Theology in the Raw - 636: A. J. Swoboda - Taking Rest Very Seriously

Episode Date: February 25, 2018

Today on the Podcast Preston is talking with A. J. Swoboda, Preston's favorite Christian authors.  Today AJ and Preston are talking about his new book "Subversive Sabbath". Why should we rest? Why was "honoring the Sabbath" part of the 10 Commandments? How do we take a rest in today's non-stop world?  Check out AJ's book at and learn more about AJ at ajswoboda.com. Support Preston Support Preston by going to patreon.com Connect with Preston Follow him on Twitter @PrestonSprinkle Check out his website prestonsprinkle.com If you enjoy the podcast, be sure to leave a review.

If you hold down the button on the top of your phone for like five seconds, it actually turns off. And when you turn that thing off, and the minute you turn that thing off, it is the scariest moment in the world. Because you are saying to the world of Theology in the Raw. I am so excited about this episode. I know I say that about every episode, but I really am. I'm excited about every single episode that I do. But this one is a very special episode because I have not, I'm going to go ahead and say this. I have not one of my favorite Christian authors, but as I recently said on Twitter, my favorite Christian author, and maybe

it's because C.S. Lewis and Tolkien are dead that I can't have them on. But the third best option behind Lewis and Tolkien is my, I'm going to say my good friend. We haven't hung out a lot, but I feel like I know you inside and out. My good friend, Dr. A.J. Swoboda. A.J., thanks so much for being on Theology in the Raw. I'm honored to be here. And either you've never, you've never read anything I've ever written or you've never read Tolkien and Lewis regardless. Yeah. Well, so let's

just jump into that. You're, you're, you as a writer, you're, you're a pastor, you're, uh, you have a PhD, you're a teacher professor, but you've written several books. I have two here in front of me. I think my wife might have, um, uh, one of might have one of the other ones that I have. I'm holding my hands. The first one I read, I think I told you the backstory on this. It's called A Glorious Dark, which has one of the coolest covers, by the way. Finding hope in the tension between belief and experience. I met a guy here years ago. He was part of the Foursquare Church, which is your Foursquare, right? Yes. And he said, oh my gosh, you got to read this guy, A.J. Swoboda. He's Foursquare. He's written this book, A Glorious Dark. It's my favorite book I've ever read. I think he was a student out here at Northwest Nazarene University in Nampa. And I said, wow, that's, you know, somebody like gives that kind of praise.

I got to check it out. And I grabbed it, read it, and I was like, oh, my gosh, this is so great on so many levels. Just the writing style, I just love. I want to talk more about that. But what I love about the stuff you write on, at least with A Glorious Dark and another book you wrote called The Dusty Ones, you write on, and I want you to fill in the word here, but what I would describe as like the underside of Christianity, the dark side of Christianity, the stuff that the lament, the doubt, the wandering, and why even wandering can be good and beautiful and necessary.

So how would you describe kind of that theme that's kind of woven throughout a lot of your books? Underside of Christianity or what would be? Yeah, that's a good way to put that. You know, the first three popular books that I wrote, although this puts aside, you know, the academic stuff that I, you know, obviously has an academic bent, but the popular stuff, the first book that I wrote called Messy, God Likes It That Way, the second one, A Glorious Dark, and then the Dusty Ones. Really, all three of those are birthed out of my pastoral experience of walking alongside people who are attempting to follow Jesus and have these a certain set of questions, a certain set of sensibilities and a certain sense of fears around things that they feel are not appropriate to engage their faith in. So what do you do when you literally have no idea if God still loves you? What do you do when you felt like God spoke this thing to you and then this thing happened? I mean, so much of our walks with Jesus have to do with those questions, and often those questions, just we have nowhere to take them to. I remember when I, one of the first times I went to Disneyland, I remember going through a ride and I had, somebody said to me, kind of, I'd become an adult. And they said, next time you go in one of those rides, turn around during the ride and look at behind everything. around in the middle of the ride and I'd never looked behind me. And all I saw was just like unpainted walls and undone areas. I mean, it's the weirdest thing. Cause you, you know, you have the

part that everybody sees and then the part that nobody sees. And, um, there's a part in essence, I think there's a part to the Christian faith, um, that we often don't look at that, um, we're afraid to ask questions about or deal with. And I really sought to write those three books in that vein. I love that, the underbelly, as it were, of the Christian faith, the part that's unseen. And by God's grace, we've been able to have an impact in some people's lives and be able to serve a number of people through those books. And I praise God that somebody other than my mom has read them. That means a lot to me. through those books. And I praise God that somebody other than my mom has read them.

