If I were to ask you to name the first product slogan that comes to your mind, how would you respond? (leave space for answers) Let me read you some slogans and see if you can guess the product.

Just do it. (Nike)

Betcha can’t eat just one. (Lays)

Have it your way. (Burger King)

The Quicker Picker Upper. (Bounty)

Think outside the bun. (Taco Bell)

Don’t leave home without it. (American Express)

Eat Fresh. (Subway)

Here are a couple for the teens in the room:

Make every second count. (TikTok)

Life’s more fun when you live in the moment. (Snapchat)

Taste the rainbow. (Skittles)

No rules, just right. (Outback Steakhouse)

What’s in your wallet? (Capital One)

The snack that smiles back. (Goldfish)

Can you hear me now? Good. (Verizon)

Ok, how about a couple of finish the slogans? I’ll read the start and you finish it.

Melts in your mouth, not in your hands. (M&Ms)

Like a good neighbor…State Farm is there. (State Farm)

Maybe she’s born with it…Maybe it’s Maybelline (Maybelline)

No one outpizzas…the Hut (Pizza Hut)

America runs on….Dunkins (Dunkin Donuts)

Silly rabbit!…Trix are for kids. (Trix)

The best part of waking up…is Folgers in your cup. (Folgers Coffee)

Product slogans tell you a little something about the product they are trying to sell you, but they also tell you something about the world in which this product is being sold and what that world really wants or needs.

In the late 1920s, as the United States was just entering into the Great Depression, a popular company of the time was working on a new slogan. They looked at the world around them and at the people they knew, and they asked themselves what those people needed. What was lacking in the world? Was there a gap that their product could help to fill? What they saw was a society of people working harder and harder for less and less reward. People were tired and stressed and feeling pretty beat down and worn out. From that realization came the slogan: The Pause that Refreshes. Can anyone tell me what company produced that slogan?…Coca Cola. They made radio and print ads to market their soda as an opportunity for people to take a pause during their day and be refreshed. They even commissioned some paintings to accompany the slogan on their print ads. Anyone know who the artist was?…my favorite, Normal Rockwell.

 This morning, we are looking at two passages that talk about Sabbath. Our text from the book of Deuteronomy is a repetition of the Ten Commandments that Moses was given by God at Mount Sinai, which we first read about in Exodus. Moses repeats to the Israelites, “Observe the sabbath day to keep it holy, as the Lord your God commanded you.” In the original Hebrew, the word translated ‘observe’ comes from a root word meaning ‘to put a hedge around.’ And the word shabbat, translated as ‘sabbath,’ comes from a root word meaning ‘to repose or to rest.’ God has commanded us, Moses says, to put a hedge around (to guard) a day of rest. We could spend time speculating about what constitutes a day, but for now, it is sufficient to say that God wants us to rest, to the point that he includes it among the Ten Commandments that he revealed to Moses.

In our passage from the gospel of Mark, we see Jesus going around Capernaum. And here we’re told that Jesus and his disciples pass through grainfields. Jesus’ disciples are hungry, so they begin to pluck heads of grain off the stalks and eat them. The Pharisees see this and are outraged because they believe that the disciples are breaking the law by harvesting grain on the sabbath. There is a story in the book of Numbers where an Israelites is found collecting sticks on the sabbath and Moses orders him to be stoned to death. That story was probably in the back of the Pharisees’ minds. But Jesus responds to their criticism, saying, “Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need of food? He entered the house of God, when Abiathar was high priest, and ate the bread of the presence, which it is not lawful for any but the priests to eat, and he gave some to his companions.” The implication here seems to be that if your basic needs are not being met but it is the Sabbath, you still need to meet those needs even if you have to do some “work” on the Sabbath.

