A.J. SwobodaRezensionen

Probably the best of the many books on Sabbath that I've read. Swoboda's offering is an expansive resource for anyone looking to learn or teach on the matter of sabbath-keeping.

The author discusses his personal faith trials and would provide a pastoral word to those undergoing doubt and "deconstruction."

The author explores deconstruction and doubt, tells his personal story of exhaustion and burnout, makes reference to those with whom he has worked through deconstruction experiences, and challenges a lot of the sources of doubts.

Yet I found the work highly disappointing and even distressing. I have appreciated previous works by the author and had high hopes for his consideration of doubt and deconstruction. I am in no position to judge the author or the situations he has spoken; all I can say is that those whom I have encountered who have gone through an experience of "deconstruction" would more likely be further repelled from Christianity than brought back in based on what is presented in this book.

The way he approaches and views "deconstruction" is defensive throughout with a strong desire to defend and protect the institution of the church. Therefore, it never seems as if he has really grappled with the profound brokenness and suffering that has led many to deconstruct. I fear this is what The Gospel Coalition, for instance, would love "deconstruction" to be, and the author's advice and posturing is exactly what I would expect TGC to advocate for in such circumstances.

Thus, the last person I would give this book to is someone who has gone through very real church hurt and trauma. It does not truly honor what they have endured. It is not nearly perspicacious enough to deal with the real sinfulness present in church members and institutions. Sadly, it's what one would expect to hear about deconstruction from a rather uncritical white Evangelical who will admit there's some difficulties but doesn't want to explore those difficulties too deeply. There's no call for lament and repentance in churches or institutions. One hears little of how God's judgment begins in His household. This is designed to be a spiritual slap in the face to tell doubters to get over it.

Maybe that will work for some. But not for all, or even most. Not recommended.

**-galley received as part of early review program

Delves into topics about the messiness of life and the God who meets us where we are.

I only have 2 books on rest for the Christian. With the wealth of information and
application this takes top spot. Quite convicting on the arguments to
begin (it you haven't) or keep going (if you've started) with regards to the Sabbath.

In reading it your begin to take a long walk with the author (A.J. Swoboda) and his journey
(and those whose thoughts are also in the book) to enjoy and his part to help others enter into the Sabbath and all it holds (the blessings God built into it).
With sections like
- The Sabbath for Us
- The Sabbath for Others
- The Sabbath for Creation
- The Sabbath for Worship

There is plenty to reflect and delve into.

The Sabbath is the gateway to God's dream community.

I really liked this one. Swoboda keeps it real, without getting the least bit preachy. His writing style is very conversational, as if you are just sitting there with him in a coffee shop as he talks about his faith and the everyday things ghat challenge each of us in our own walks of faith. Do i agree with everything he says? No. But he gets me thinking about many aspects of my faith and why i do much of what i do. He got me to think hard about my own walk, which i think is all he could ask for in writing this book.

I made a lot of notes and highlighted a lot of lines in this book. Just a few of my favorites from the book are:
- Stop looking for your church to give you a mission. Start practicing the things Jesus did at church. Probably no one will follow. That's okay. You aren't called to have disciples. Jesus is.
- You don't even have to talk about God to talk about God. When i read the book of Esther in the bible, i found out that God's name isn't even mentioned. Not once.
- Theology is only as good as it gets us to God. So too, Christianity is only as good as it gets us to Christ.

Summary: An extended argument showing how keeping sabbath is a counter-cultural, subversive practice in every area of life.

Apart from Abraham Joshua Heschel's classic, The Sabbath, I would consider this the best book I have read on Sabbath. In a world focused on relentless doing, Swoboda challenges the Christian community to take the sabbath commands as seriously as we do the other nine, observing it is the only command speaking of something as "holy" to the Lord. His argument is that to begin to take this seriously is a subversive act, and perhaps one of the most significant way the church can bear witness to the transcendent reality of God. He writes:

"How is the Sabbath subversive? The truth remains that Sabbath will be challenging for anyone to live out in our busy, frenetic world. Sabbath goes against the very structured and system of the world we have constructed. Sabbath, then, becomes a kind of resistance to that world. Such resistance must be characterized as overwhelmingly good. In other words, if Sabbath is hard, then we are doing it right. It is never a sign of health or godliness to be well-adjusted to a sick society....Relating to our world of death, 'going along' is a sign of death. Living fish swim against the stream. Only the dead go with the flow" (p. xi).

The book consists of four parts, each with three chapters: Sabbath for Us, Sabbath for Others, Sabbath for Creation, and Sabbath for Worship. Beginning with Sabbath for Us, the first chapter explores Sabbath and Time, and the marvel that the first day life for Adam and Eve was a sabbath, where they rested along with God, and how hard it is for us to do the same. Sabbath and Work calls us to establishing rhythms of work and rest and challenges our worship of work instead of a reliance upon God when we do not work that carries into our work. Sabbath and Health speaks into how often we cannot say "no" when God says "no" and invites us for our health's sake to rest.

