The Wire Around Brooklyn: A Sabbath Warning to Ministers

There’s a wire around Brooklyn.

You wouldn’t notice it unless you were looking for it. Most people, even many of its residents, have no idea of its presence in their city. But the wire is there. It’s called “Eruv”.

The eruv is a symbolic boundary that stretches from pole to pole, surrounding a Jewish community. They put up the wire to “extend” the private domain of the home into public spaces, allowing Orthodox Jews to carry items outside on the Sabbath, which would otherwise be prohibited according to traditional Jewish law.

The eruv is the Jews’ way of getting by with not observing the Sabbath rest.
It’s a religious workaround… technically legal, but missing the heart of Sabbath rest. It’s a man-made loophole.

Here’s the rub. Many ministers do it, too. They have an “eruv”… an artificial excuse to not take the rest that God prescribes to his creation. Sabbath wasn’t just made for man… it was for the land, animals, slaves, debts… it was God’s demand.

It was so important to God that he sent the israelites into 70 years of captivity by Babylon… one year for every Sabbath they didn’t give to the land. For presumably 490 years, they made excuses for not letting the land rest, and God demanded repayment with their captivity. He would not relent “until the land had enjoyed her sabbaths.” (2 Chronicles 36:20–21)

And so, here’s the reality of the life of a minister… unmet sabbaths resulting in burnout that leads to captivity. Ministers drive themselves forward so hard, they spend all of their labor plowing land that will no longer yield the results they desire, until they’re forced into rest. Sickness. Emotional collapse. Giving up.

They’ve fallen more in love with the “work of God” that the God of the work… the God that demands the minister rest, and that he lets the land rest, too.

Sometimes we’re confused into thinking that the land isn’t producing because we’re not doing enough. For some lazy ministers, that could be true. But for most, it’s likely only because the land hasn’t had rest because the minister hasn’t sabbathed.

In a natural sense, God demanded rest for the land so that it could recoup its resources, and could then yield more and better fruit later. Land that is farmed year after year without resting or at least rotating its crops becomes stripped of its nutrients and can no longer yield the produce it was once capable of. Farmers are left to employ artificial fertilizers and work exponentially harder to squeeze more produce from the soil.

And in a spiritual sense, ministers do the same. We are forced to work even harder to get results from our ministries because we haven’t taken our rest and we’ve driven our ministry too hard without giving it time to recover.

In God’s agrarian-like spiritual environment, He demands that we rest. That we Sabbath.

Refusing Sabbath does two things:

• It dishonors God by disobeying His clear command.
• It reveals distrust, as though the ministry can’t survive without our nonstop effort.

Let me explain. Not taking Sabbath for ourselves dishonors Him by disobeying His command. Not offering Sabbath to the land or our ministry dishonors Him by not respecting His desires. It’s His land, not ours, and mistreating it is offensive to Him. It’s His ministry, not ours.

Not taking Sabbath for ourselves reveals our lack of trust, because we do not believe that God can provide and produce without our help.

God commanded that the land would be allowed to rest every 7th year. Letting the land rest meant they had to believe God would provide enough in the sixth year to carry them through.

The land sabbath was about more than agriculture. It was a spiritual test of trust.

When God provided manna in the Wilderness, He commanded that they collect it for six days, and rest on the seventh. He would provide enough on the sixth day so that there would be no need to labor on the seventh while they rested.

So, back to the eruv… the wire stretched around Brooklyn.

We cannot create enough artificial boundaries to excuse our disrespect of Sabbath rest. Eventually, you will take a forced sabbath because God will demand it. Your ministry will crash. Your family will suffer. Your emotional state will crumble.

You can’t continue running at breakneck speed and expect to minister the same way you could with a day of rest. God demands rest. You can’t continue laboring as though the results are up to you. You are a yoke-sharer, not a one-ox-show.

Two profound scriptures should guide us.

Matthew 11:28-30 records Jesus’ call to the weary and heavy burdened… those who have not sabbathed. “Come unto me… and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your soul.”

And John 15:5, Jesus explains the futility of trying to do ministry without Sabbathing with Him. “I am the vine; you are the branches. The one who remains in me—and I in him—bears much fruit, because apart from me you can accomplish nothing.”

Jesus is calling you into rest. Into Sabbath rest. Into the kind of rhythm of resting regularly in Him so that we can experience the plentiful rewards of our labor.

Yet, so many ministers refuse.

“Thus saith the Lord, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls. But they said, We will not walk therein.” — Jeremiah 6:16

There it is again, “rest for your souls”. Yet, they said, “we will not walk therein”.

Dear minister friend. I think it’s a good time to rip down Eruv.
To stop making excuses to disobey God’s command of rest.

Talk to your family and your church leaders and set aside time to rest. Tell them all you expect them to do the same.

Lower your expectations, and release yourself from the demands of others.
Tear down the eruv you’ve built around your calendar.
Lighten the commitments. Make the time. Guard it violently. Sabbath.
Set the standard. Lead the way. Sabbath.
Not as a luxury. As obedience.

There’s a wire around Brooklyn.