That means a lot to me. I imagine that there's probably a much larger number of Christians who need that kind of message. And I think there's a shortage of people willing to talk about it or even describe it with the sort of honesty, I almost say grit, and maybe grit and odyssey are the best terms that you're willing to describe, even revealing some of your own darkness and trouble with Christianity in a very honest way while maintaining faith. And again, I just, the more people I talk to, when you dig down

deep, it's almost like there's an underbelly to everybody's faith on some level and we need to kind of explore and embrace and wrestle with that. What I love, so I love the themes that you have in your books and the fact that, you know, I'm an intellect, you're an intellect. And so when I'm reading, I just, I do, I can't shut that off. So I am looking for thoughtfulness. It doesn't need to be heady. In fact, I don't even, I actually don't like reading academic books. I can't,

I don't comprehend things. So the real heavy, like kind of, you know, I love Karl Barth, but it's torture reading. Like I just, it's so hard for me when I do it. I love it. But so you, you're able to talk in a way that's very free, very casual. And yeah, it's very thoughtful. You're able to talk in a way that's very free, very casual, and yet it's very thoughtful. I love that. But probably the thing I love most about your writing is the artistry in the act of writing. I mean, most people are either very analytical or very artistic. I think your circuits got blown somewhere to somehow that's like fused together and you blend thoughtfulness and artistry in writing in a way that's very uncommon. I hate to say it, but uncommon among Christian writers. It's hard for me to read

Christian books anymore because there's little to no artistry in the actual writing. So can you talk to me about, I mean, we've talked about this before over barbecue in Portland a couple years ago, but do you work at that? Is that fun for you? Is it natural? Do you read books on writing? I know you read a lot of other good writers, but where does that come from? I hit the nail on the head. I mean, there's just so much theological language, theological writing that just doesn't, it doesn't really connect with the human soul. Actually, the guy that I read, this was about 10 years ago, I read a book, uh, by a new Testament scholar by the name of Thomas Schmidt. He wrote a book called a scandalous beauty. Uh, it's got,

it's this, uh, I think I, uh, Baker put it out if I remember, but this is, I mean, he is, he was a deeply well-respected new Testament scholar. And he wrote this book on, uh, on basically the cross. And he, what he attempted to do was he took his years, his decades of New Testament scholarship, and he put it into poetry. I mean, he put it into a language that I've never seen anybody do. And it, it is, I would say to this day, probably the best book I've ever read, Thomas Schmidt's book, Scandalous Beauty. I would recommend it to every single human being. It sold almost no copies. I mean, the best books always often don't sell very many.

But you're absolutely right. Unfortunately, there's this bifurcation, this split between seminary life and church life. And often we say, well, I want to bring the best of seminary to the church. And I think the reverse is important too. We need to take the best of the church to the seminary, and that is the best of the church to theology, the best of the church to our academic life. And I think the best writings have those circuits blown, and that there is no wall, dividing wall of hostility between good theology and the Christian life and by the grace of Jesus. I mean, again, the theologians in the life of Jesus, right, it was ultimately, ironically, the theologians who crucified the Son of God. I mean, it is the people who knew the most about God that are the most hostile to God when he actually comes in human flesh. Um, and I think, I think

theology, pure academic theology can be inherently dangerous to the human soul. Um, and I don't, as a theologian, you're a theologian. Yeah. I remember walking into the academy of, uh, uh, American, uh, American Academy of Religion and the Society for Biblical Literature Hall a couple of years ago where all the books are and all these theologians and biblical scholars were, you know, walking around and, and so holding up their books. And, and I walked in and it was the first time that I had this epiphany that theology can be idolatry too, that we can worship our theology. It disturbed me to death that the point of theology is not theology. The point of theology only matters if it delivers us into the hands of Jesus. You have a quote here. Let me see,

