Just yesterday, I told someone not to go to the store to buy something for me. Today is Monday. Yesterday was Sunday. Why would I do that? Allow me to explain.

When I lived in the Protestant world, I had many friends on either side of this particular idea. Some argued in favor of treating Sunday as a special day of rest, considering it a violation of God's design to "work" on Sundays (often including any gathering outside of going to church on Sunday morning).

At the same time, I had plenty of friends (the vast majority, actually) who felt no inhibitions to conduct business on Sunday. This was the group that would show up to church in their Vikings jerseys and head off to U.S. Bank Stadium right after the benediction.

[For] one person considers one day more important than another, while another person considers all days alike. Let everyone be fully persuaded in his own mind. (Rom. 14:5 NABRE)

All things being equal, I don't believe Christians have any business going to Vikings games on Sundays. In fact, I don't believe we should even be watching Vikings games on TV on Sunday. Allow me to explain.

Whatever approach we take to our understanding of our weekly Holy Day (which is where we get the word "holiday" from), we need to consider our source material: The Old Testament laws about the Sabbath. Before looking into the Old Testament laws about the Sabbath, we need to understand the New Testament Christian's relationship to the Old Testament laws. Before we can understand the Christian's relationship to the Old Testament laws about the Sabbath, we need to understand Jesus' relationship to the Old Testament law.

So, let's do that.

When we listen to Jesus' own words, he tells us directly what he thinks of the content of the Old Testament:

"Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. Amen, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or the smallest part of a letter will pass from the law, until all things have taken place." (Mat. 5:17-18 NABRE)

So, as we reflect on how to conduct ourselves in our Christian lives, we do not have the option to simply do away with those pesky Old Testament laws. Sitting at the feet of Jesus, we listen to him directly work with particular Old Testament laws to provide us an example for how we ought to be treating them.

"You have heard it was said to your ancestors, 'You shall not kill; and whoever kills will be liable to judgment.' But I say to you, whoever is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment, and whoever says to his brother, 'Raqa,' will be answerable to the Sanhedrin, and whoever says, 'You fool,' will be liable to fiery Gehenna." (Mat. 5:21-22 NABRE)

We observe here Jesus taking an Old Testament command about not-killing and making its requirement actually about having an internal disposition towards our brother (read: other people) which calls for repentance of that which leads to killing, namely, anger. Over and over again, Jesus teaches that actual obedience to the Old Testament law is not about the external actions but about having a heart so predisposed to the love of God and the love of neighbor that one naturally does the external acts which the law calls for.

This is the conflict between the Jewish Christians and the Gentile Christians to whom St. Paul wrote his Letter to the Romans. The Jewish Christians had the Old Testament law, but they struggled to meet its demands. Then here come these Gentile Christians who, though not knowing the law at all, are found to be obeying it simply as a matter of following their own conscience.

For when the Gentiles who do not have the law by nature observe the prescriptions of the law, they are a law for themselves even though they do not have the law. They show that the demands of the law are written in their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even defend them on the day when, according to my gospel, God will judge people' s hidden works through Christ Jesus. (Rom. 2:14-16 NABRE)

This has always been the most frustrating departure between Judaism and Christianity (at least, it used to be). In St. Justin the Philosopher's (a.k.a. St. Justin Martyr) Dialogue with Trypho, a work written in around 155 A.D., we listen to Trypho, one of the leading Jewish intellectuals in Jerusalem at that time, complain about Christianity:

Moreover, I am aware that your precepts in the so-called Gospel are so wonderful and so great, that I suspect no one can keep them .... (Dialogue with Trypho, ch. 10, emphasis added)

Now that we've established the Christian's proper relationship to the Old Testament law, namely, that it ought to be the occasion for him to review the transgressions of his own heart that would manifest as transgressions against God and his neighbor, let's consider why we might not go shopping on Sunday. The particular law I have in mind reads as follows:

Remember the sabbath day—keep it holy. Six days you may labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath of the Lord your God. You shall not do any work, either you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your work animal, or the resident alien within your gates. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them; but on the seventh day he rested. That is why the Lord has blessed the sabbath day and made it holy. (Ex. 20:8-11 NABRE, emphasis added)

What strikes me in this command is how the person receiving the command is responsible to ensure all these other people who are not him also do not work. Why isn't it enough to keep an eye on myself? Isn't every person responsible to make sure he himself doesn't work? What do I have to do with all these other people (and animals)?

