Subversive Sabbath Quotes

“The great irony of Sabbath-keeping is how hard it is for us to say no to people but how with such ease we say no to being at rest with God.”
― A.J. Swoboda, Subversive Sabbath: The Surprising Power of Rest in a Nonstop World

“Humanity had only God’s goodness to celebrate, nothing more. Work had not even begun. The Sabbath teaches us that we do not work to please God. Rather, we rest because God is already pleased with the work he has accomplished in us.”
― A.J. Swoboda, Subversive Sabbath: The Surprising Power of Rest in a Nonstop World

“the problem with the Sabbath is there are huge rewards and incentives for not actually doing it. Modern church growth has basically been built on no rest. Our church industrial complex generally rewards Sabbath-breaking as a rule.”
― A.J. Swoboda, Subversive Sabbath: The Surprising Power of Rest in a Nonstop World

“What if the church became the best place in the world to learn how to rest? This is an exhausting world, friend.”
― A.J. Swoboda, Subversive Sabbath: The Surprising Power of Rest in a Nonstop World

“To keep a Sabbath is to give time and space on our calendar to the grace of God.”
― A.J. Swoboda, Subversive Sabbath: The Surprising Power of Rest in a Nonstop World

“Being a Sabbath-keeper is basically the art of letting people down at a rate they can handle. There are times we cannot meet the needs of others. There are times we trust God to help others through others. Not every need represents God’s will for our lives. How freeing! Sometimes we cannot do everything we desire, even if those desires are good and wholesome. Jesus is Lord—we are not. Paul had to learn that lesson through his Bithynia experience. If this remains true, we are freed from any kind of messiah complex that maintains that we must do something about everything. If Jesus said no, so can we.”
― A.J. Swoboda, Subversive Sabbath: The Surprising Power of Rest in a Nonstop World

“When God tells Eve that Adam will “rule over her,” he is simply lamenting what is to come. God is not commanding it. His language is descriptive, not prescriptive. Adam naming Eve, putting her in her place, was neither what God ordained nor desired. It is interesting that he names her for what he sees she is good for—having babies.”
― A.J. Swoboda, Subversive Sabbath: The Surprising Power of Rest in a Nonstop World

“This means that the litmus test for true Christian ethics is how those who follow Christ love and serve and bless those who do not.”
― A.J. Swoboda, Subversive Sabbath: The Surprising Power of Rest in a Nonstop World

“The only thing original about me is my sin, and even that I plagiarize most of the time.”
― A.J. Swoboda, Subversive Sabbath: The Surprising Power of Rest in a Nonstop World

“We think we can fulfill all our own needs with the click of a button. And in many cases we can. Because of this, we trade the kind of community that is forged around a Sabbath for a “sense” of community wherein we are not vulnerable to each other in real and tangible ways.”
― A.J. Swoboda, Subversive Sabbath: The Surprising Power of Rest in a Nonstop World

“Sabbath rhythms are not meant for paper; they are meant to be practiced. “Holy days, rituals, liturgies—all are like musical notations which, in themselves,” one Jewish scholar writes, “cannot convey the nuances and textures of live performance.”
― A.J. Swoboda, Subversive Sabbath: The Surprising Power of Rest in a Nonstop World

“For this reason, the Jewish people had many “holy days” that helped them remember the sacredness of time and God’s role in creating it. The prominent role that time plays in the Genesis narrative resulted in time being understood as sacred, or of ultimate importance, for Jewish faith.”
― A.J. Swoboda, Subversive Sabbath: The Surprising Power of Rest in a Nonstop World

“20 Another difference is the role of women in creation. In an ancient context where men, rulers, and kings alone bore God’s image, the biblical story depicts a world in which men and women are created in God’s image.21 Among patriarchal societies, no other sacred text held such a high view of women as the Hebrew Bible.”
― A.J. Swoboda, Subversive Sabbath: The Surprising Power of Rest in a Nonstop World

“The Sabbath teaches us that we do not work to please God. Rather, we rest because God is already pleased with the work he has accomplished in us.”
― A.J. Swoboda, Subversive Sabbath: The Surprising Power of Rest in a Nonstop World

“Martin Luther echo this refrain: “God writes the Gospel not in the Bible alone, but also on trees, and in the flowers and clouds and stars.”
― A.J. Swoboda, Subversive Sabbath: The Surprising Power of Rest in a Nonstop World

“are not challenged to take it seriously themselves. The result of our Sabbath amnesia is that we have become perhaps the most emotionally exhausted, psychologically overworked, spiritually malnourished people in history.”
― A.J. Swoboda, Subversive Sabbath: The Surprising Power of Rest in a Nonstop World

“Sabbath forgetfulness is driven, so often, in the name of doing stuff for God rather than being with God. We are too busy working for him.”
― A.J. Swoboda, Subversive Sabbath: The Surprising Power of Rest in a Nonstop World