just as you're talking. I was reading it this morning and I highlighted it. Oh gosh. Oh yeah. Theology cannot save anyone. It can only point us to the one who saves. It's so simple, but brilliant. That's what I love about your writing. It's like you say things, it's like, you're like, oh, of course. But you put it in such a way that I've never seen it so succinctly. I mean, you could, yeah, when I read your books, it's almost like there's like, I literally have like a thousand tweets I could quote from here because you're able to package stuff in such a succinct, but memorable and compelling way. It's beautiful. Let's talk about your recent book or recent. It's not even out yet, right? It comes out next month. Yeah, it comes out on the 20th of this month. Yep. 20th of February called Subversive

Sabbath. Great name, by the way. The Surprising Power of Rest in a Non-Stop World. I just got this in the mail a couple days ago. So I'm on page X. I just finished a prologue. I think I'm on page four and I'm already, I mean, you can see I've got like underlying, I don't know if you can see it, but yeah, it's just,

my highlighter is going to work out because every line is just so good. Tell us about this book. I mean, there's many books on the Sabbath. Why did you feel compelled to write this book and how is this one maybe different or not that it has to be, but what is, what are people going to get out of this book and why do they need to read it? Yeah. So I wrote this, this book really birthed out of a personal crisis in my own life. So I began to observe as I paid attention to the community that I pastor here in Portland, I pastor a church called Theophilus in urban southeast Portland, that the people that I was pastoring were really tired, exhausted, and honestly just having a really difficult time being present.

I read this article, uh, by Andrew Sullivan who wrote, uh, writes for the New York magazine, a number of other things that had been passed on to me. And it was the title of the article was I used to be a human being. And the whole article is about this guy who, um, blogged like, you know, 12 times a day, spent, you know, 15 hours a day in front of his computer. And he just burned out and he, he just gave up the internet. And he has a line in this article where he talks about the greatest sort of, the thing that has the potential to get in the way of the church in the 21st century is not a hedonism, but distraction.

The thing that has the potential to bring the church down, as it were, is a church that is completely distracted. And so personally, just being able to observe our church and the people that I'm connected with just highly distracted. They're attempting to be everywhere, pretending to be omniscient, omnipresent, all the omnis. tending to be omniscient, omnipresent, all the omnis. And then personally, I went through a bit of a burnout experience myself when I was a college pastor. And I was working 80 hours a week and gave myself to everybody and everywhere all the time. I had become a quivering mass of availability. I was available to everybody but God. And essentially was reading a Eugene Peterson book and began to realize that the Sabbath is this principle, this idea, this reality that I had completely overlooked in the Bible. I mean, completely overlooked to the degree that, you know, the nine commandments,

right? You've got these, the 10 commandments, the, the 10 commandments, nine of them would be commandments that I would say, yeah, I sign up for that. So that's obviously, obviously, but then you come to the Sabbath and you're like, well, I don't have any idea how to, how to deal with that. In fact, three years ago, I, I, I preached on the Sabbath for three weeks in our church. And I have preached on things in our church that have upset a lot of people. I preached on sexuality. I preached against smoking marijuana. I have to, I in our church that have upset a lot of people. I've preached on sexuality. I've preached against smoking marijuana. I have to.

I'm in Portland. I've got to preach on that all the time. I've preached on all sorts of things that have upset people. And I preached for three weeks on the Sabbath. And I have never had more people leave our church than when I preached on the Sabbath. Are you serious? Dead serious. I want to drill down there. So yeah, keep going on that.

Well, I mean, here's the epiphany. I had a bit of an epiphany just after that. We talked about the Sabbath for three days and it brought up so many points of pain for people. I remember this particular mom, a mom of like four, who just was so disheartened that God would desire her to rest. And she felt like it was just one more command that she couldn't handle. And it just brought up so many emotions. I was sitting with our elders after preaching that three weeks. And I had this just epiphany that scared me to death. And it was that, you know, you take these 10 commandments and you go through all 10 of them.

