The Affordability Of The Sabbath

For some families, not being able to work on even a single day a week would significantly hinder their ability to save money, as a day spent not generating some sort of income would greatly slow their accumulation of vital wealth.  Some people might alternatively not have to even think about what abstaining from professional work one day a week would do to their income.  There is nothing wrong with having this kind of privilege, for no one who possesses it is necessarily irrational or unjust, and anyone who hates another person for being able to have at least one guaranteed day away from work can only do so on the basis of stereotypes or envy (assumptions and emotionalism).  But what about those who might suffer from not working every day of the week?  The Biblical Sabbath, if Christianity is true, would be an obligation for them just as it is for everyone else, though the Sabbath does not mean that absolutely no one can perform physical labor or that there would not be exceptions even with labor for pay (such as hospital work) [1].

The Sabbath is something ignored or trivialized by a great number of Christians.  Keeping a day of rest might be far from the most vital of moral obligations detailed in the Bible, but to violate the Sabbath is a capital offense (Exodus 35:2).  If more Christians were to take it as seriously as the Bible itself does, setting aside their emotionalistic love affair with conscience and church tradition, they might quickly begin to think about the ways to implement a personal Sabbath in a culture very different than that of the ancient Jews.  In an economy like that of America where some people can scarcely afford to wait two weeks to receive their next round of pay, how the poor should keep a Sabbath is a significant issue (though the Bible never prescribes Saturday or Sunday as the Sabbath, only saying to abstain from general work for one day of each week, which makes it easier to uphold).

The Sabbath is not about penalizing the poor for being poor or giving the illusion of a respite from work while taxing people with worries about how they will survive.  It is a day of rest, not a day intended to provoke deep financial anxiety.  Ultimately, any difficulties in keeping the Sabbath and staying afloat economically in modern, Western society would be due to the oppressive manner in which capitalism is practiced in America, which drives many people to let work dominate their lives.  The problem would not originate from having a day to acknowledge and rest in the fact that professional work and unnecessary labor in general are not the defining things of life.  With or without Christianity being true, in fact, work is at most secondary to other matters (the core of reality is reason rather than social constructs like economic practices).  The Sabbath is about knowing and celebrating this truth, which transcends even a theistic context, and the poor are just as able to understand these logical facts as the rich.

Professional work and physical labor in general are not the most important parts of life for either the rich or the poor.  The "affordability" of the Sabbath would have nothing to do with whether it is obligatory anyway, as pragmatic consequences do not make something good or evil, but the Sabbath is needed no less by the poor, who would benefit from as much physical relaxation and spiritual rest as they can find.  The Sabbath, as Jesus says, is for the sake of human wellbeing (Mark 2:27).  Having a day of rest is never the problem to begin with when a society is structured so that people are pressured to let work occupy the majority of their lives, and just to simply survive at that.  Evangelicals unfortunately tend to be too infatuated with American social norms to see how far many of them deviate from Biblical commands.  Holding a personal Sabbath each week would could actually be liberating in ways that could prompt someone to see just how arbitrary, hypocritical, and baseless so much of the American economic system truly is.

[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2022/11/healing-on-sabbath.html