City Life Starter

I. The Word: Jeremiah 17:21, 27 (NRSV)

“21 Thus says the Lord: For the sake of your lives, take care that you do not bear a burden on the sabbath day or bring it in by the gates of Jerusalem… 27 But if you do not listen to me, to keep the sabbath day holy, and to carry in no burden through the gates of Jerusalem on the sabbath day, then I will kindle a fire in its gates; it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem and shall not be quenched.”

II. Study Questions

Where are we?

Jeremiah was a major prophet in Judah who most notably prophesied the Babylonian invasion. His prophecies were given orally during the reigns of King Josiah & King Jehoiakim over many years, then compiled later by a writer into what we know as The Book of Jeremiah. It consists of many warnings to the Jewish people about impending punishment for their refusal to obey God, with some intermittent messages
of hope and mercy.

What does it say?

These verses outline a passage urging the people to keep the Sabbath holy by resting. First, they are explicitly told to not engage in burdensome work on the Sabbath. Their ancestors were unwise to disobey this law, and God warns that disobedience will threaten their lives. In between these two verses lies a lengthy explanation of the many benefits of abiding by this law. The benefits include military victory, an eternal flourishing of Jerusalem, and people-groups from surrounding regions entering Jerusalem to praise God. Finally, God uses imagery of a fire starting in the gates and spreading to the palaces to show the destruction that will occur if the Sabbath is not respected.

What does it mean?

There are both individual and communal effects of the Sabbath. Individually, refusing to rest will endanger their lives; thusly, we can infer that abiding by the Sabbath will protect their lives. The community will also flourish, gain notoriety, and be a positive impact on the societies around them if they choose to rest. On the contrary, if the community refuses to rest, their achievements will be destroyed. I think it is notable that the consuming fire begins in the gates, then moves to the palaces. Gates allow for movement in and out of the city, which facilitate societal interaction. It’s interesting how, once his people disobey him, God’s first priority is preventing their influence on other groups. The world says that gaining success is a result of work alone, and all these ideas contradict that understanding. Furthermore, God wants to establish a holy, set-apart nation that gains societal respect without idolizing work. This is crucial because idolizing work will blind them to seeing that all their success is an unearned gift from God, not deserved. Obeying the Sabbath shows them that all their resources are gifts of grace, and this will open their hearts to sharing these unearned gifts with neighboring societies.

Your job will never be holy enough to not mandate rest. This is glaringly obvious to me as a medical student. Healing sick people, in my semi-humble opinion, is the most Christ-modeling profession. It’s all over the Gospels! Yet, physicians commit suicide at twice the rate of other Americans. People who spend their lives performing works like Jesus are literally destroying their own lives; all because they’re encouraged to work excessively and inappropriately. Though having one day off per week helps, it can’t fix the heart problem. Our hearts should see that all opportunities for work, and its rewards, are for the glory of God alone. When we remember that, we will feel no shame, guilt, or anxiety by obeying God’s mandate to rest since it was all for God anyway. When we don’t rest, we admit that our work is not for God alone, but for our own selfish desire. Any desire apart from God has a root in sin, which will always seek to kill, steal, and destroy you. And, from what I’ve seen in medical school, dead people have a hard time changing the world for Christ.