CREEDE HINSHAW: Wrestling with the profaning of the Lord’s day

I profaned the day of the Lord last week.

I went shopping at Kroger.

The language “profaning the day of the Lord” hearkens back to Methodism’s reluctant founder, John Wesley, who condemned “doing ordinary work therein or … buying or selling” on Sunday.

Wesley, of course, was citing the fourth commandment of the Decalogue found in Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5. (“Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy.”)

Methodists profess to live by the Bible and also Wesley’s Three Rules, the first of which is “Do no harm.” (The other two rules: Do good and devote yourself to God by daily and weekly spiritual practices.)

In case Methodists needed help understanding “do no harm,” Wesley gave 16 examples, including Sabbath profanation, but also including slave-holding, brawling, cheating on taxes, needless self-indulgence, buying or selling spiritous liquors and laying up treasures on earth.

I didn’t accidentally find myself in the Kroger last Sunday. I did not go for medicine or an emergency item. I did not go as an act of mercy for a homebound neighbor or friend.

I went to buy vanilla ice cream and fresh basil for two recipes my wife was preparing for guests that evening. I also went to buy a bottle of wine and a six-pack of beer for our friends. With the purchase and later enjoyment of the alcohol, I also violated another of Wesley’s harm-doing strictures: “buying or selling spiritous liquors, or drinking them, unless in cases of extreme necessity.” This was not necessity, and having bought the wine on a Sabbath, I doubly violated Wesley’s first rule.

The Kroger parking lot was almost full, and I parked far from the entrance. Trying to justify myself, I reasoned that not all those shoppers could be infidels, secular pagans or so-called godless atheists who cared not about Sabbath-keeping. Not all of them could be shopping for medicine. A whole bunch of them must have been “church people” like me. Self-justifier that I am, I decided some of the shoppers pushing overflowing grocery baskets probably insisted they cherished the Ten Commandments.

While driving home with my alcohol and ice cream (supply chain issues sidelined the basil), I remembered my beloved late friend Jim Brenner. He was as faithful a Methodist as there was, a devout, praying, Bible-reading, believing disciple of Jesus. But even Brother Brenner found himself in the grocery aisles occasionally on a Sabbath. Then, in what he recognized was his hypocrisy, he would justify himself by looking down at the other Sabbath breakers and say to himself, “At least I went to church this morning.”

As far as I know, no Christian or Jewish group is lobbying to repeal the Ten Commandments (or Wesley’s rules). But the size of that Sunday-afternoon grocery crowd leads me to suspect those in the once-strong Bible Belt have chosen to repeal the fourth commandment by ignoring it. Most of us have (sadly) gone on to fighting over other issues.