The Disruption of Sabbath

What if you thought of it

as the Jews consider the Sabbath —

the most sacred of times?

Cease from travel.

Cease from buying and selling.

Give up, just for now,

on trying to make the world

different than it is.

Sing. Pray. Touch only those

to whom you commit your life.

Center down.

And when your body has become still,

reach out with your heart.

Know that we are connected

in ways that are terrifying and beautiful.

(You could hardly deny it now.)

Know that our lives

are in one another’s hands.

(Surely, that has come clear.)

Do not reach out your hands.

Reach out your heart.

Reach out your words.

Reach out all the tendrils

of compassion that move, invisibly,

where we cannot touch.

Promise this world your love —

for better or for worse,

in sickness and in health,

so long as we all shall live.

In March of 2020, at the start of the pandemic, my spiritual director shared with me that poem by Lynn Ungar called Pandemic. You may know it—it went viral in those early days. Wanting to share a little hope, I posted it on social media. Not long after, a Jewish friend reached out, hurt by the way the poem invoked Sabbath. She reminded me that Shabbat, in Jewish tradition, is not about resignation or escape, but a celebration of God’s presence—a gift of communal healing. My intention had been to comfort, but what she felt instead was appropriation. Her words stung, and I found myself defensive, bruised, wanting her to see it my way.

I wonder if my bruised feelings were anything like those of the synagogue leader in today’s Gospel—a man devoted to creating a space where Sabbath could be observed as it ought to be: a day to set aside work and rest in God. He would have understood Sabbath as a weekly remembrance of God’s creation, a day even God needed to rest. Protective of his role, he seeks to uphold the laws, to preserve the careful study and tradition that make the synagogue a place of sacred rhythm. His intentions are good: to safeguard a contemplative time with God, for himself and for those who come to observe it.

But on this Sabbath day, there is disruption. Jesus is teaching when a woman appears, bent over by an ailment that has plagued her for eighteen years. She asks for nothing, says nothing, yet Jesus sees her, calls her over, and sets her free. She is overcome with joy and immediately praises God. The synagogue leader, however, is annoyed. In addressing the crowd, he models a reaction we all know too well: discomfort, defensiveness, and the instinct to triangulate—seeking allies to reinforce a shared understanding rather than approaching the moment with curiosity or openness.

Jesus, refusing to let them off the hook, calls them out. He points to the purpose of Sabbath itself: liberation. Painfully direct, he exposes their hypocrisy, reminding them that even livestock are to be freed from burdens on this holy day. By invoking what they know from Exodus 20, he highlights the difference between observing rules and honoring life. In keeping this woman from healing, they would deny her the fullness of Sabbath. Jesus shows that true Sabbath is not private—it is liberation in the midst of human suffering, communal healing for the good of the whole. If the weight of the world bends one person, none are truly free.

If it is odd or uncomfortable to think of Sabbath as disruption, you’re not alone there. Our perception of sabbath often entails rest, renewal, resetting. Sabbath might be for us coming to church on a Sunday to recenter our lives, having a quiet or relaxing afternoon, disconnected from the things that cause us worry or anxiety or concern in the world. And I want to reiterate—none of these are bad things in themselves. But if we are leaving our experience of Sabbath there—a nice morning at church, seeing the people we always see; a routine of resetting before the chaos of the week begins— we are missing that the sabbath is an opportunity for holy disruption, interruption of human suffering and inclusion. And again, this is not to say that worship, church, our resetting routines are NOT disruption. But part of our own observance of sabbath should also be to wonder about who cannot participate in this observance.

I think of people working 2-3 jobs to keep their family afloat in the midst of economic hardships, or those who own small businesses and can’t afford to take time off to be at worship; I think of churches who just last week had to cancel services because the prevalence of ICE presence in the neighborhood made it unsafe for their congregation to come to church; I think of those who have faced the violence of combat, and cannot feel safe in large groups of people; I think of black and brown teenage boys in DC who are suddenly seen as threat when they are trying to go to the movies with their friends; I think of those on disability who are facing extreme cuts to their health insurance, making it impossible to travel, work, or live independently; I think of the unhoused who have consistently been targeted as criminal in our country, and are swept away, rather than supported. To invest in our own sabbath without allowing those who are unable to keep sabbath because of harmful systems of the world to cross our minds is to thoroughly miss the point. It is to take a gift from God meant for liberation and turn it into something that just makes us feel good.

Like the leader of the synagogue, our intentions for Sabbath are good. And rest and renewal as individuals is something we all physically need. But when we rest with thought only for our own comfort, perhaps even numbing to the damage and the hurt of the world, we are not resting in the complex fullness of God. When we rest in a way that doesn’t allow those who are crippled from the damage of the world to rest with us, we are not using the gift of Sabbath in the way God points us to. I think this might be why my friend experienced such frustration at my use of the poem. She, like Jesus, sees a fuller vision of the Sabbath. Sabbath is not about individual persons finding comfort or rest. To pull from the Gospel last week, it is not about finding a superficial peace, or an escape from the disruption around us. It is also not about co-opting a holy gift that reminds us of the liberation that is possible in God. It is not, in the words of Ungar’s poem, a time to “give up, just for now, on trying to make the world different than it is”. In fact, it is quite the opposite: between Jesus’ actions of healing on the Sabbath and the guidance in Isaiah today, to honor Sabbath as God’s day and not pursue our own success, achievements or desires— this is a call to actively make the world more like what God hopes for us, which is often very different from what the world is.

So perhaps the question for us is this: when we enter into Sabbath, what kind of rest are we seeking? Is it rest that turns us inward and numbs us to the world’s pain, or rest that awakens us more deeply to God’s healing work? Sabbath is God’s gift, a grace that reminds us we are not self-made, not alone, but bound to one another in love. It is rest that connects us, that makes room for those who cannot yet find rest themselves. And it is also our act of resistance—God’s holy disruption, God’s protest against every power that would keep people bent down. When we honor Sabbath in this way, we step into God’s story of healing and renewal, a story still unfolding—even now—until every one of us can stand upright and praise God.