24/6

In his new book 24/6, Matthew Sleeth connects Sabbath-keeping to social justice. Here’s a taste of a recent essay based on the book:

The Bible is about peo­ple try­ing to have a rela­tion­ship with God while exist­ing in a fallen world. Yet in our twenty-first cen­tury cul­ture, we’re not con­tent just to live in a fallen world: we’re putting rocket boost­ers on our backs to accel­er­ate our descent. And because our rela­tion­ship with God is inter­twined with how we care for cre­ation and for our global neigh­bors, when we don’t spend enough time with God, all our rela­tion­ships are adversely affected. . . .

The Sab­bath was not meant to be saved by human­ity; rather, human­ity was meant to be saved by the Sab­bath. I know from first-hand expe­ri­ence. After prac­tic­ing the Sab­bath for almost a decade, I have seen how it has saved me from the dis­ease of worka­holism. It has saved count­less num­bers of my patients from the phys­i­cal, emo­tional, and spir­i­tual con­se­quences of unremit­ting stress. If prac­ticed reg­u­larly, the Sab­bath can save you, too. . . .

Indeed, the future of our planet may very well depend upon Sab­bath rest. The 24/6 life allows us to see the earth not as an object for con­sump­tion but as a sub­ject for rela­tion­ship. It reminds us that God made the earth to meet every generation’s needs, not just one generation’s desires.