February 5, 2025
Rev. Dr. Garrett J. Andrew

Of all the commandments in Scripture, Sabbath is the one we are reminded of the most. More than any other, it keeps showing up—woven into the law, the prophets, the psalms, the very rhythm of creation. Jesus keeps returning to it, pushing against the ways people have twisted it, but never dismissing it.

The Sabbath was made for us, he says. It is meant to be a gift.

But we’ve lost it.

Not just in the way society ignores it, but in the way we have made rest itself feel like an indulgence, a luxury, a thing we have to justify. We live in a world that runs on endless productivity and infinite content. There is always something to do, something to check, something to respond to. Even when we stop working, we fill the silence with noise—scrolling, watching, numbing, distracting. Rest is not something we do well.

And without it, the world is breaking down.

People do not have enough because there are those who will never have enough. The land is exhausted because it is never allowed to lie fallow. The poor remain trapped because the cycle of ownership never resets.

The prophets warned us. Over and over, they called for Sabbath—not just for individuals, but for the land, for the people, for the way the world should be ordered. There were supposed to be years where the fields were left untouched, where the debts were forgiven, where everyone returned to their home and rested in enough.

But without Sabbath, there is never enough.

Without Sabbath, the fields are stripped bare, the debts pile up, the powerful cling to more than they could ever need, and those at the bottom are crushed beneath the weight of their endless striving.

Without Sabbath, we forget who we are, and we forget who we are meant to be. I forgot, too.

I needed to get away. Really get away. Not just from work, but from everything that makes me feel like I am only as valuable as what I produce. For three weeks, I stepped away—not to accomplish anything, not to catch up on tasks I had been neglecting, but to see what happened if I let myself just be.

I spent time with my parents. I returned to the seminary where I met my wife, where we got married, where I first stepped into the work of ministry. I took long walks. I prayed, though not always with words. I meditated. I had fun. I did nothing useful.

I let go of the need to answer every call, every text, every email. I watched the number of unread messages climb higher and higher, and I thought it would bother me. It didn’t.

Because I had to stop producing. I had to let go of the voice that says I am only as good as what I accomplish. I had to stop participating in the endless cycle of doing, proving, perfecting. I had to step out of the machine, if only for a while.

I had to allow the paradox of self—the self that is broken and whole, striving and still, needing to be better and already enough—to finally become the self that is truly loved.

We are taught to believe our worth is in our work or in what we possess or what we’ve done. That we must always be doing, moving, producing. That rest is a reward for those who have worked hard enough to deserve it. But Sabbath is not a reward. It is a commandment.
God tells us to stop—not because we have earned it, but because we are not made to live without it.

I don’t think I have ever really let myself stop. Not fully. There has always been a weight pressing against me—the feeling that I am not enough as I am. That I must be better, do better, prove something. It comes with a gnawing guilt too. And I know I’m not alone in that. Most of us live with that voice, the one that tells us we are only as good as our last success, our last sermon, our last good decision. And if we stop moving, the voice grows louder.

But for three weeks, I let it quiet.

I let myself be imperfect and loved. Broken and held together. Not as a contradiction, not as a mistake, but as someone who is, somehow, still chosen.

I don’t say this because I have figured it all out. Far from it. There are things in my life I regret. There are things I wish I had done differently. And part of me still wonders if this year will bring more than I am ready for. But if I learned anything in those three weeks, it’s this—grace does not wait for us to be whole.

Grace does not say, “Rest when you deserve it.”

Grace says, “Stop now. Let yourself be.”

This was not the first time, and I doubt it will be the last. But this time, instead of just running, I let myself rest. And I am grateful—grateful for a church that did not just allow it, but rejoiced in it. I gave myself space to breathe, to feel the weight of the past without trying to fix it, to simply sit in the truth that I am loved, even when I do not know what to do next.

Sabbath is more than a day off. It is a practice of trusting that we are held even when we are not performing. It is the release of the illusion that we can control everything (or anything really), fix everything, be everything. It is the command to stop—not because we are lazy, not because we are failing, but because we were never meant to carry the weight of the world.

Without Sabbath, nothing is ever enough.

Without Sabbath, we believe the lie that we must always be achieving, striving, proving, becoming perfect.

Without Sabbath, we forget that we are enough simply because we exist.

Maybe that’s why pride has always been called the deadliest sin. Not because it looks like arrogance, but because it tricks us into thinking that we must make ourselves whole. That we must hold everything together. That if we are not striving, we are failing.

But Jesus says otherwise. Let the one without sin cast the first stone, he says. Which is to say—stop trying to be perfect. Stop trying to live without cracks. Because the cracks are where the light gets in. And if we never stop, we never see it.

Maybe that’s why Sabbath matters. Because we need to stop long enough to remember what is true. To see that we were never the ones holding it all together anyway. To realize that even the parts of ourselves we want to run from are already known, already seen, already loved.

Humanity was not made for the Sabbath. But perhaps we cannot fully know who we are without it.

With hope and joy,
Garrett