In Sabbath for Others, Swoboda begins with Relationships, and how Sabbath practiced together may overcome the isolation of our lives and strengthen community. In Sabbath, Economy and Technology, Swoboda challenges us to think about how we prepare for the Sabbath in advance, and how we might do so in ways that others also enjoy rest, and how to manage our technology so we step away from our screens (he just went from preaching to meddling here!). He takes this further in Sabbath and the Marginalized, considering the implications of practicing the Sabbath so that the poor, the marginalized, the under-employed also find rest.

Sabbath for Creation begins by focusing on the intricate balance of creation and how Sabbath neglected is part of the the degradation of creation. He proposes that Sabbath is the string that holds everything together and that Sabbath-keeping is earth-keeping. Sabbath and the Land focuses particularly on how land needs sabbath to be restored, fallow periods every seven years that enrich the soil to enrich us. Sabbath and Critters (!) focuses on how we treat our animals, even to the point of suggesting chickens get a Sabbath from laying, and that all our animals need rhythms of rest.

Part Four centers around Sabbath as Worship, the ways we glorify God in community and in the world. It is Witness, setting us apart as this weird, contrast society that might be intriguing to tired, burnt out friends. It is Worship, and sometimes what we sacrifice rest for tells us what we falsely worship. It calls us into the trust that believes by not doing but by resting, we will experience God's care. It is Discipleship that helps clear out what should not be in our lives, that exposes the noise inside us in times of silence, and helps us rightly order our lives into a new week.

While Swoboda interacts with a number of theological writers, literary figures, and others throughout this work, as well as the scriptures, his own stories of trying and failing and learning and pressing into Sabbath practice made this reader want to follow him into what appears a richer fuller way found by stopping and resting. He doesn't present Sabbath as a cure all, but does propose that this command/gift is God's way of liberating us from our hurried, distracted, alienated, consuming selves. Not only does this help liberate us from our false selves; Sabbath helps us to meet the true God. I will close with this:

"We worship the God who invented the weekend. This is why biblical scholar Al Baylis contends that 'Genesis 1 is one of the most remarkable put-downs ever administered.' The biblical creation account essentially served as a theological rebuttal of all the other 'gods' who never allowed anyone to rest. In a restless world, Yahweh required rest. Again, imagine what kind of first impression that would have given to an ancient person's understanding of Yahweh. The God of Scripture not only rests himself but invites the world to rest with him" (pp. 9-10).

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

A. J. Swoboda wrote A Glorious Dark about three days. The Friday we call good when Jesus died on the cross, Sunday when Jesus surprised everyone by refusing to be dead and the Saturday in between ( 'awkward Saturday')--a day of silence when defeat appears complete and we are full of doubt and questions. The fancy-shmancy word for these days is Triduum,the last three days of Holy Week. Many denominations and spiritualities major in one of these three days. Friday people enter into suffering and loss. Saturday people allow space for doubt, questions and deconstruction. Sunday people are the clappy,happy people who emphasize blessing. Swoboda sees a problem when Christians treating any one day as though it is the total Christian vision and experience, "We need both Friday and Sunday, not just one or the other. Some want to suffer with Jesus; others want to be resurrected with Jesus. Few Desire both. We can't prefer one day and reject the rest" (5).

So instead Swoboda takes these three days, the last three days of Holy Week, and treats them as a comprehensive vision (though not exhaustive) of Christian spirituality. The book's fifteen chapters are organized under the broad headings of the days (Friday, Saturday, Sunday), each giving a 'glimpse of that day.' On Friday, we reflect on Christ's cross and in it see both God's great love for us, and our own need with greater clarity. The cross confronts our sinfulness, our personal need for a Father, our addictions and apathy. In its place we see God's lavish love and welcome. We also see Jesus so identify with the struggles of humanity that for the briefest of moments on the cross, he looks like an atheist. Awkward Saturday is a day of silence and rest and questioning. It is a day for 'sitting, waiting and hoping.' On that day what Jesus built on earth and what we've done ourselves for God, seems very insignificant. There are reasons to question everything. Yet the questions and doubts are part of the waiting, so in the tomb we wait.Sunday is a day of surprises The same Jesus who came born of a sixteen-year-old Virgin, shocked everyone by coming out the tomb. Through Jesus' resurrection over the grave he secured for us the victory over every power and strong hold that held us captive and He invites us to share in his life, becoming part of his resurrection community.

