Rev. Dr. Otis Moss III | "Sabbath as Resistance" 6PM 10/11/26

1:06:26 May the Lord add a blessing to the reading and hearing of God's holy word You may be seated in the presence of the Most High God I would like to place a tag here for our lesson today. Deal with this idea of Sabbath as resistance or rest as resistance. If you'd be so kind as turn to your neighbor, look at your neighbor, smile at your neighbor. Don't say anything yet. Y'all up to talk. Just look at your neighbor, smile at your neighbor. Come on, the Loop family up there. Y'all got a smile. There you go. There you go. Look at your neighbor and say, neighbor. Neighbor. You need to get some rest. Amen.

1:07:22 Find another neighbor. It may be the same one. and say, neighbor, oh neighbor, rest is a form of resistance. I offer this blessing, this prayer for all this day. May you know rest this day. May you be released from the anxious and anxiety-producing activity of this world. may you find your breath again let me say it again may you find your breath again may you know rest is a form of resistance and joy is a sacred gift rest is resistance And joy is a sacred gift and subversive gift.

1:08:40 Rest, resist, rest, resist, rest. I must begin by sharing two names of two profound and powerful, prolific writers who informed this message today. One is now an ancestor. the brilliant Professor Emeritus of Old Testament at Columbia Theological Seminary in Atlanta, Georgia, a gentleman by the name of Dr. Walter Brueggemann, who wrote a book entitled Sabbath as Resistance. The other is an artist, a poet, and theologian by the name of Tricia Hersey, who wrote an extraordinary book passed on to me by Monica entitled, Rest is Resistance, A Manifesto. If I may, if I may, if I may tell a story and begin with a story.

1:09:47 There was once a people who were denied rest. They were brilliant, strong, creative, loving, funny, prayerful, rebellious, and extraordinary, but they were denied rest The people who denied them rest and full rights as citizen in the nation they were taken to These people created a mythology to justify their inhumane actions published and even promoted propaganda that stated these people were lazy. They did not deserve rest because lazy people don't deserve rest. The question is, Reverend Derrick, how can a people be lazy and at the same time build your country? how can a people be lazy and carry the weight of a nation and be the very economic engine of your budding empire how can a people be lazy uh to work uh before they work before the sun rises and work until the sun sets how can you trust lazy people to raise your children cook your dinner and tend the fields these people called lazy by the ones who were too lazy to do their own work were denied books schools and education but still learned to read they were kept in chains but broke every shackle they were given false religious doctrine but decided to write books of liberation that turned a broken religion into an authentic, uplifting faith.

1:11:35 These people created schools, built churches, established businesses, raised families, built cities, fought in wars, explored the planet, and did more with less than anyone privileged did with more. Our ancestors, according to Chicago native and writer Tricia Hersey, Our ancestors were not given the right to rest. Going to sleep in many cases could mean losing one's life. Think about it. Our ancestors were forced to work and then told their bodies were not their own and then had to deal with the propaganda that if they wanted to rest, to sleep, they would then be called lazy or beaten because they decided to rest. This is the cruel project of the empire, the lie of capitalism that runs amok. When we as a people read scripture and we heard the story of a black people called Hebrews who were forced to work from sunup to sunset, we knew they must be our spiritual ancestors.

1:12:42 There was a pharaoh, scripture said, that arose who knew not Joseph. And these people knew as Hebrews, when they read this story, that these Hebrews who were enslaved. After emancipation, the abolitionist leader named Moses sought God's counsel and received a series of sayings, virtues, community ethics. We have called them the Ten Commandments or scholars say the Decalogue. And last week we examined the idea of idolatry within the Ten Commandments. This week we lift up an invitation. Not just a covenantal commandment, but an invitation from God. An invitation from Yahweh. Remember the Sabbath day. Keep it holy.

1:13:37 Six days you shall labor, you shall work, and do all your work. But the seventh day is the Sabbath. To the Lord your God, you shall not do any work, you, your sons, your daughters, your servants, your livestock, or any of the undocumented workers in your town. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and made the earth, the sea and everything in them, but rested on the seventh day. Therefore, the Lord blesses the Sabbath day and consecrates it. Here we come to a new understanding of God. The production, the market-driven, capital-focused life Pharaoh was promoting was incompatible with Yahweh. The world of the empire that focuses on Pharaoh's ideas of success, Pharaoh's administration, the policies put forth by the regime was incompatible with God.

1:14:45 And here is something simply I want to give you, and I'm about done. Rest is a requirement for an authentic relationship with God. Our God, this God, is a God of rest. Rest is a requirement for an authentic relationship with God. We are to work, yes, but we are required to rest. And rest, I'm not talking about just sleep. all of creation needs to rest rest is required for your functioning rest is required for your development rest is required for your for your growth it is known as the circadian rhythm without rest your mind becomes foggy your immune system doesn't work right as a matter of fact You increase the possibilities of becoming a diabetic when you do not rest.

