problems with keeping the sabbath

I have some real problems with keeping the Sabbath and, despite being a life long Adventist (apart from a stint of turning away from the church), I get confused when some tend to preach a different doctrine of the Sabbath than the one which I understand from the Bible.

I am not under any illusion that the fourth commandment says keep the Sabbath.  As an Adventist I understand our teaching which says that the commandment is only memorialising the activity of God at creation and, when we celebrate the Sabbath, we are in fact, following the example given by God at the very foundations of the world and that the Sabbath is as binding today as it was when given at Mount Sinai and as it was for Adam and Eve.  Despite that, I still have to ask myself what it means to keep the Sabbath in light of the world in which we live today.  I also understand that some reject any kind of contextualisation saying that it opens the doors to all kinds of erroneous teachings.  But, if you will, hear me out.  

How does locking ourselves away on the Sabbath go any way to demonstrating our understanding of the great commandment to love God and love people?  Isn’t it true that they only things that it demonstrates are exclusion and seclusion?   We shouldn’t fear being labeled a rationalist, replacing human reason above divine revelation or that of the written word and suspend all thinking processes saying that there is nothing that we can or should do on the Sabbath saved the few activities which are given as examples in the Bible.  

I fear that there are many in our church who would find Christ’s method of keeping the Sabbath just as controversial as the Pharisees found it.  

When Christ’s disciples plucked ears of corn on the Sabbath they were condemned by the Pharisees.  When Christ healed on the Sabbath day the ruler of the synagogue was indignant.  From here lines have been drawn around those things that can be done and that can’t be done on the Sabbath.  It is not ok to work on the Sabbath unless you are in a caring profession such as nursing and medicine.  But it is not only those professions which have a caring aspect to them.  It is because of the division we have created between those things which are sacred and those things which are secular that we have come up with divisions as to which professions are sacred and which are not.

The sacred secular split forces the mind into believing that there are only a few limited professions which are caring.  The rest fall under a different category and as a result that has affected the way that we see ministry and who can do ministry and when ministry is being done. 

I don’t know about you but, it saddens me that, even though we have the examples and words of Christ written for us in the Bible, we still get it wrong and still purpetuate the same practices of the Pharisees and that we close our minds to exactly what God would have us do.  After all, it is His Sabbath day and not ours.