I grew up on a small farm in Southern Ontario, Canada. We had pigs, goats, cows, chickens and of course some cats and a dog. I learned to work hard from daily chores and the field work required to plant and harvest annual crops.
To supplement our farm's minimal income, my father also had a construction business I worked for when I wasn't in school. Monday through Saturday was reserved for work, but come Sunday we left the job site and focused on a day of rest.
This wasn't quite true for my father, however. Since he was bi-vocational—serving as pastor of the small country church I attended—he often worked seven days a week. Despite Dad's busy weekends filled with sermon prep and miscellaneous tasks around the farm, I ironically grew up with a definite divide between the sacred and the secular. Whether it was taught or simply caught, there was a marked difference between a day of rest and days of work.
For example, as a young Canadian who loved playing hockey, I was strictly forbidden from playing the sport on the Sabbath. Sunday was sacred, and work, pleasure, and all sports activities were secular and especially frowned on.
Some things have certainly changed since my childhood and youth; we’ve taken many more liberties on the Sabbath. How many of us don’t rest as we should, or cease from our labors and activities before we hit the office Monday morning? It's so easy to fire off a few work-related emails or even make a phone call or two Sunday evening related to our work Monday morning.
I think there’s much that could be said on this front—our need to truly rest and take a break on the Sabbath—but there’s something greater amiss on which I would rather focus. Perhaps it goes to the root of the real issue, and that’s the sacred/secular divide we hold in our thinking. Many of us see church related ministry as holy and worthy of our esteem and work related vocations as less than holy and certainly not as important in the Kingdom of God. I would like to challenge that notion in a number of future posts. Stay tuned!