1:15:45 I'm not just talking about sleep, but giving your body time to recover and to renew itself. Everything requires rest in all of creation. Everything God made rests. The bees know how to rest. The birds know how to rest. Bears know how to rest. The fish in the sea know how to rest. Trees know how to rest. But humanity is the only thing that God has created that thinks that it does not need any rest. If you play sports, there's a time to rest. If you are playing basketball, the whistle will be blown. There will be a time out. There are times in which there is a halftime in football. There is something known as rest. When one speaks, you've got to have rest. Just as I'm speaking right now, words come out, but then there must be a rest between each word so I can inhale and exhale. When a poet begins to write, every stanza has a rest after those stanzas.

1:16:48 Even the liturgy in worship, we start with the call to worship, but then we have to slow down and rest and pray. There has to be a pause between moments. You must understand that everything needs a rest. But I bring attention to music. Music without a rest is nothing but noise. But when you add a rest to it, it begins to speak to your soul. It's the lonious monk who said it this way. He said that music is not found in the notes. Music is found in between the notes. It's in the rest where music is created. And it is one person who said that you find God in music, not in the chords, but when the space between the notes is where the Holy Spirit begins to work. And I want an example.

1:17:46 Can you help me out today, Mike, an example that when you play music, that when there's a rest in between the chords, that's when the Holy Spirit begins to work. If you want to know about the Alpha and the Omega, you got to have some rest in between to hear the sounds of the Spirit playing. You are my Lord. Christ.

1:18:22 Oh, may God We worship You are Lord You are worthy To be praised You are Helper And only God We worship You are Lord You are worthy to be there has to be rest in order for music to go forth and rest is a part of our growth and our development do you not know that prayer is a form of rest that sometimes you when you pray i know some people just you know just start praying and stuff just starts coming out no no no when you slow yourself down.

1:19:40 Put yourself in a position to pray. Sometimes kneel or maybe sit, put both feet on the floor and before you even say anything just breathe in and breathe out. Sometimes all you need to do is breathe in and breathe out because that's a breath prayer because the inhale says thank you. and the exhale says hallelujah that you are grateful that God has given you life and when you center yourself in that way it slows you down and instead of just saying God what you want what you want from God all of a sudden God begins to speak if we do not and cannot rest or slow down We will not develop an authentic relationship with God.

1:20:38 The hunger of this empire, the hunger of this system, turns rest into a privilege, not a right that is necessary for human flourishing. Let me say it this way. Sabbath dares to resist production that says profit over people. In other words, Sabbath is about reclaiming our rest. Rest is our sacred right. We are not a commodity, but we are a sacred creation. You will never know who you are. You will never become who you are supposed to become. You will never learn the purpose in your life until you learn the power of rest. You see, rest is powerful, but we must learn how to resist and rest at the same time.

1:21:38 Resist the lie that rest is a privilege. Everything that God created has sense enough to rest. Human beings are the only creation that believes that we can do things 24 hours, seven days a week. We have turned what is sacred into something that is a commodity designed for profit and productivity. God worked for six days and said, I'm going to rest. Because God said, I want to take a look at what I've done. I want to smile over creation. I want to look at the beauty that has been created. And you cannot see the creation in your life if you are working 24 hours, seven days a week. Sometimes you have to step back and pause and witness what God is doing in your life. I will look back as God is saying, I believe, and saying I will smile over creation.

1:22:39 You cannot enjoy what you created if you are working all the time. Sometimes you got to rest. There is a need for everyone to rest. is there anyone here where your soul is tired is there anyone here who is weary is there anyone here who has weight upon your shoulders i'm here to let you know you don't have to wait to rest god has given you permission to rest you've got to carve out your own sabbath so that you can rest and you can hear from the Spirit of the living God. It is your sacred right. Scripture is offering a sacred invitation. Yahweh is giving a sacred, holy invitation to God's people. It's time to take back control of your life. Learn a powerful sentence.

1:23:38 I'm going to give you all a sentence right now. It's a test right now. I'm going to give you all a sentence. Use this sentence. It'll change your life. I guarantee you use this sentence, it's going to change your life. It's going to blow you away when you walk up and use this sentence. Here's the sentence. No. that that word right there will bless you it's a full sentence it's amazing capitalism wants you to work and work and work yourself to death or be distracted to your own detriment we live in what is known as an intention economy we are always checking something to make sure we don't miss nothing we always checking to make sure is everything uh and every time we check we feel worse than the last time we checked something because we're always giving getting information that is destructive we have something that is always stealing our time but if I may give a challenge I gave a challenge at 7 30 if I may give this challenge at 11 o'clock a challenge to everybody y'all ready for the challenge some of y'all nervous y'all say nothing y'all didn't say anything because you don't know what rev's gonna say he said I don't know I'm gonna hedge my bets and find out what the challenge is here's the challenge here's a challenge simple challenge Don't look at your phone when you're in the bed.

1:24:54 Some of y'all just lost it right there. Right there. Don't look at your phone. That's it. The challenge, the bed, that's for your rest. That's for your time to slow down and relax. And somebody, I saw somebody shaking in. No, I'm not doing that. I'm not doing that. Just when you get in the bed, don't look at your phone. Here's another one. When you wake up in the morning, don't look at your phone as the first thing. Take some time. Drink some coffee, some tea. light a candle, put your feet on the ground, sit in a chair, begin prayers before you check your phone and spend some time in rest before you begin your day. It's time to break the addiction.