Swoboda weaves his theological reflections with personal narrative, pop-cultural references, and stories from his church. He is a pastor of an urban church in Portland and talks about his vocation and context throughout. He is also funny, bookish and insightful. I enjoyed these reflections and think they are appropriate not only for Holy Week (which is when I read this book), but throughout the Christian year. We are Easter people and the truths that Swoboda explores are constantly relevant. While this book is organized around the three-day-theme, it is also more like a conversation than a tightly written treatise. The conversational tone makes it an engaging read but it also occasional made me impatient for 'the point' of a chapter (or kept me wondering how it related to the overall theme). But I'm not sure I'd like a pared down version of this. Swoboda is engaging (it makes me want to pull his previous book, Messy, off my shelf and actually read it). I give this book 4.5 stars.

Notice of material connection: I revieved this book from Baker Books in exchange for my honest review.

Swoboda writes with humor, insight, depth, wisdom, and a sharp wit. It's rare that I read a book that I simply can't put down. There were times I laughed out loud, and times I had to reflect in holy contemplation. He's a sharp young man and I look forward to reading more of his books.½

Musings of a post-modern pastor. Swoboda had a lot of excellent insight on various topics ranging from church, prayer, family, sex, suffering, and theology, just to name a few. Drawing from both Scripture and real life experiences, Swoboda does an excellent job in achieving his point. Namely, that many aspects of our lives are messy and God works through these messes to make us more into the person He wants us to be. Not sure God would have it any other way. Easy and quick to read, entertaining, many times comical, and definitely not academic. I highly recommend this refreshing read for all of us who have messy lives... one way or another.

Some of my favorite quotes include:

"Preaching a beautiful message of grace, we so rarely, if ever, practice it on each other. Let alone ourselves."

"Frankly, I sometimes worry that people sell Christianity because they've conjured it up in their mind as this solution that'll fix the mess of our life like some kind of drug with the long commercials. Jesus becomes almost therapeutic; like a vapor rub. With few to no side effects (that we know of)... But, honestly, my life is way messier after I started following the Jesus I met that it was before."

"Jesus asks people to be past tense people in the present for the future."

"We begin to see the Spirit at work in the church when we choose to take our idealized views of what church should be, with all of its holy trappings, out into the backyard and shoot them between the eyes."

"Paul could have started one church, stayed, grown it to be a megachurch, and been invited to speak at all the best pastor's conferences. But he didn't. He started a church, brought people to faith, then left... But, he had to be gone. It was brilliant because, had he not done that, they would have done to him what we do to pastors today. They would have started to worship Paul instead of Jesus."

"The Gospel is Jesus eating really really good food with really really bad people."

"Communal prayer is authenticated when the person you are praying with knows all the dirt on your life. All of it."

"God seems to be the sort of God who likes to move down the ladder of success for the greater purpose of redemption, to die in our shoes."

"Jesus gets humanity in a really special way that the other gods can't. Prayer is way easier when you know you're talking to someone who, like you, got in trouble for peeing on the sofa and not in the toilet. I can pray to that guy... It's the very beauty of God in the flesh that makes the gospel, the story of Jesus, so intriguing. Isn't it? Because God in the flesh has experienced the worst of everything we have had to experience."

"God is closer to you than you are to yourself."

"Conversion might take a second. But salvation takes a lifetime."

"If we can't make God love us more by doing really good things, then we can't make God love us less by doing really bad things."

"Sure, God hates sin. But I'm rather sure God hates sin the same way I hate dirty diapers. I'll always hate their diapers, but I'll never confuse the diaper with the baby."

"Christian spirituality goes wrong when we compare all the things we are good at with the world's sin."

"You know you have created God in your own image when God approves of everything you do."

"Jesus did have revenge. On everyone. It just looked different than our concept of revenge. The human version of revenge looks like retaliation. But, Jesus' revenge is very different. He called it resurrection. His way at getting back at the world for killing Him was by being raised from the grave."

"Because we can touch it, feel it, and flip through it, we accept our Bible as our personal Lord and Savior and turn it into our God."

"Christians are repentant atheists."

"Worrying about what God's will is often keeps you from doing God's will."

A humorous but real look at how life really is. The author acknowledges Christian life can be messy, but God makes sense out of the mess. This book provides a pathway to answers many Christians and non-Christians have about God and life in general.

This first book by Swoboda packs a punch. In short chapters he tackles many issues Christians have with their faith. His main theme was that when people become Christians they are often duped into believing that everything will now be ok. What we don't realize right away is how tough life actually is. The Bible is not full of nice happy stories, people struggled then and we still struggle now. The thing we need to see is that God is present in the mess, He created everything, so our personal messes don't take Him by surprise. We need to reach out to Him and admit our failures and then move on.

The book felt a bit like Donald Miller and Rob Bell, full of funny stories and interesting analogies. It was down to earth and gritty, the way real Christians should be.

I enjoyed reading the book and getting a different theological viewpoint on life and some of the problems we all face every day. It was a quick read and may consider doing a book study with a small group in the near future. I think it has a lot of 'food for thought' ideas and would be good as a study. I really appreciate having this opportunity to read this book and share some of my thoughts on its contents.

