This is a question that I’ve been on a journey with for awhile. You may be reading this and wondering why thinking about Sabbath rest through the grid of being a person of color is important. Let me use some of my life and experience to illustrate why I think it’s important.

It was almost a year ago that I packed up my things into a cardboard box I brought from home, cleaned off my desk, and with the box in both hands walked from the church office to my car. It was my last day as an associate pastor. I was done. 

I was burnt out. Emotionally, physically, and spiritually depleted. For months, I had been struggling to sleep, almost always felt anxious, and walked through most days carrying a physical sense of tension in my stomach and chest. I soon found out that these were symptoms of something greater. 

Racial Fatigue

That’s the term for what I was experiencing as a person of color in a predominately white space (a space that can be white in persons and/or culture).

Critical Race Theorist William Smith defines racial battle fatigue as the: “cumulative result of a natural race-related stress response to distressing mental and emotional conditions. These conditions emerged from constantly facing racially dismissive, demeaning, insensitive and/or hostile racial environments and individuals.”

As one of the few, and at many points the only, persons of color on the church’s staff, I became the spokesperson for all things race related. Which can be typical of many people of color’s experiences in white spaces. We’re supposed to have all the answers, and be able to speak for an entire people group (which is something no one would ask any white person to do, but that’s another blog). Can you imagine how stressful that is?

There are what I call everyday stresses of life (as a middle class ethnic minority – this isn’t across socioeconomic classes) like work, paying bills, sitting in traffic, taking care of your health, etc. All of those things in my experience take somewhat of a toll. Life is a struggle, and some of that struggle manifests itself through these stresses. 

So as a middle class Mexican American I’m navigating those stresses and the stresses of constantly being asked to explain (and in many cases defend) my experience as a an ethnic minority.

All of this is exhausting. And not like the “I just need a nap, and I’ll be fine,” kind of exhausting, but the kind that if unaddressed can foster health issues that lead to a shortened life span. 

But before we address our question of “What can Sabbath rest look like for me as a person of color?” I want to show quickly how Jesus, a Middle Eastern Jew, who is God in the flesh spent his life navigating racial fatigue too.

Jesus Experienced Racism

Read through the Gospel accounts and you’ll begin to see some of the racial and social tensions that Jesus chose to be born into. Some of these tensions were at times thrown back at him as insults. 

For example, when Nathaniel, who later will become one of Jesus’ disciples, first hears where Jesus is from, he remarks, “Can anything good come from Nazareth?” (John 1:46). Nathaniel’s low view of the town and people of Nazareth was a culturally accepted one for many Jews. God chooses to be born into a city that is poor, spoken against, and often times intentionally overlooked for these reasons. 

Another example are the religious leaders in John 8 in a confrontation with Jesus. The religious leaders “ask” (but really are accusing) Jesus of being a Samaritan (a people group who were half-Jews and half-Gentile, or non-Jew) and if he has a demon. 

At that time there was extreme racial tension between Jews and Samaritans. So that Jesus knows (not just because he’s God in the flesh), but also because he’s spent 30 years in the culture, that the religious leaders aren’t asking about his ethnic makeup, they’re using the word “Samaritan” as a racial slur.

So as a person of color I can look to Jesus and see someone who not only knows what racial fatigue is, but has experienced it. In this sacred relationship with God through Jesus, I don’t have to explain what racism is (or be afraid that it’ll happen in our relationship). I don’t have to justify my experience as an ethnic minority navigating racism, because God has lived a life in Jesus doing so too. 

All of this draws me even more to this Jewish Middle Eastern man and God in the flesh, and back to our original question. And while Jesus isn’t constantly being assaulted by others for where he’s from or having racial slurs thrown at him, I can look at how Jesus cares for his whole self and find rest there too. 

Specifically, I see two ways in Mark 1. Let’s look at some quick context and then into my two takeaways.

