2/27: A Sabbath for the Environment
Sabbath, sabbatical, and jubilee as invitations to give nature a rest
Reading
On the seventh day, God rested from all his work. He commanded Israel to set aside each seventh day as a day of rest, a Sabbath, (cf. Gen 2:2–3; Ex 16:23; 20:10). Similarly, every seven years, a sabbatical year was set aside for Israel, a complete rest for the land (cf. Lev 25:1–4), when sowing was forbidden and one reaped only what was necessary to live on and to feed one’s household (cf. Lev 25:4–6). Finally, after seven weeks of years, which is to say forty-nine years, the Jubilee was celebrated as a year of general forgiveness and “liberty throughout the land for all its inhabitants” (cf. Lev 25:10). This law came about as an attempt to ensure balance and fairness in their relationships with others and with the land on which they lived and worked. (Laudato Si’, 71)
Reflection
I have never been good at keeping the Sabbath. I don’t mean Mass attendance, I’m mean the idea that once every seven days we are called to put our work aside and truly rest. Years of dedication to my career has taught me to be extraordinarily efficient with time management — every minute is another opportunity to catch up on work or move a project forward, regardless of when that moment comes in the week. I view time as a finite resource from which I can squeeze out and extract every extra ounce of productivity. In this view, letting available time go without doing anything “productive” is inefficient, wasteful, even lazy. I often find myself unable to sit for even a few moments without thinking about checking my work email.
And yet God rested. Was God being wasteful? I doubt it.
Pope Francis recognizes that nature’s rhythms are a way of helping to ensure
“balance and fairness” with others and with creation. If we view time as an resource that we have to maximize by spending every waking moment at work or busy with errands, chores, or an endless list of activities, we may in turn see nature as just another resource from which we have to extract all value in manner of efficiency and calculation. Once time and nature are viewed in this way, we may also start to see our relationships with others primary through the lens how how they might provide us social or material benefits.
Pope Francis continually draws connections between our relationship with God, with creation, and with others. In this light, the Sabbath becomes a reminder of the importance of rest in helping us to restore relationship with ourselves and with God. The sabbatical year is an invitation to seek balance with creation by letting fields go fallow and allowing parts of creation to remain undisturbed by human intervention. The jubilee year is a call to deep forgiveness and care and concern for others.
As we continue this Lenten season, may we see rest as an opportunity to restore balance with God, with others, and with creation.
Question
- What is my relationship with time, and how might the notion of Sabbath help me restore proper relationship with myself and with God?
- What would it look like in my life to take a rest from using resources drawn from the environment? Do we need a Sabbath for the environment?
Prayer
Make me a channel of Your peace.
Where there is hatred let me bring Your love,
Where there is injury Your pardon Lord,
And where there’s doubt, true faith in You.
Make me a channel of Your peace.
Where there’s despair in life let me bring hope,
Where there is darkness, only light,
And where there’s sadness, ever joy.
Oh, Master, grant that I may never seek,
So much to be consoled, as to console.
To be understood, as to understand,
To be loved, as to love with all my soul.
Make me a channel of Your peace.
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
In giving to all men that we receive,
And in dying that we’re born to eternal life.
