Biblical and Theological Foundations of Stewardship: The Stewardship of Time (Part 3 of 6)
There is one more feature of the stewardship pictured in Genesis 1 that is often overlooked. To get to this, I have a question to ask you: How many days are there in creation – six or seven?
Our confusion points to the double structure discernable in the text. The six-day structure emphasizes the creation of humanity and importance of humanity's place within creation that we just talked about. But a seven-day structure exists as well and has its own significance. We see the seven-day structure in looking at the first day, the middle day and the last day. So, what is created on day one? Light, and day and night. What is created on the fourth day? The sun and the moon and the stars. What is their function? To separate and rule over the day and the night, to give light and also to be for signs and for seasons and for days and for years. What is created, therefore, is time. And what is created on the seventh day? Nothing, you say. Ah, no. What is created is the Sabbath. The first, fourth and seventh days all deal with the creation of time – days, months, seasons and, finally, sacred time. Look at the text:
"God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day. Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all their multitude. And on the seventh day God finished the work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all the work that he had done in creation." (Genesis 1:31)
The word "sabbath" does not appear here. But the text says God shabbatted on the seventh day. Really, "stopped" is much more accurate than "rested."
So what is created? The Sabbath, the day of stopping work and resting, sacred time is created. In fact the seven-day structure of Genesis 1-2:3 points to the creation of Sabbath as the crown and principle act of creation. One could say that this chapter is written most specifically to point to the centrality of the Sabbath structure of time. Sabbath is preeminently about the God-given, divinely-infused rhythm of work and stopping work in creation. So, stewarding of our time is remembering the Sabbath and keeping it holy – a particularly complicated issue for pastors, other church professionals and their families. If we see Sabbath as primarily a day of worship, then you work on the Sabbath. But what happens then to Sabbath as stopping work, as rest, in the lives of church professionals? How do we practice stewardship of time? It's very complicated, because Sabbath is not only individual, it is preeminently communal.
The other day in the car I heard a report on MPR about how few folks take vacation, how many folks work all the time. The report quoted remarkable statistics about how many heart attacks might be prevented each year by a one-week vacation. I would imagine that depression would also figure in here. We desperately need the stewardship of time that finds the proper balance between God-given work and God-given cessation from work.
The notion of balance puts me in mind of a conversation I had a few years ago. Some members of my family were struggling, as so many do, with issues of mental health. At one point in the midst of this struggle, the woman was talking to me about being weak with fatigue, wanting to sleep all the time. She said, "That's my temptation – to seek nothingness, constant rest." She said that her husband's temptation was quite the opposite. He sought constant chaos.
We ended up talking about the deep structure of Genesis 1, where creation happens in tension with two opposites. On the one side is chaos, thohu va vohu, the swirling waters, which God must separate in order that creation can happen. On the other hand is nothingness, stillness, nothing yet created, no work, only rest. Mythically, creation happens both when chaos is defeated and nothingness shaken into activity. Sabbath in Genesis is the creation pattern that insists both on productive, ordered activity – that is, work – as well as restful un-chaotic space – that is Sabbath rest.
It struck me in that conversation and many times since that this pattern is not only mythic, it is also psychological. The balance between ordered work and restful ceasing from work is a deep necessity for mental health and the capacity of all of us to live full, productive and meaningful lives. Hence the stewardship of time might be considered every bit as important as all other forms of stewardship.
This look at stewardship from above is thus filled with patterns, patterns of keeping and serving God's garden, the world and all the creatures, human and non-human, who fill God's garden. And patterns of alternating productive life-giving work with non-productive life-giving cessation of work. Each of us are called to establish patterns in our lives so we might steward our living fruitfully and joyfully in ways that God would have us live. This leads us to looking at stewardship not from above, as a grand theological topic, but from within.
To access the other parts of the presentation, click on the appropriate topic.
The Stewardship of Vocation (Part 1 of 6)
The Stewardship of Creation (Part 2 of 6)
The Book of Ruth – Boaz (Part 4 of 6
The Book of Ruth – Ruth (Part 5 of 6)
The Book of Ruth – Naomi (Part 6 of 6)
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