Sabbath as Resistance: Saying No to the Culture of Now, by Walter Brueggeman

Walter Brueggeman, surely the most well-known and well-respected scholars of the Old Testament, has been reading the prophets for decades, and occasionally takes that role on himself.  In his new book Sabbath as Resistance: Saying No to the Culture of Now, Brueggeman examines the fourth commandment in light of the first and tenth, bringing worship and economic life into perspective.

Coming out of the slavery of Egypt, God reminded the Israelites, in the first commandment, that "the God of the exodus is unlike all the gods the slaves have known before."  Unlike the "insatiable gods of imperial productivity," God is committed to relationship rather than commodity (brick making).  Unlike the Egyptians, who demanded bricks without straw and gave no rest, God established the Sabbath rest.  Brueggeman writes, "our motors are set to run at brick-making speed.  To cease, even for a time, the anxious striving for more bricks is to find ourselves with a 'light burden' and an 'easy yoke.'"

At the other end of the decalogue, the commandment no to covet parallels the first commandment's rejection of commodification.  "Sabbath is the practical ground for breaking the power of acquisitiveness and for creating a public will for an accent on restraint.  Sabbath is the cessation of widely shared practices of acquisitiveness." This is the crux of Brueggeman's argument: in our culture of acquisitiveness, Sabbath presents "an occasion for reimagining all of social life away from coercion and competition to compassionate solidarity."

Some readers may find Brueggeman's reading of the Sabbath as a break from acquisitiveness rather limiting.  But in a culture that rarely, if ever, steps aside from consumerism and labor, Sabbath as Resistance provides a welcome reminder to "rest in God's own restfulness."



Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the complimentary electronic review copy!