The movie Chariots of Fire tells the true story of the British track team at the 1924 Olympics. One of the best athletes, Eric Liddell, was a devout Scottish Presbyterian and refused to participate in a race which was on a Sunday even though that lost his chance to get a medal. (Spoiler alert: he entered a different event and got his medal.) It seems almost quaint nowadays that someone took Sabbath rest so seriously. Many families don’t even come to Church because the soccer leagues play on Sunday morning. While Jesus warns us not to use the idea of Sabbath rest as a straightjacket we as a society have lost something important in making Sunday one of the busiest days of the week. Rabbi Abraham Heschel wrote a wonderful book on the Sabbath which he named as a Cathedral of Time. Just as we would never treat a sacred place irreverently we should consider how we can reverence sacred times as well.