Two Ways Sabbath Rest Can Look (Mark 1) 

Mark moves fast. Even if you just read some of the section dividers in Mark 1 that have been inserted into the text to help break it up, you can tell a lot has been going on. 

Some of those dividers will probably read something like (in this order): 

“The Baptism of Jesus” → “The Temptation of Jesus” → “Ministry in Galilee” → “Driving Out An Unclean Spirit” → “Healings at Capernaum”

And that’s still just one chapter! So Jesus has just done all this, moving from one thing to the next. But then we come to an interesting verse in Mark 1:35: “Early the next morning, before the sunrise, [Jesus] left and found a quiet, out-of-the-way place to be alone and pray.” 

And for some larger context, Mark 1:32-33 tell us that the whole village was at Jesus’ door asking for healing around sunset. So there’s a strong chance this went way into the night, and maybe even into the early hours of the morning.

First Takeaway: Jesus Needed Space, and He Took It. 

Even if it was just space to pray, Jesus wanted to be alone. It’s OK to need space. Jesus could’ve stayed with his disciples and prayed, and sometimes he does that, but he also moves to quiet out-of-the-way places to be alone. I’ll share how I’ve sought to apply this in a second, but first look at his disciple’s response.

Jesus’ disciples wake up, see that Jesus is not where he was sleeping, track him down and then tell him, “Everyone is looking for you!” Which I can’t help but read with a little tone of, “What are you doing?! There’s no time for this!” 

But Jesus responds in verse 38: “It’s time to go to the other villages and tell them the Good Story,” Creator Sets Free [Jesus] said to them, “for that is what I came to do.”

As a person of color, committed to the fight of social justice, there are times where I’m learning how to ask for space. The keyword there is learning. I’m learning to be more aware of my holistic health (what’s happening mentally, emotionally, physically, and spiritually) as I go about the day-to-day. What is my body telling me? Where is their tension in my body? What does my mind keep drifting back to?

I think that space to get away and be alone can be filled with prayer, but I don’t think to commune with God it has to only be prayer, or even prayer as we typically think of it. Sometimes I seek to worship the Lord in this season by intentionally putting myself in spaces with other people of color in that same fight for justice. Sometimes it’s putting on a movie with accurate representation of my ethnic background and experiences. Sometimes it’s eating food that represents a pride in what God has created through my ancestors. 

In a time and current American culture that is constantly reminding me what is wrong with my ethnic identity, I find Sabbath rest in these sacred spaces that remind me that all of me has been called “good” and “wonderful” by the Lord.

Second Takeaway: Jesus Said ‘No’, and That Means I Can Too. 

I left that job in the church because it was slowly wearing me down as a person of color. In terms of holistic health, it was the best move we could’ve made. In terms of finances, it was the hardest move our family has ever made. 

In the same way we’re teaching our children that they have a ‘yes’ and a ‘no’ (and to exercise both), I’m learning how to use my voice as a person of color. I’m learning where I don’t need to ask permission to care for myself, or stay in a relationship or environment that tolerates me, but doesn’t celebrate me. 

And sometimes that’ll make sense to the world around me, and sometimes it won’t (even to other Christians). It’s not that I won’t use wisdom, or ask others that I trust, but I’m learning to also honor what I think and can know by the Spirit of God also in me. 

For my brothers and sisters of color who are in the fight of justice, using your ‘no’ to honor your self, your limits and capacity, is just as much part of the fight as you being in the hard conversations with others. I have to constantly be wary of the lie that tells me that exercising my ‘no’ is somehow “giving up.” 

I’m still on the journey. A work in process. But by receiving the continual grace of what Jesus accomplished in his life, death, and resurrection, I can seek to use that to apply rhythms of Sabbath rest to fight the good fight of justice for as long as the Lord will give me on this earth. 

As a person of color, I can look to Jesus and see someone who not only knows what racial fatigue is, but experienced it personally. He created sacred space to rest and practice self-care, and so should I. Click To Tweet