70. The Subversiveness of Sabbath, with A.J. Swoboda, author of Subversive Sabbath

AJ Swoboda asks an important question: If, as a pastor, you intentionally broke one of the Ten Commandments what would happen?  Well, you’d probably either lose your job or your position. Or you’d be reprimanded or given a warning. Or, at the very least—maybe for using the Lord’s name in vain—you’d get a few dirty looks.

But there is one commandment that, if you were to regularly disobey it, you would probably get a raise.

Which commandment?  The commandment to keep the Sabbath.

Why is that? That’s what AJ Swoboda and I discuss in this episode of Spiritual Life and Leadership.


THIS EPISODE'S HIGHLIGHTS INCLUDE:

• AJ Swoboda is Assistant Professor of Bible and Theology at Northwest Christian University and author of Subversive Sabbath.
• The pace at which the Western world is living is not only not sustainable, it’s a suicide mission.
• The Sabbath undermines the empire of anxiety and hurry.
• The Sabbath is not a practice to improve your life.  It will utterly disrupt everything you want.
• The kind of life we have grown accustomed to—full of busyness and hurry—is not truly life.
• The Sabbath originates in the Garden of Eden—before the Law.
• The importance of the Sabbath is seen in the story of the Hebrew slaves in Egypt.  God wanted to restore to the Hebrews the Edenic rest.
• The Sabbath is a foretaste of what we will experience forever in Heaven.
• The ideal of the practice of Sabbath is a 24-hour period of rest.  
• The early Christians transitioned the Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday, which they called the Lord’s Day.
• AJ preached on the Sabbath for three weeks and people left his church.  He realized that if he broke nine of the Ten Commandments he would lose his job, but if he broke the Sabbath he would get a raise.
• God said, “Remember the Sabbath Day.”  It’s as though God knew this was the one commandment we would be most likely to forget.
• People who keep the Sabbath are wildly healthier people.
• When you enter into the Sabbath, the Sabbath begins to enter into you.
• Sabbath is not merely a day.  It’s a state of being.
• AJ shares the way he is currently struggling with practicing the Sabbath.  He is finding that God is in the struggle.
• You can find AJ Swoboda on Twitter at @mrajswoboda.

RELEVANT RESOURCES AND LINKS:

• AJ Swoboda
  • Twitter:  @mrajswoboda
• Books mentioned:
  • Subversive Sabbath, by AJ Swoboda
  • The Sabbath, by Abraham Heschel
  • Emotionally Healthy Spirituality, by Pete Scazzero

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