In today's society in England, although certainly not everywhere else, Sunday has become much like any other day of the week.  The cycle established many hundreds of years ago of Sunday being 'a day of rest' has been broken.  Many people are finding that both partners are forced to work to make ends meet; weakening employment law to allow zero hours contracts has meant employers can keep people on unpaid standby and call them to work at a moment's notice.  Now we are finding that even that amount of commitment to constant work is not enough, as rising energy bills and other basic costs of living are forcing millions into poverty, whilst one would-be prime minister accuses British people of being lazy.

Of course, our general standard of living is far higher than in previous centuries and we have been liberated from so many diseases because of medical advances.  However, the demand on people's time so that they can feed, clothe and accommodate themselves is higher than ever.  There may not be as much of the 14-hours shifts of backbreaking manual labour as then, but it has been replaced by stress, fear of failure, uncertainty and a realisation that people are as exploited by the rich and powerful every much as in the past.

Sunday, for a long time, was seen as a day when, no matter whether one was old or young, poor or wealthy, we were all (or mostly all) given a day with fewer demands on us.  The shops did not open but the parks did; most of us did not have to work for a living on that day so we had time to be with others and look around our world; children did not have to go to school nor do homework or attend week-end catch-up lessons.  That is not to say that everything was idyllic but Sunday was certainly very different.  It was different because God had said so and people believed that.  Even the toughest employer did not seek to force people to work then and those activities that needed people recognised how important Sunday was by asking volunteers, to whom they would pay extra for giving up their day of rest.

The cracks in this really started to appear with the large supermarkets, which wanted people to drive to their big car parks to increase their sales and profits in every spare moment people had.  They placed constant pressure on governments, applying their financial persuasion through the support of politicians and lobbying.  In turn this meant that these employers applied pressure on their low-paid workers to work on Sunday; employment laws and opening hours laws began to be changed to allow this at minimum cost and maximum ease for employers.  The trend spread across most activities and nowadays there are few restrictions on any opening hours, as businesses with premises compete with 24 hours online organisations.  One can drink, gamble and indulge almost in anything on any day of the week, all in the name of personal choice.

The ancient Jewish people recognised the dangers in this 'industrialisation of life', with no time left for human beings to lift their heads from work or pleasure-seeking.  They saw that, even in their times, when to stop work was to risk starvation within days, human beings were not beasts, fit for nothing but toil, physical gratification and sleep.  Whatever you think about the book of Genesis, it has a clear instruction in there from very early on that the seventh day is one for rest.  In the Jewish people's case, they were told the God had rested on that day even as he created the world.  If it was good enough for God, it was certainly good enough for his people!

This instruction has been followed obediently and reverently by Jews ever since; the Jewish seventh day, the sabbath, is a Saturday; the Church of England's sabbath is a Sunday.  Until relatively recent history, not only was Sunday a day of rest, it was also compulsory to attend church on that day; no wonder some of those old churches seem so big!  Some English churches must have been packed, since many of them had little seating; again that is something that has developed over time.

There has always been argument over the sabbath as a day of rest or as a day for work; the Bible tackles it several times in the New Testament, with Jewish religious leaders and zealots following Jesus around and checking what he was doing or saying that day.  This week's reading from Luke has such a story, with Jesus encountering a woman in a synagogue on the sabbath.  It's interesting that he was teaching that day; there was no law saying you couldn't teach about God on the sabbath, just as vicars could (and still do) subject their congregations to long sermons on Sundays. 😊 In Luke's Gospel, the woman has been in agony for 18 years with an ailment that meant she could not walk upright.  Jesus does not hesitate; the story does not say that the woman asked for help.  he simply saw her, told her that she was set free from her ailment and laid his hands on her.  'Immediately she stood up straight and began praising God,' says Luke.  Note that she didn't praise Jesus; she knew that such a gift could not come from a man even though she must have seen Jesus as at least an intermediary from God.

As it was in a synagogue, it was an absolute certainty that the local leaders would see this and act; it was a straightforward breach of the law; remember that there was no difference for Jews between ordinary Jewish law and religious law; religious law was ordinary law.  Jesus will have known that he would be challenged and he was: he responded by saying that everyone did stuff on a Sunday; they had to do so to remain alive.  He gave as an example the need to untie a thirsty ox or donkey to lead it to water, an obvious action that many would have done without even thinking about it.  He then asked why was it OK to take an animal for a drink but not OK to free a Jewish woman of an ailment that she had suffered for 18 years?  The leaders were ashamed to give a reply and the crowd rejoiced.

As ever, it is a question of where one draws the line.  On this and other occasions, Jesus takes actions on the sabbath but there is no question of him saying, 'the sabbath is the same as any other day; exploit it as you please.'  Instead his message is, 'if you have something that absolutely must be done to avoid or end suffering, do it, whatever the day is.  The sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath.'  He is asking us to judge as individuals where the line should be drawn, based on our faith and the overall instruction to rest.

Perhaps that is why the strict enforcement of Sunday closing was not a good thing, as it took away the individual choice, of free will, that also first appears in Genesis.  However, when governments and companies seek to force people to work and forbid them from resting on Sundays, is not that another side of the same coin?  Let us hope and pray that in the days and months to come, there appears a realisation that the opportunity to rest is vital to human beings and much more important than any organisation's wish to stop them having that opportunity, whether for 'good reasons' or for gain.  Amen.