Recently, J.R. Woodward posted a wonderful article on this website responding to the recent news about the frantic culture that drives Amazon.com and unsettling us with the reminder that our churches often are no less frantic. J.R. makes the case for a different, more relaxed church culture, drawing upon three of my favorite books: Slow Church (full disclosure: a book that I co-wrote with John Pattison), Shrink (Tim Suttle), and Life on the Vine (Phil Kenneson).
Drawing upon a contrasting New York Times story, Woodward encourages us to consider the example of the Ikarians in our desire to slow down:
An article in the New York Times that got one-tenth of the responses of “Inside Amazon…” was “The Island Where People Forget to Die.” It was written by Dan Buttoner, who for over a decade now has studied populations around the world that have longer life expectancies. Buttoner has studied many of the places that have the most centenarians, people who live to be a hundred or older. For this article, Buttoner’s primary focus was on the Ikarian people, who live on an island that is 99 square miles and is home to around 10,000 Greek nationals. His research revealed some key reasons why Ikarians live longer and more enjoyable lives than most people in the world. Although you will need to read the article to get all the helpful information, one could sum it up by saying that the Ikarians know how to refresh themselves physically, recharge themselves emotionally, and renew themselves spirituality.
Woodward’s conclusion:
If we want to create a culture where people live long and well, if we want to build communities that are a sign, foretaste, and instrument of God’s coming kingdom, then we need to learn from the Ikarians more than the Amazonians. The Ikarians teach us to live more locally, to laugh more, to look at time from God’s perspective, to eat well and rest well, to drink more wine, to have sex often, and to dance through life.
I applaud the direction that J.R. is moving, am grateful for his plug for Slow Church, and almost completely agree with him. There is, however, one small way that he could be misunderstood, and I would like to reflect on that here.
An Aversion to Being Called to Suffer
At the root of this potential misunderstanding lies a deeper reality that guides the ways Americans think about work and leisure. Yes, J.R. is certainly right that our lives have become shaped by the forces of frantic “Amazonian” ideals, but I don’t think that this is the complete story. We have also been shaped by a deep desire to avoid work, to avoid pain, and to avoid suffering. Such avoidance comes at great costs to ourselves, human culture, and God’s creation as a whole. I sometimes refer to this reality as the “culture of the labor-saving device,” highlighting that an increased reliance on technology over the last century or more has had the unintended consequence of making us averse to strenuous labor or even to entering the pain and suffering of others.
We have a sort of Jekyll-and-Hyde relationship going on in our attitudes toward work and leisure. On one hand, we have a deep desire for leisure, a life that minimizes work and suffering (“amusing ourselves to death,” as Neil Postman once put it). On the other hand, an ever increasing amount of our lives is being consumed by the frantic anxieties of our workplaces. I think that there are important correlations between both of these sides of our split personality. Often our frantic work is driven by our deep desire for leisure and our fear that we might lose the leisure that we have or have been working toward (e.g., a comfortable and early retirement).
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The story of the Ikarians is helpful to an extent as a sort of corrective. J.R. does well to point our attention to it as a reminder that another way is possible. As we consider this story and consider what it is going to look like for us to embody a different way in our churches, we need to examine our motives very carefully. How attached are we to the image of a leisurely life? Do we only want this sort of life for ourselves, everyone else be damned, or do we desire it for our neighbors and, indeed, for all humanity? Are we willing to give up some of our leisure or some of the resources that we are devoting to our pursuit of leisure in order that our neighbors might find rest from some of their anxieties and know a degree of rest, peace, and leisure?
I look at my neighbors in this urban neighborhood and the struggles that some of them face with finding a job, keeping up with their rent, battling drug addictions, or living under the imminent threat of deportation. I can’t fix their situations. Even our church community, which has been blessed with abundant resources, cannot fix their situations, but we can learn to enter into their struggles. This is the nature of the way of compassion (a word that comes from Latin roots meaning “suffering with”) to which we have been called in Christ. There is a lot of suffering in my neighborhood, in your neighborhood (though it will very likely look different there, as each place has its own set of challenges), and in the world at large. There is a lot of work to be done as we bear witness to the compassionate love of Christ.
Becoming a Sabbath People for Others
The challenge is to hold the story that J.R. has told, of needing to offer an alternative to the anxiety and overwork of American culture, in tension with the reality of our call to the compassionate work of Jesus. I don’t believe in legalism or in magical solutions, but I do believe that there is wisdom in the biblical practice of Sabbath. Most of our life is going to be work (approximately 6/7ths of it if we are to believe the Hebrew Torah). Our desire to shirk this reality often leads to exploitation of other humans or creation. Our desire for cheap clothes has led to sweatshop labor. Our desire for cheap food has led to the brutal realities of industrial agriculture. Embracing the realities of diligent work in our homes, churches, and workplaces will help us anticipate and appreciate the Sabbaths that we are able to enjoy.
I don’t believe in utopias, and there is a great temptation for stories like that of the Ikarians to become utopian. The images that such stories project will ultimately disappoint us. Flannery O’Connor also wasn’t a fan of utopias. In her superb essay “The Fiction Writer and His Country,” she recommends that instead of heralding utopian visions of the flourishing society, the Christian writer should work prophetically in the negative mode (i.e., boldly naming those things in our society that inhibit the flourishing of all people). She writes, “The novelist with Christian concerns will find in modern life distortions which are repugnant to him, and his problem will be to make these appear as distortions to an audience which is used to seeing them as natural.”
Herein lies our hope. We diligently enter into the struggles of our neighbors, which helps us to see clearly those things that inhibit the flourishing of all people. We work to draw attention to and dissolve these barriers. At the same time, we strive to be a Sabbath people who are not consumed and destroyed by this work. Being a Sabbath people creates space in which we can learn to be present with one another and our neighbors, for it is human presence that saturates all of our life and work with meaning. We don’t work for abstract causes, we work out of our love and compassion for specific people in particular situations.
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Yes, God intends rest and peace and flourishing for all humanity. But it is very tempting to seek this peace for some people to the exclusion of others. Following this temptation will only foster new and deeper forms of injustice that we may or may not intend. For now, we are best served by embracing the full rhythm of Sabbath life.
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