You know, if I was to break nine of those commandments, I'd probably lose my job. You know, if I cheated on my wife, I'd probably lose my job. If I stole money from church, I'd probably lose my job. If I started preaching the gospel of Baal, I'd probably lose my job. But if I break the Sabbath, or I don't keep the Sabbath, I'll probably get a raise. And I had this just mind-numbing epiphany that I was completely not only overlooking this biblical theme that Jesus himself obeyed, but that simultaneously we had created a church system that celebrated the breaking of something that God instituted at creation. I mean, the Sabbath invitation comes before the invitation to not murder in the Bible.

It's in Genesis 1 and 2. It's built into creation. So at the end of the day, it is birthed out of a desire to see the church. That God did not invite us or create us to become slaves, but to be his friends. And that God wants to walk with us in the Garden of Eden and enjoy all that God has made. And that God wants to walk with us in the Garden of Eden and enjoy all that God has made. I'm going to tweet that line about if I break the second commandment, third commandment, fourth commandment, fifth commandment, I would get fired, get divorced. But if I break the Sabbath, I get a raise.

I mean, I want to say that's not true, but it's kind of exactly true. You know, the pastor that works super hard and is, you know, night and day. And if you need to meet up on Sunday night, he dropped what he is doing to do that. Like that's, if he doesn't do that, it's looked upon as being like, well, come on, man, what are we paying you here for? So, so I've got another question. I guess this is a little bit more academic on the Sabbath because it, you know, everything you're saying, I, you know, it makes sense. It's in creation, everything, which you do have, you know, as you know, and as I saying, I, you know, it makes sense. It's in creation, everything, which you do have, you know, as you know, and I hope you have an answer to, you know, statements in the New Testament in Romans 14, Colossians 2, and other passages, maybe Hebrews,

you know, or in the Gospels, where it seems like there might be some shifts in the, if I can say, the demands or expectations of the Sabbath for God's people, and I know this is where the debate comes of why some people keep it, some people don't. What are your thoughts on all of that? Is there any sort of shift between sort of the old covenant expectation of Sabbath keeping a new covenant expectation? Absolutely, yeah. So obviously the question comes into play, right? What relationship, what is the motivating factor for why one would keep a Sabbath? And certainly defining what a Sabbath is, I think, is an important thing. So, for example, I would say, looking at the biblical narrative, that a Sabbath is a 24-hour period that one sets aside to be present to God, others, to simply be.

Not to do, but to be. others to simply be, not to do, but to be. That 24 hours is not something that is primarily located in the law. And that's an important concept for us because obviously, for example, Galatians 3, what, 23, 28, when the seed comes that we no longer are bound by the law, but we're sort of freed from this law. I mean, there's a reason we don't do circumcision anymore, right? And there's important reasons why that's the case as Gentiles. Um, that that's not a, you know, part of the legal code that we continue to be faithful to. However, the, the commandment and the invitation to rest to me is not located only in the law.

It is located in creation. Now, why is that important? The invitation to rest, which is found in the Genesis 1 and 2 creation narrative, comes on the heels of God creating the whole world. God makes day 1, day 2, day 3, day 4. It comes all the way to day 6. God makes Adam and Eve on day six. Day seven becomes the day of rest. God says, you're going to work six days, but on one day a week, you're going to rest and you're going to be with me.

Which, incidentally, I think the very first image of the gospel in the Bible is in Genesis, that creation account. God created Adam and Eve on day six, and day seven was a day of rest. I mean, it should just reveal to us God's heart to recognize that Adam and Eve's first day of existence was a day of rest. So it would be too simple to say, if I'm hearing you correctly, that the specific kind of sabbath command um that that you see in exodus and the law and the ten commandments like that that was a specific kind of culturally bound a little bit correct covenant tied command and all its particulars but the underlying principle of resting even maybe one day a week is birth into creation

so we don't need to i don't i don't i don't know anybody that would say i don't need to eat that's just an old testament command right like like the need to rest is look it is literally an atheist needs the sabbath as much as anybody it is it is like eating it is like breathing breathing. It is a rhythm that God has established into the created realm. To not rest is to live a genetically modified life. Wow. So the specifics aren't really... The specifics really frankly don't matter.