Jesus then says something that I think is really the key piece of this story. He says, “The sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the sabbath; so the Son of Man is lord even of the sabbath.” Mark Branson and Kurt Frederickson, in their book That Their Work Will Be a Joy, are writing to pastors about coping with the stress and difficulties of ministry. And one of the chapters talks about sabbath. And much of what they write can be applied, not just to pastors, but to most people. They write, “Sabbath is a gift…that needs to be treasured and protected.” And also, “Sabbath can and should be about enjoying a regular opportunity to experience the liberating goodness of God.” The sabbath was made for us. God ordained the sabbath in order for us to see how important it is to rest and be renewed.

Frederickson later tells a story of one of his seminary professors. The professor had reached retirement age. About the same time, he received a cancer diagnosis. One day, during class, the professor said to the students, “I spent my entire life giving myself to the church, promising my family that when I retired I would devote myself to them. Now I am about to retire and my life is being cut short.” And here is the part I really want you to pay attention to. “Invest your life in what is most important each and every day.” Then Frederickson comments, “Practicing Sabbath is an act of resistance, saying no to all the pressures and demands…that wither the soul.” Now, I don’t know about you, but I am not very good at saying no to things. But I’m beginning to see how it would be good for me to do so. It can be good for us at times to admit that we have limits. We have bodies that can only take so much stress and exertion before we begin to feel it.

When Jesus tells the Pharisees that sabbath was made for humankind and not  humankind for the sabbath, he is telling us that we need rest. Even the idea of rest was made for our benefit. When God rested on the seventh day of creation, what if that was not a day without creation but rather the day when God created rest? After God created humankind out of dust, God realized that we couldn’t just work all the time. As “very good” as our human bodies were, God saw that we had limitations. Unlike God, we were weak and prone to tiredness. So, God decided to create one last thing. God created rest. And God created it for us, because God knew we needed it.

So what are the things preventing you from resting? What would life look like if you said no to some of those things? I’ve been asking myself this a lot lately. I don’t have all the answers yet, but I think there is power just in asking the question. Most of us need more rest in our lives. And I would wager that at least some of you are getting stressed just thinking about the prospect of saying no to something…especially something that feels important to you. I felt tension in myself even as I wrote this sermon. How can I cut something out of my life? Yes, I do too much a lot of the time. Yes, that stresses me out and I’m not as healthy as I should be because of it. But saying no might mean letting people down. It might mean having to humble yourself and admit that you are human and not indestructible.

I want to go back to that Coca Cola slogan: The Pause That Refreshes. That would be a wonderful vision statement for a church. We strive to be bearers of the Pause that Refreshes. We strive to be a community that people can come into and find rest. Wouldn’t it be amazing if that was the experience of everyone who came to experience the worship and ministry of this church? The Pause that Refreshes…that is a great descriptor for the sabbath. Does the sabbath need to be a full 24hr day? Does it need to be scheduled for the same day and time every week? Or can it simply be a change within us to make us more aware both of our need to rest and of the opportunities available to us to get that rest. In order to take that pause, we may need to say no to some things. We may need to shift our priorities. We will definitely need to admit that we truly CAN’T do it all.

Netflix is one the most popular streaming services available. If I were to ask you who the greatest competitors of Netflix are, what might you say? (Prime Video, Hulu, Peacock…etc.) Do you know who the CEO of Netflix says is their greatest competitor? SLEEP. Resting is the thing that keeps people off of Netflix more than anything else. The fact that the Netflix CEO recognizes and names this is honestly kind of frightening to me, because that means Netflix’s goals are likely structured around keeping people from sleeping in order to watch Netflix. As we didn’t already have enough pressure to avoid rest, now we have companies specifically marketing against it.

In a lot of ways we do that same thing in the Church. We try to create more and more programs, we try to bring people to more and more events. We try to get people to commit more and more to serve and participate in the life of the church and to choose the church over other things. What if we looked at ministry in a different way? What if our whole goal as a church became offering people an opportunity to rest? That sounds like some place I’d want to go to. Our world is already busy enough. Let’s make the church into a place of rest and restoration for all. The sabbath was made for us. So let’s embrace it. Let’s embrace the true Pause that Refreshes, our creator God, who made us, sustains us, and transforms us. May we rest under God’s wings. Amen!