Nehemiah 10:31

"…and if the peoples of the land bring in merchandise or any grain on the sabbath day to sell, we will not buy it from them on the sabbath or on a holy day."

Reflection by Martin B. Copenhaver

When I was a student in divinity school, one Saturday my best friend and I drove to Manhattan to buy an engagement ring.  (He had gotten engaged the year before, so clearly he was an expert.)  I had grown up outside of New York, so I was familiar with the famous Diamond District—47th Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues.  On an average day, $400 million of jewelry is sold on that one city block.  It has something of the feel of an exotic and teeming bazaar, with people bustling from store to store.  Some are dressed in ties and suits, while many others wear the long black frocks of Hasidic Jews and different styles of black hats, each style characteristic of a different Hasidic group.  In the entire city, perhaps only the floor of the New York Stock Exchange has more of a sense of concentrated commercial energy.

When we turned the corner onto 47th Street, I immediately knew something was wrong.  There was no bustle of activity.  No loud clamoring of commerce.  No lights in the stores.

The reason, of course, is that this was Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath.  There would be no working, no buying, no selling—at least, not on that block, not on that day.  These people of faith will make themselves available 24/6, but not 24/7, because the seventh day is hallowed as the Sabbath.

I said to my friend, "Don't they want my money?"  And he replied, "I'm sure they do.  But they want to be good Jews even more."

I think of the opening lines of the famous William Wordsworth poem:

The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers.

In keeping Sabbath we are free for a time from those things that "lay waste our powers."

Prayer

God, even if my work is not yet done, let me rest as if the work is done. Amen.

About the Author Martin B. Copenhaver is Senior Pastor, Wellesley Congregational Church, United Church of Christ, Wellesley, Massachusetts. He is the author, with Lillian Daniel, of This Odd and Wondrous Calling: the Public and Private Lives of Two Ministers.