Exactly. For example, we don't on the Sabbath, when my family and I keep a Sabbath, I'm not... And for any of your listeners that are concerned that this is some sort of new Judaic law that we're bringing back. I eat way too much bacon for anybody to make the case that I'm attempting to bring back some sort of new Judaism that's legalism. No, I mean, we don't sweep out the yeast in our home when we keep a Sabbath. Those are culturally bound things that were important for the Jewish people. But the principle of the Sabbath, which is a day of rest set aside a day a week to breathe and be with God, still remains. Jesus, when he's looking towards the future and he says, when I return, pray that it doesn't happen on the Sabbath.

pray that it doesn't happen on the Sabbath. Even Jesus' own teaching seems to suggest that he believed that the Sabbath would be a continued practice, and Jesus himself even Sabbath. I mean, Jesus, we've got to deal with the fact that Jesus was not only the Lord of the harvest, he was the Lord of the Sabbath as well. And what does that mean? He was the Lord not just of the work, but he's the Lord of the rest as well. The entire future orientation of the church, of God's people, our redemption, is a dimension called heaven, which is what? Sabbath. We're not saved by keeping a Sabbath, right? When we keep a Sabbath, that doesn't save us. We're saved by Jesus and Jesus alone. We're not saved by the Sabbath, but we should remember that when we are saved, we are saved for the Sabbath, because we will ultimately be with God in Sabbath for eternity. So practicing the Sabbath now is just practicing for eternity.

We're just getting ready for eternity. So you said to set aside a day to rest and to be with God. Can you unpack that a little bit? And let me just give you an example. Like for me, I haven't at all been a good Sabbath keeper in the sense that, I guess more in the strict sense, but I have, even in my busiest moments, I don't work on a Saturday or even Sunday unless you can, you know, I guess you can say there's certain types of church work that are work that I've done, you know, through different seasons, whatever. But like as far as Saturday, even I remember one,

I was working like 18 hour days on a book project or times where my PhD, when it was just round the clock and I still, I didn't touch anything on Saturday, but I wouldn't, if I'm honest, I wouldn't say I set aside that time for God. It was really just being with my family or playing or, you know, go to the park and, and me, I don't, it's, it's hard for me to do two things at one time. So if I'm playing with my kids, I'm not thinking about God because I can only do one thing, play with my kids. Well, when you think, yeah, this is great. You brought up, by the way, the point about pastoring, which this is why this book, Subversive Sabbath, is so stinking important. Because if the Sabbath,

by the way, has to be Sunday, if we're going to say it has to be a certain day, which I would argue it isn't. There's a point at the end of the book of Colossians where Paul says, don't bicker about what day the Sabbath is, what day the new moon is. I think he's actually saying, I think he's freeing us from what day it has to be. If it's going to be Sunday, every pastor that's listening to this is toast. Because there's never been a day in human history that a pastor's gotten that on Sunday and gone. Well, that was a refreshing experience. I mean, it, it, you know, Sunday is just, it's really hard. And, and so this notion, right, Adam and Eve, I just want to go back to Adam and Eve. What was Carl Barth actually, we, you know, you and I talked about this before

the show, Carl Barth's really hard to read, but he, when Carl Barth wrote about the Sabbath, he said, he identified that when Adam and Eve, that first day of existence, when they were with God and they were walking in the garden and they were simply present to God and each other, it wasn't that they were just with God. They had each other. They had the garden. They walked around and they, you just got to imagine, what did they ask? You know, God, how did you invent, you know, trees? Why did you invent, you know, trees? Why did you make, you know, cauliflower? God, why did you, I mean, it's not just a day to be with God, they're with each other as well. And they're with the animals, they're with creation, they're at shalom. I think that we need to understand that the Sabbath is not just about being with God.