1:25:34 Sabbath is an incarnational act. We embody our relationship with God by choosing to release ourselves from idols created by a system, by an empire. It was Jesus who knew how to rest. Jesus would go to the mountains. He would spend time away from the disciples. He loved them, but sometimes he'd say, y'all get on my nerves. I got to get away for a few days. Sometimes I need to rejuvenate myself. I need to have time to talk with my father without you around. I've got to spend some time alone in solitude. My body needs to be rejuvenated. This work is pulling things out of me, and you've got to rejuvenate yourself. I have to tell you a story. As I shared at 7 30, the one time, it was in 2017, when Monica and I really, really, truly got some amazing rest, amazing rest. We were in Ethiopia, in Lalabella. In the northern hills of Ethiopia, the space called Lalabella that are considered to be the holy city in Ethiopia where the 11 raccoon churches that are considered to be the eighth wonder of the world. We remember looking out upon the window into the city or the community or the town known as Lalabella. And I was saying to Monica, Monica was saying to me, come here, look at this. And we looked out and there was nothing there.

1:27:02 it was pitch black we saw stars and a campfire because in lalabella when the sun goes down means that you've got to slow down you got to make your way back home and you spend time with your family have your dinner and slow down there's no one walking the street there were no street lights there was no late night party nobody was hanging out people were in their home preparing for the next day because there was a ritual at the end of the day within the Ethiopian tradition. You've got to say your final prayers because you have to say, Lord, I thank you that you brought me through the day. And now that the sun has gone down, I have to give a few hallelujahs because I shouldn't be here right now. So I want to spend some time with you saying thank you. and I have to tell you I believe that night that we got some of the best sleep ever we were so knocked out we were drooling left and right and we woke up in the morning we felt so good we went and got some coffee and tea we didn't have any wi-fi so we couldn't watch look at anything on our phone and we went to get some coffee and tea I had some Ethiopian tea with some Ethiopian honey from the mountains it tastes so good and my father was on on this tour with us and we saw dad walking through the restaurant, he was just humming a song. He's like, I was like, dad, what you doing? He said, I got some rest. And everybody was feeling good because we were outside of the traditional American system that is always putting pressure on you.

1:28:48 We had time to actually rest. But can I give you this? Rest will allow you, in the words of Patricia Heresy will allow you to reclaim your dreams in the dreamscape. That when you learn how to rest, I'm telling you to let you know that when I rest, that is in the moment, the moment when things come. Poems and sermons and scripts and stories in the sacred space of dreamscape. I'm not talking about being knocked out of sleep. I'm talking about that sometimes when you're just sitting in a chair and with nothing else, you just sitting there and all of a sudden things begin to move in the spirit or just listening to some music. I like to listen to some Coltrane or Kamasi Washington or the smell of good food, laughing and dancing, sometimes just sitting or as old folk would say, just rest in your eyes. God does not speak in the rush or the hurry we serve a crockpot God a God that likes to take time allows you to stew allows you to develop and we serve a God that is demanding that we rest well I must bid you good day and may the Lord bless you real good but can I tell you one more thing. I have to let you know that this space that we call the church, the space that we call the black church, this is where black people traditionally got some rest. When we couldn't rest in the world, we could come into this space and we could be fully human. The world called me boy. But when I came into church, I became deacon and mister and reverend. In this space, I could pray without somebody breaking in and calling me names that there was something special that would happen. Even in church, do you know some folks got the best nap in the world in church?

1:30:59 They couldn't sleep anywhere else. They put on their best clothes, sat on the third pew, and fell out. And Howard Thurman said it this way, that he was preaching one time and there was a sister who was always sleeping in church and he was offended. He said, I was working hard on this sermon until he talked with the sister after service. Said, you don't understand, my husband lost his job. I now have to work nights and days. And when I come to church, that's the only time I get some rest. And so he told the deacon, said, don't you talk to her. Don't touch her because she is allowing God to move in her life right now so she can continue to keep on keeping on. The truth is you really don't know what's going on in somebody's life. They may need that rest. They may need to fall out. They may need to rest in that moment. And the church has been a space where we can rest. And I don't know about you. Sometimes my soul is weary, but when I come into God's house.

1:32:30 And I am round God's people. And I hear the songs of the saints. There's a peace that comes over my spirit. And I don't know if I have anyone in here. Have you ever been weary? But you showed up to church and God gave you rest for your So, God! is calling us to learn how to rest.

1:33:10 Rest and resist the production and the market of this world. That there's power in the rest. Yes, I said there's power in the rest. They tell me that on Friday, when Jesus died, they placed him in a grave. But what they didn't know, he wasn't dead, he was rested. And early on Sunday morning, after his sabbatical in the grave, he got up with all power in his hands. Good day, church. Thank you. Is there anybody in here? Do you know there is power?

1:34:04 In the rest. may you no rest this day may you be released from the anxious and anxiety producing activity