“became a workaholic chiefly because I had not allowed the grace of Jesus to reside in the depths of the caverns of my soul. I even used to think the Sabbath was a break from ministry. Now I see Sabbath as ministry. It frees people. It helps others in the church. It establishes boundaries. And, above all, it proclaims the good news of Jesus. As I read Peterson, one question came back to me over and over again: How can I preach salvation by grace when my life is built on an altar of workaholism?”
― A.J. Swoboda, Subversive Sabbath: The Surprising Power of Rest in a Nonstop World

“Howard Zinn once wrote, “We can reasonably conclude that how we think is not just mildly interesting, not just a subject for intellectual debate, but a matter of life and death.”
― A.J. Swoboda, Subversive Sabbath: The Surprising Power of Rest in a Nonstop World

“Six days a week the spirit is alone, disregarded, forsaken, forgotten. Working under strain, beset with worries, enmeshed in anxieties, man has no mind for ethereal beauty. But the spirit is waiting for man to join in. Abraham Heschel, The Sabbath”
― A.J. Swoboda, Subversive Sabbath: The Surprising Power of Rest in a Nonstop World

“The Holocaust was first conceived as a simple, inconspicuous idea—unchallenged and unquestioned by far too many.”
― A.J. Swoboda, Subversive Sabbath: The Surprising Power of Rest in a Nonstop World

“Why? Sabbath is not a reward for a job well done. Sabbath is the result of a world that is oriented toward a good and generous and loving God.”
― A.J. Swoboda, Subversive Sabbath: The Surprising Power of Rest in a Nonstop World

“Schaper: “Sabbath keeping is a spiritual strategy: it is a kind of judo. The world’s commands are heavy; we respond with light moves. The world says work; we play. The world says go fast; we go slow. These light moves carry Sabbath into our days, and God into our lives.”
― A.J. Swoboda, Subversive Sabbath: The Surprising Power of Rest in a Nonstop World

“Sabbath is a scheduled weekly reminder that we are not what we do; rather, we are who we are loved by.”
― A.J. Swoboda, Subversive Sabbath: The Surprising Power of Rest in a Nonstop World

“It is not as though we do not love God—we love God deeply. We just do not know how to sit with God anymore. We have come to know Jesus only as the Lord of the harvest, forgetting he is the Lord of the Sabbath as well. Sabbath forgetfulness is driven, so often, in the name of doing stuff for God rather than being with God.”
― A.J. Swoboda, Subversive Sabbath: The Surprising Power of Rest in a Nonstop World

“There are times we cannot meet the needs of others. There are times we trust God to help others through others. Not every need represents God’s will for our lives.”
― A.J. Swoboda, Subversive Sabbath: The Surprising Power of Rest in a Nonstop World

“Sloth of spirit is the inability to say no and have boundaries. The Sabbath straightens up our spirits and awakens us from the lull of the eternal yes. Therefore, a no is the language of intention. No one accidentally says no these days. Except for laziness, a no actually comes from a place of self-knowledge, of self-restraint, of self-awareness. For the Christian, a no should be spoken with the discernment of what God has spoken yes over. We must be sensitive to what God has called us to in order to be free to say no to other prospects. We must have ground in our week that is fallow, free from commitments, free of obligations, a place where life can flourish. A no creates healthy margin in our lives. Have you said no to someone today?”
― A.J. Swoboda, Subversive Sabbath: The Surprising Power of Rest in a Nonstop World

“The root sin of busyness is sloth—that laziness of spirit in which the muscles of intention of discernment and boundary have atrophied.”
― A.J. Swoboda, Subversive Sabbath: The Surprising Power of Rest in a Nonstop World

“Both Sabbath and worship have largely become individualized—a difficult reality we must be sensitive to when thinking through the Sabbath. Without being sentimental, I do wonder whether something critical is lost when we disconnect our corporate worship from our Sabbath. I even wonder whether something is lost when we stop donning our Sunday best.”
― A.J. Swoboda, Subversive Sabbath: The Surprising Power of Rest in a Nonstop World

“Margin is difficult to keep in a community. But without space, there cannot be community. To reflect this, our church has intentionally opted not to have a midweek worship gathering. We could have one. But we wanted to create space in people’s week for them to be able to say yes to their neighbors and those around them. Christian community can easily become a place where we are so crammed with activities that we do not have time to do the things that Jesus cares most deeply about—such as loving the lost in our neighborhoods. The Sabbath, in our experience, creates a unique opportunity to share the gospel. For in that one day a week, we are unfettered with activity and can actually spend some time with those whom we live alongside.”
― A.J. Swoboda, Subversive Sabbath: The Surprising Power of Rest in a Nonstop World