We are with God all the time. We're with God seven days a week. But there's a specific awareness of God's presence in our life that we are at shalom. And playing with your kids in the front yard, you don't have to be thinking about God to be with God. You are setting aside time to be with God and be with the people that you love the most. And that is absolutely what the Sabbath is all about. That's, gosh, I want to do another podcast just on that, just on that idea, because I constantly wrestle with that, with what does it mean to be present with God, to be with God, to even be communing with God, and I've, it's taken me so, I would say I've been a Christian for 22 years, maybe. And it's taken me probably 18 to 20 of those years to figure out that the whole being with God by yourself is so hard for me. I'm a

terrible Christian by myself, but I truly, I am. No, I am. But when I'm around God's people, that's when I feel like my spirituality is energized. And I would say for most of my Christian life, I felt guilty about that. But I just wonder if the body of Christ is more than just a metaphor, if Christian community, very broadly speaking, when you're in that kind of life-giving, you know, community, if that's actually the way it should be, you know, like that is without, you know, kind of thinking specific thoughts about God or specifically praying, you know, word for word to God, but actually being in the presence of other people, if that is a means in which we're

experiencing God. And maybe even, you know, creation too, or family, or working with wood, or living out our kind of creational existence. I don't know. I just, hey, am I on to something? Because that would be incredibly freeing. Because I constantly have tons of guilt on me about like, am I even spiritual? Like, you know. Absolutely. of guilt on me about like, am I even spiritual? Like, you know, absolutely. And to, and to,

and to make, and to make it super clear, I guess, technically speaking, shame and guilt are work. So to actually be feeling guilt is to actually break this up. You have to understand that this is to be a day where you, you are, you are freed in Jesus. The Lord of the Sabbath has freed you and you can be at peace. If you ever go to a Jewish Sabbath service on Saturday, it's very interesting. Orthodox Jewish communities, if you live in a city, you have to live close enough to the synagogue that you can walk. close enough to the synagogue that you can walk. And the reason is on the Sabbath, when you walk to synagogue, that you can always walk with other people. You never walk alone. You always walk with other people. There's built into, I mean, you look at Jesus in the New Testament, how many times is Jesus on the Sabbath at synagogue? He is with other people. He is present with his friends, his family. Jesus is around others. I would argue that the idea of sort of an isolationist Sabbath has almost

no biblical precedent whatsoever, which is actually really hard for me as an introvert, because I want it to be all about me and just sit around. And so the Sabbath actually, it builds in all those things, celebration, good food, family, friends, people we love. I think one of the most important things we can do on the Sabbath as well, just as simple as it is, is just to turn our phones off, which that in itself is almost impossible to do. When you, you know, that moment, some people, some of your listeners don't know that if you hold down the button on the top of your phone for like five seconds, it actually turns off.

And when you turn that thing off, the people who invented that phone knew what they were doing because when it turns off, it flashes a little apple with a bite taken out of it like you're back in the Garden of Eden and you've been eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. And if you turn that thing off. And the minute you turn that thing off, it is the scariest moment in the world because you are saying to the world, you are not my Lord. Wow. And, and, and the truth is we live our lives thinking so us-centered that the world exists because we are in it. And here's the

hardest part, is when you turn your phone back on after 24 hours and the world is still going. Because you realize that you are not the Lord of the world. It's like Moses going up on the mountain, right? He goes up on the mountain, precede the 10 commandments. He comes down and all of God's people are worshiping a golden calf. That is why we hate the mountain, right? He goes up on the mountain, precede the Ten Commandments. He comes down and all of God's people are worshiping a golden calf. That is why we hate the Sabbath. Because we're terrified. I'm a pastor. I'm terrified. If I come down the mountain and everybody's worshiping a golden calf, I'm going to realize

I'm a bad leader. That's not what scares me the most. What scares me the most is coming back down the mountain and seeing everybody worshiping God and realizing I'm not actually as important as I thought I was. Wow. For you, AJ, so is Saturday typically your Sabbath day? So we were on Wednesday last year.

