Third Commandment
One
Friendship Requires Response
The fastest way to kill a friendship is not betrayal, it’s neglect. We all know what that feels like. You make time for someone. You reach out. You give yourself to the relationship. And they’re always too busy. They never respond. They never make time for you. Eventually, the friendship dies.
Now think about this: God has given Himself to you. Jesus said at the Last Supper, “No longer do I call you servants… I call you friends.” God offers you His friendship. But do we respond? Or are we the friend who is always too busy? Always distracted? Always choosing something else?
Because this is what the Third Commandment is about. Not just “keeping a day.” Not just “going to Mass.” It is about this: God gives Himself to you and sets aside time for you to receive Him. And He asks, “Will you receive Me? Or will you choose something instead of Me?”
The Third Commandment is not a restriction. It is God saying, “I really want to be with you. Do you have time for Me? Please, don’t choose something instead of Me.”
Because friendship cannot exist without time together. And if we never make time for Him, we are not just failing at a rule. We are choosing other things instead of the One who is offering Himself to us.
Two
All the Commandments are for our sakes
We always seem to forget that God gives us the commandments not because it makes Him any better off, but because it makes us so much better off. All the commandments are for our sake. Jesus makes this abundantly clear when he says, “The sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath.”
We are given the third commandment for the same reason we’re given all the other commandments, so we can have the one friendship above all others we need, and so that we can be happy. And, as it turns out, friendship, happiness, and rest are inextricably linked together.
Three
Rest and happiness
When God rested on the seventh day, it wasn’t out of exhaustion. God doesn’t get exhausted. When Scripture says that “God rested from the work He had done,” it meant that He delighted in the good He had done. He had made a good world, full of good things. And so He devoted the seventh day to appreciating it.
That’s what rest means. It means to delight in God, to delight in your friend, and to delight in His good world, and the good things within it. Rest means stopping your work so you can appreciate reality. That’s what happiness ultimately is: appreciating the goodness of God and the reality He has made. That’s what Heaven is, and that’s what at least one day of our week is supposed to be too.
What the Third Commandment consists in, ultimately, is a very loving Father, telling his busy, distracted, anxious children, “At least one day out of the week, I want you to be happy. I’m telling you, I’m commanding you, take some time, and be happy.”
Four
Trust in God or in ourselves? Happiness in God or in the works of our hands?
Why did the Israelites so often refuse to rest on the sabbath? Why do we so often fill our Sundays with work and homework? The answer is very simple: we don’t trust in God. We don’t believe friendship with Him will make us happy. We think we have to make our own happiness, by our own sweat and cleverness.
This is basically a kind of self-idolatry. Idolatry, remember, is when people would worship the work of their hands. They would hope for salvation in a little statue that they themselves had made. That’s why we won’t let go of our work. We’d rather be anxious and busy than happy and at rest in our friendship with the Lord. Because we too worship the work of our own hands. We too hope for salvation in things we ourselves have made.
But Sunday is a day to remember that God is good and that God is in control. Which means, if we entrust our happiness to God, we can stop stressing out and stop frantically trying to get stuff done, at least for twenty-four hours. Because the Lord has it well in hand. And our chances of being happy, being saved, are infinitely better when we rely on God as opposed to ourselves.
This is why Jesus came. To assure us that we didn’t have to be constantly freaking out and constantly working. He says, “Come to me, all you who labor and are overburdened, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28).
Sunday is a day to come to God, to entrust our happiness to Him, and then to look around and appreciate the goodness of what the Lord has done.
Five
Sunday is a Day for Friendship
We all live busy lives. Full schedules. Constant demands. Always something to get caught up on. But a busy life without real friendship, with God, and with others, is empty. That’s why God commands us to stop. To step away from our work and our over-scheduled lives, and to be with Him and with others.
Sunday is the day for friendship! First, friendship with God at Mass and in prayer. And then, friendship with others.
As a resolution, let’s set aside Sunday, I mean the whole day. Invite someone to do something good with you. Share a meal. Take a walk. Be together. And while you do, pay attention. Delight in the person with you. Delight in the good world God has given. Because this is what Sunday is for. Not just rest from work, but renewal of friendship and love.