Observe the sabbath day—keep it holy, as the Lord, your God, commanded you. Six days you may labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath of the Lord your God. You shall not do any work, either you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your ox or donkey or any work animal, or the resident alien within your gates, so that your male and female slave may rest as you do. Remember that you too were once slaves in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God, brought you out from there with a strong hand and outstretched arm. That is why the Lord, your God, brought you out from there with a strong hand and outstretched arm. That is why the Lord, your God, has commanded you to observe the sabbath day. (Deut. 5:12-15 NABRE, emphasis added)

In one of the Baptist churches I was a member of, there was an elder (which they called "pastor") who always - every Sunday morning - had a hot cup o' joe from Caribou Coffee in his hand. Frequently after church, we would see he and his wife at a restaurant along our drive home, enjoying lunch at one of the local cafes. I thought this was wrong. Why did I think this was wrong? It's quite simple.

By ordering food from a commercial establishment on Sunday, he demanded that those other people work on Sunday.

Have you ever heard someone discuss the challenges of going to church on Sunday because their employer has placed them under obligation to work when they could otherwise go to church?

Why would an employer of a coffee shop or a restaurant require his employees to work on Sunday morning?

Because he expects that there will be enough customers during that timeframe to turn a profit.

When a Christian places an order at a restaurant (or any commercial establishment) on a Sunday, we send a message to the employer, saying, "I believe your business should be open and your employees should be working while I am resting on Sunday."

Do you see how backwards that is? Shopping and eating out on Sunday is the means by which we demand that our proverbial "male and female slaves" (which, we don't have slaves, we have businesses, employees, and commercial transactions instead) should work. We are casting a vote that they ought to be deprived of the opportunity to rest (and to worship, if they would like to) on the Lord's Day.

We can be mindful about our media consumption, too. Every time we turn on the TV, we are a statistic indicating to a broadcast company that these eyes are happy to watch their advertisements on Sunday afternoon. That broadcast company is therefore incentivized to mobilize the workforce required - in the stadium and the studio - to ensure there's a football game for those eyes to watch (and for those advertisers to advertise within). One person turning off the TV on Sunday afternoon won't shift the industry, but each person ought to be mindful of what kind of world he's "voting for" with his attention.

This whole paradigm is one of the reasons why I'm Catholic. I discovered that the Catholic Church understood and settled this whole issue a long time ago:

Sanctifying Sundays and holy days requires a common effort. Every Christian should avoid making unnecessary demands on others that would hinder them from observing the Lord's Day. Traditional activities (sport, restaurants, etc.), and social necessities (public services, etc.), require some people to work on Sundays, but everyone should still take care to set aside sufficient time for leisure. . . In spite of economic constraints, public authorities should ensure citizens a time intended for rest and divine worship. Employers have a similar obligation toward their employees. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, n. 2187)

The Catechism goes on to list exceptions. Obviously if someone has obligations outside of his control that require him to do his grocery shopping on Sunday, that's not going to be held against him. However, if there aren't any pressing circumstances, and he's not even making an attempt not to do his shopping on Sundays, that's a different story.

In sum, when I consolidate everything I've just said into a little something that my children can easily remember, I will say it like this:

"Do you want to have a job where you have the flexibility to go to church and rest on Sunday? Then don't do things that would invite a boss to make his employees work on Sunday."

Bibliography

Catholic Church. Catechism of the Catholic Church. 2nd ed. Ascension Edition. West Chester, PA: Ascension Press, 2022.

Justin Martyr. "Dialogue with Trypho." In The Ante-Nicene Fathers. Vol. 1, The Apostolic Fathers with Justin Martyr and Irenaeus, edited by Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, 194–270. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1953.

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