My son turned six and is now in kindergarten, so we switched to Saturday. It's a movable Sabbath. And we did it to Saturday because we want to be together as a family. But I make the case in the book that the Sabbath was given to us, not us to the Sabbath. The Sabbath was given to us as a gift, and that means that we are not obliged to make it a specific day. The principle is one in seven as a day of rest. And even the early church, the earliest Jewish people Sabbathed on Saturday, and then almost immediately the earliest Christians worshipped on the day of resurrection on Sunday. And I think that there's a trajectory in the church of some elasticity around what day has to be the Sabbath.

But, you know, so for us, it's Saturday. What does that typically look like for you? Do you have like certain rhythms every week or is it just basically kind of a day off? Yep. So it's almost religious at this point. We've been doing it for 10 years. And what happens is on the morning of the Sabbath, so Friday night, I come home after work. So usually around six o'clock, I arrive at home. We have these Sabbath candles in our home. My son, who's six, he's a pyromaniac. So he's already lit them and blown them out like four times. So I show up and we get together around the candles and we light the candles and we sing a song together. And it's a very simple old school Jewish song. And it just goes Shabbat Shalom to, and everybody gets names. So Shabbat Shalom to Quinn, Shabbat Shalom to AJ, Shabbat Shalom to AJ. Shabbat Shalom to Elliot. And then my son, he'll just keep naming stuff too.

Shabbat Shalom to the refrigerator. Shabbat Shalom to the chickens. And we'll start naming this stuff. And usually that night, Friday night, we'll just have a feast at home. And we go to bed in the morning. We wake up. The number one rule is nobody makes their bed on the Sabbath. So you're not allowed to make the bed. And my son comes upstairs he wakes me up i come downstairs with him and we make we put bacon in the oven again what anything i'm not jewish in any way shape or form so we do the bacon we do the coffee and we and my son and i make the biggest pancakes you could ever imagine and at that point my wife comes downstairs and we just sit around the table for an hour and eat these massive pancakes. And actually the reason we do the

pancakes is really, we have great intention behind it. There's an old Jewish tradition that on the morning of the Sabbath, the father was to get up early and get a spoon of honey for every child in the family. And the goal was so that no child would ever forget the sweetness of God's rest. So we get up, and we don't do honey. We do maple syrup. And the goal is that in 50 years when I'm dead and gone, if anybody even utters the word Sabbath around my son, he'll just start to drool because he's so used to ingrained with this idea that the Sabbath is sweet and we'll eat pancakes and my wife and I'll drink coffee. We'll talk. Um, usually around noon,

um, my son gets to watch a movie while, uh, his mom and I get to take a nap and, uh, and we, it's the best nap of the week. And we come downstairs. We eat a meal together. We go on a walk. We garden together. We go to the park. We go on a hike. We do as best as we can to keep our phones off the whole day and our screens off. And I'm going to tell you, Preston, I've been keeping a Sabbath in a non-religious, legalistic way and a graceful way for 10 years.

way, in a graceful way, for 10 years. And every single Sabbath, it is like we're back in the Garden of Eden. And it doesn't make it easy. Sometimes it's horrible and crazy hard, but God always shows up. I want to tell you this. In researching this book, I came across these writings of the Third Reich of Nazi soldiers in World War II who found out that if they could disturb the Jewish Sabbath, that it would steal the hope of the Jews. So they would do all this crazy stuff to make the Sabbath hard for them. And so the Jews would always seek to keep the Sabbath, even though the conditions were horrific. And there's this one line in a journal entry from a Nazi soldier who writes this. He goes, we try to destroy the Sabbath because when we destroy the Sabbath, we destroy the Jewish people. Because every time they keep the Sabbath, it's like they get their souls back again. I want to just close in prayer, dude. This is, wow. AJ, the book is Subversive Sabbath,

The Surprising Power of Rest in a Non-Stop World, I really want to see this book widely distributed. And you made a comment way early on, and I would agree with. Some of the best books, and I know you wouldn't say this is the best book, and I haven't read it yet, so I can't officially say, even though it's the best Christian author. It is frustrating sometimes that books that are very profound and so good, so well written, don't get widely distributed. And I really hope that this book spreads around in this concept. And I say that primarily to myself because I do have – I don't know what it is, man. I just – I would say I have workaholic tendencies.

