is laid out on the floor.  You are invited to take up a paint brush.  You are given the opportunity to write or draw what God has been speaking to you.  You are encouraged to discuss this with your neighbors as you create.  If you do not want to draw, you are welcomed to pray, sit, talk or share.  After a time, the worship leader rises and asks what song is stirring in the hearts of God's people.  Church goers call out songs that mean something to them, maybe share why and we sing because the song is an expression of how God has acted in a person's life right now and because we take joy that the song means something to our sister.  After a time, the preacher stands and shares a scripture, tells us what it means, then he asks us to gather with members to to share its impact on us and to pray that the scripture be made evident in our lives.  When time has elapsed and noon is near, everyone brings out the food they have prepared and we feast together.  No worries of time, we relax and chat and laugh and enjoy as an entire body of Christ.  And we leave when we go, with no ending point forced on us.  Ah...a day to look forward to every week.

I believe the largest enemy of Sabbath is tradition and time.  "Church can't be like that!" you say, "It's not the way it's done.  We would lose theology.  People would think less seriously of God.  No, this cannot be."  Or perhaps, "But I have too many plans on Sunday.  I have budgeted two hours and then I must be off.  There is too much I need to do.  What you suggest could take all day!"  What we have lost is the idea of rest.  Sabbath is not about rest; it is about rigid do.

I'll end with a personal anecdote.  Our church's VBS this year was a time of singing, dancing, playing games, learning and sharing.  Children met God in the midst.  I loved the music.  It was plain fun--full of truth and a joy to sing.  Fast forward to adult services.  I actually thought during the music, sighing wistfully, "Why is all adult music somber and serious?  Why have we banished fun from our music?"  Reflecting, I think we think that our songs must be slow and serious or somehow we are taking God less seriously.  How far from the truth!  When I think of David dancing before the ark with all his might, I see that joy in worship is not taking God less seriously--it is being utterly joyful with abandon because we cannot contain our feelings for Him.

I cannot tell you how much I long for recapturing true joy in church.  So much my heart aches for it.  So much that my soul is stirred with what it could be but is not.  Where do I go from here?  I am not sure because I do not think my voice on this would travel far.  People mired in "the way things are done" would revolt against it and unfortunately, I do not wish to stir the waters.  But when I look back on times in my old country church where pot lucks lasted forever, the church didn't close until the last person left, the blue grass band played the songs asked for, people stopped and prayed or discussed in the middle of the service, I will always long for the fullness of soul I experienced then.  The church a true fellowship amidst laughter and dancing and singing and fun.

(Extra Food for Thought:  Why are so many young people leaving the church?  Perhaps because we show them that God is fun when you are young, but when you become an adult, it is time to put childish joy behind and take God seriously.  "You, young man, must sit in this service, do not talk, it disturbs your neighbor, listen and shut up."  What do we have to offer to the young?  God, the foe of fun, as Joy calls him.)