I didn't read it all. It started off feeling so much like "Blue like Jazz". I loved that book in my 20s. The author seemed sincere and honest. I just couldn't get into it right now. His analogies were a little out there for me too.

A.J. Swoboda's first book, Messy, addresses the fact that the Christian life is often...well...messy. He writes, "Christianity is surprisingly messier than what I signed up for...Preaching a beautiful message of grace, we so rarely if ever practice it on each other. Let alone ourselves." Swoboda recognizes the contrast between Jesus' life and teachings and our expectations for our Christian life, "Jesus sold death as a way to life. A long painful death that he himself was going to model for his disciples and the world. But the Christian message today can too often sell a really quick fix: everything will be fine, life will get better, you will get richer…" He suggests that we desist in promoting and subscribing to this quick fix mentality and instead acknowledge the searching and questioning that is part and parcel to the Christian life.

Many of Swoboda's observations are penetrating, witty, and true reflections of human experience. He has a memorable facility with words and often makes perceptive remarks such as “being a follower of Jesus and not loving the unlikeable is on par with eating a Big Mac while watching The Biggest Loser.” He notes that God's love requires we love one another. Messy is an apt reading selection for anyone interested in examining the "messy" human condition and our connection to our Creator who walks with us and guides us through our mess.½

A discussion of the challenges, imperfections, and other "messy" aspects of life and belief by a young(er) professor and theologian.

The author describes the difficulties of life: our own sinfulness and imperfections, the imperfections of fellow Christians, challenges with families, sex, and relationships, and even the difficulties encountered with the Bible, suffering, and theology. The author manifests reverence while seeking to discuss these difficult matters through modern imagery to find deeper explanations and understanding leading to greater faith, humility, and love.

There are many quotable concepts in the book: life in terms of a play, theology in terms of foreplay, religion as botox, etc. Among other useful points include pointing out that the first footwashing in the Bible was done by Abraham on God, how Jesus washes the feet of all of His disciples, even the one about to forsake Him, the value of scars as evident in how Jesus kept His, and how people in culture disagree with the God they don't serve and rarely disagree with the one (or ones) they do serve. The ending is also excellent but I won't give that one away.

The author is Evangelical, and his Evangelical assumptions regarding faith-works and baptism lead him into dangerous areas in warning against the importance of baptism. To insist that thinking baptism is necessary for salvation is to insert human effort into the message does not respect Biblical evidence and the fact that the "sinner's prayer" or whatever other means of expressing a desire to be saved by the believer would fall under the same condemnation. Baptism is to be understood in terms of faith and the obedience which must exist for faith to be real; little wonder Peter considers baptism as an appeal to God in 1 Peter 3:21, a form of prayer in a way. This point was especially distressing considering the author's otherwise more mature and nuanced discussion of other issues.

Rarely will you find a book discussing such serious topics written by someone with significant erudition yet composed in such an exposed, honest, and even earthy way, for better and for worse. It takes talent to delve into deep theological issues without your audience realizing what you're doing until the very end. There is use in such an approach.

Swoboda has written a thoroughly engaging book that invites the reader into a conversation. He dialogues with the reader and tears down walls in order to address topics that cover many facets of the Christian faith. I appreciate his honesty in his failures and success. It would be a good small group discussion book for post college-age individuals who have grown up in the church or are not completely new believers. I think he truly cares for believers and longs for others to come to know Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. All in all, a well written book that is easy to read and challenging in its own form.

While I didn't always agree with Swoboda theologically, I really enjoyed his creative illustrations of our faith, his genuine wrestling with hard issues, and his very clear love for God. It was a fun and fast read, that I think would lend itself well to using as a small group discussion over the course of several weeks, especially because it challenges the norms of how people "do church" and has some new ideas that would spur on good conversation.

I'm thankful to have been challenged as I read this book, and to have been exposed to this new author!½

Dr. Swoboda (he’d be appalled I used this title for him but I want you to know that he has plenty of credentials for writing about Christianity) teaches at several theological institutions, plants new churches, and is pastor of a small church in one of the roughest neighborhoods of Portland, Oregon. And not only does he “get it” but he is able to communicate to us just how messy our religion is with unanswered prayers, unfulfilled dreams, doubts about our faith, and inability to be the Christian that we think God expects us to be. And yet how beautiful and fulfilling it is in the grace it gives us. As you read you will find yourself nodding agreement, feeling truly touched by that grace and being overwhelmed with all that God has given us in our lives. In addition, you will be laughing out loud a good part of the time you spend with this book. It’s one of the best books on Christianity that I have ever read. Highly recommended—5 stars.

Warning: if anyone is in the room when you are reading this book, be prepared to read huge chunks of it out loud!