Sabbath and Juneteenth
Juneteenth is a national holiday commemorating June 19, 1865, when the last enslaved Africans, living in Galveston, TX, heard the Emancipation Proclamation read to them by Union soldiers and learned that they were free.
The Three Ps: A Poem, A Pondering, and A Practice
A Poem (of sorts):
The Emancipation Proclamation
Abraham Lincoln
"That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free; and the Executive Government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom.”
January 1, 1863
A Pondering: Juneteenth and Sabbath
Many in the church today resist connecting religion and the Bible with politics, preferring to keep them private and personal. But “politics,” in its most basic form, relates to how we structure and organize our shared life. If this is so, then the Bible must speak directly to our political life, for it is supremely interested in the flourishing of all created life in community.
Author Lauren Winner has said that “all of Christian spirituality has a political dimension.” Following the instincts of the prophet Isaiah (ch. 58), she connects the political dimensions of Sabbath-keeping with that of fasting. “Fasting (ought to) connect us to the hungry and prompt us to take action on their behalf.” Likewise, she continues, “those of us who keep Sabbath ought to allow Sabbath to clarify just what it is we are working for during the other six days of the week: just labor practices, a living wage, paid sick leave for all workers.” She concludes, “Let us, one day a week, rest in God’s rest. Then let us return to the week, and work for a world where all may rest.”
True Sabbath involves both the personal and public domains. It clarifies the purpose of our rest and our work. It orients us toward the depths of our own heart and experience, but it also orients us toward the depths of our neighbors’ hearts and experiences. True Sabbath is not about sequestering oneself off from the world in order to ignore it. It is about gaining freedom from the world and its value system so that we can re-engage it as agents of change to bring about the shalom and delight that Sabbath confirms is the birthright of all of creation. In this way, Sabbath is a seed of the coming kingdom of shalom, which has been planted but has not yet fully matured.
In 2021, President Biden declared Juneteenth a national holiday. Juneteenth marks the day (June 19th, 1865) on which the final slaves, living in Galveston, TX, learned that the Civil War had ended and heard the Emancipation Proclamation for the first time—two and a half years after President Lincoln had delivered it. Like Sabbath, Juneteenth is also a seed of shalom, planted but not fully grown.
For example, the Emancipation Proclamation did not change hearts and minds, did not transform the culture of privilege and power, did not eradicate the inequality and injustice rooted in racism and white supremacy on which our country was, in part, founded. All of that has persisted in various and less obvious forms, such as Jim Crow laws in the South, red-lining in the North, mass incarceration, and much more. Likewise, in the biblical account, the Sabbath Commandment explicitly included not just landed families within Israel, but also the immigrants living among them, as well as children and slaves—even domesticated animals and the earth itself. All of God’s creatures deserve weekly rest and delight as a birthright. Deuteronomy 5.14 is explicit about this, prohibiting all work “so that your manservant and maidservant may find rest, just as you do.”
This sentiment is an echo of Exodus 23:12 that connects Sabbath rest with the right of “the children of your house-slave” “and the immigrant” to experience “refreshment.” “Refreshment” is a singularly important word here. One scholar defined it as “a fresh infusion of spiritual and physical vigor, the reinvigoration of the totality of one’s being.”
For an enslaved person, that meant freedom. But the Sabbath was just a foretaste of that freedom, because, of course, by sunrise on the next day, the slaves in Exodus and Deuteronomy went back to being slaves, and the ox and ass became beasts of burden once again. Thus, both Sabbath and Juneteenth hold within them a vision for equity and justice for all, but that dream is not yet fully realized. They serve as signposts—every week, and each year on the anniversary of Juneteenth—reminding us of what the kingdom God dreams of looks like, feels like, and is like for all of God’s beloved creatures, human and non-human. The question Sabbath and Juneteenth asks each of us is if the work we do in between those celebrations contributes to the vision those celebrations depict, or not.
For too long Sabbath theology has been disconnected from the social, cultural, and political aspects of contemporary life. It has been reduced to private, individualized expressions of piety (or abandoned altogether). The Bible’s vision of the Sabbath is the seed of a new community, the blueprint for the New Jerusalem, the template for the good life. It is the bride of shalom. At the same time, it exposes the inequities in the current system (and in our hearts and assumptions) and illumines the way forward (slowly, week-by-week, over the course of a life) toward repentance, forgiveness, and ultimately reconciliation.
A Sabbath Practice: Research Juneteenth
I don’t know what your relationship with Juneteenth is like, whether you consider it your holiday or you’re just learning about it for the first time, or maybe you’re just grateful for another day off from work. If you’re not familiar with it, I encourage you on this coming Sabbath to learn more about it and what it stands for, to learn how for some people in this country Juneteenth feels more like their Independence Day than July 4 does, since their ancestors weren’t free on July 4, 1776.
If you’re looking for places to start, here are a couple of videos of varying length to learn more about Juneteenth. The first is a short history of Juneteenth, and the second is a longer video, posted by historian and activist Jemar Tisby from his live YT call this morning.
