Herman Melville’s classic, Moby Dick, not only tells the allegorical story of Captain Ahab’s pursuit of the great, white whale, but has a wealth of barely hidden spiritual treasures. A reading of the whale skiff’s approach to Moby Dick is such.
First, Melville makes the not-so-obvious point that if whales are not taken and their oil barreled, the entire years-long voyage of the whaling ship and the efforts of the whalers is of naught. But his insight goes much further than that.
You have to imagine the lookout’s spotting of the whale’s waterspout. The spontaneous launching of the small whaling skiff, the coxswain in the stern of the boat, shouting the tempo of the thrashing oars of the whalers, the harpooner sitting in the bow with his dart. Every man is rapidly heaving and rowing through the spray. Only one man sits idle— the harpooner. The character, Ishmael, thinks these words: “It is the harpooner that makes the voyage, and if you take the breath out of his body how can you expect him to find it there when most wanted!”
Melville concludes his chapter with these words, which may speak to anyone who doubts the efficacy of rest: “To ensure the greatest efficiency in the dart, the harpooners of this world must start to their feet from out of idleness, and not from out of toil.”
Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. So is given the fourth of the Ten Commandments.
In giving the Commandments to Moses, God said more about the fourth than any other. God needed only four words in regard to killing, but God used ninety-four words to tell us to “remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.” Once, preaching on this text, I interpreted the words of God to say, “I command you to rest one day every week.”
Think of it: God commands us to rest. The gospel of Mark tells us that after the disciples had been preaching all over the Galilean countryside for a few days that Jesus finally said to them, “Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while” (6:31).
I recently read something to the effect that when we are small children, we are forced to take naps, but when we are old, we are not forced to but try to find time every day to take a nap. In fact, I once heard a psychologist referring to clients who, when they got angry, got very tired at the same time. He explained, “This happens because when they were children and when they got cranky, a parent would say, ‘Oh, I see you’re tired. It’s time to take a nap.’ It becomes internalized so that now, every time they’re upset, their minds and memories tell them they’re sleepy.”
Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann, shares: “Sabbath is a day of special dignity, when God’s creatures can luxuriate in being honored ends and not mobilized means to anything beyond themselves.” In other words, a day when men and women can mentally celebrate and physically demonstrate that they have ultimate value not in what they do—labor; but in what they are—creations and children of God. In this sense, therefore, when we observe the Sabbath, when we intentionally cease from our labor so that we may rest, we are honoring ourselves. Also, in faithfully obeying what God has commanded, we are honoring God.
What a gospel it is: “To ensure the greatest efficiency in the dart, the harpooners of this world must start to their feet from out of idleness, and not from out of toil.”
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