Like I do thrive on work. would say i have workaholic tendencies like i do thrive on work um my you know on the strength finders test i'm a high achiever so i like to accomplish my my dream day is having this long list of things to do and just checking off every single one and that last one draw a line through and it's just it's like euphoric you know um so my my wife is really great at balancing that out. She, she works incredibly hard, but she likes to play hard too. And, and very sensitive to working too, too much. So we cram in a ton of work between Monday and Friday, um, become Saturday. I would say it's, it's not, um, we do, we're pretty good at family time.

I would say we're really good actually at, actually, at guarding, spending time as a family, not like working or not. But I wouldn't say we're as intentional at building more intentional rhythms or habits like you're talking about. And man, I would love to explore more of that in my life because I feel like I'm always butting up against burnout. I've burned out once or twice in the last 10 years. Not like ended up in the hospital kind of anxiety, panic attacks, but not far from that. And even, I would say even right now, I'm constantly like, just my heart just feels like it's in my throat, you know, and there's just a lot of anxiety surrounding. A lot of it's just the nature of the stuff I talk about and do and the people I work with.

But I do bite off too much, I think. I know. Anyway, so I'm clinging to your book right now, man, and super excited to read the whole thing. But yeah, any last words for people that are wanting to explore this more or seeing in their own lives just unhealthy busyness and distractions and anxiety. Is there any, um,

any other words you can give us as we fade out? Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, certainly I'd love everybody to get a copy of the book and read it and not just get it, but read it and,

um, find hope in this principle of the Sabbath because it, it is such a beautiful concept and such a real and important thing for the church in a world of people that are exhausted. The church needs to be the one that models how to rest because nobody else is modeling this. Yeah. And the people are craving it, I think. I think people realize. Crazy. Yes. I'll tell you this. I'll tell you this. I used to get super angry when somebody would come to church and fall asleep in the back of church because you can tell when their heads are nodding like they're falling asleep.

But here's what's going on. I'm seeing more people come to church and fall asleep than I've ever seen. And I've come to believe that that is actually beautiful. Because if we can come to church and find rest in the presence of Jesus, we're doing something good. For a tired generation, they're looking for a place to rest. And we can rest in Jesus. There are a lot of great books out there. John Mark Comer's book on Rest Garden City is great. Abram Heschel's book is phenomenal, The Sabbath.

I mean, there are just—Marva Dawn's book on the Sabbath is so good. And I hope that this book becomes an important contribution to this field because Sabbath amnesia has taken over the church and we've got to remember the line in Exodus 20. Remember the Sabbath. We've just got to begin with that. Simply remember it. Change of subjects. AJ, I'm going to be in Portland next month at the Leaders Forum. Are you going to be there? Do you know anything about that? I'm doing everything in my power to be there. Awesome. Everything in my power. I'm actually going to be your way on the 16th of February. I'm speaking at Northwest Nazarene.

So I'm going to be there your way on the 16th. So if there are any students that listen to this, make sure you come to chapel that day. Can we grab a meal or a drink? I would love it. Okay, cool.

I marked that down and let's make that happen. I'm almost positive I'm here. So yeah, just a shout out to anybody from Portland listening to this. I'm going to be out there on, I think it's, what was it? February 20, I want to say the last, February 26 or 27, I believe. It's on the website centerforfaith.com. And yeah, I would love to see you guys. There's still room for the forum.

I think we're getting close to sold out. But yeah, as of now, there's still room. So if you want to come to the Leaders Forum where we're talking about faith, sexuality, gender, we'd love to see you there. So AJ, thanks so much for being on. And yeah, let's do this again, man. This is a lot of fun and super challenging and encouraging.

So many blessings to your ministry and to you, buddy. And also to you, brother. Grace and peace. Thanks for listening to Theology in the Raw. We will see you next time. Thank you.