I’m not going to rail against youth sports, or grocery shopping, or brunch. But I know that those activities all make good proper, God-loving and Sunday-church-going folks uneasy. Okay: very, very resentful and even angry.

The first group of commandments (which are numbered differently depending on which system you use, and could be either three or four in number) is about our relationship with God. That part’s easy to understand: worship only God, don’t make images of God or worship them, use God’s name properly, and reserve one day a week as a day of sabbath rest.

But there is another question to ask: what’s it all for? Who benefits from these practices?

There is one thing in common here: the place where we put our trust. When we trust in God as the source of goodness and providence for our daily needs, everyone benefits. We benefit, our neighbor benefits, the flora and fauna of the world benefit, the world itself benefits.

That might be hard for you to take in if you are thinking of a God who is a human like us, only more so. (Probably why we’re discouraged from making images of God!) It’s okay to think of it as a connection with all that is part of the creation. When we place ourselves over the creation to exploit it, that’s where the trouble starts. As professor Rolf Jacobson puts it: “When we center our lives around things other than God—whether it be money, fame, power, pleasure, beauty, even religion, or anything else—our neighbors will pay.”

One other thought: the idea that “sabbath means Sunday” and Sunday means “go to church” is embedded deeply in some Christian culture. Even though I love seeing people at Sunday worship, and though I hope this ritual gathering draws folks to make it a priority, that’s not what sabbath means. “Sabbath” means rest, and it is rooted in our very earliest origin stories. In short, the Sabbath day is a day off from our regular work. It is always under pressure because a laboring society has to give up a day of productivity when it allows a day off.

It’s a radical act to call for a Sabbath day every week; just as it is a radical act to place our trust in God, to love our neighbor.