Sabbatical: The Need beyond Routine

Almost daily someone asks me, “Aren’t you on sabbatical?” I channel positive energy and respond, “Not yet. Not until July 1st.” 

They are asking a generous question. It’s summer, and sabbaticals start in the summer; people expect me to vacate. My internal response, however, is battling with two emotions - frustration and fear.  I am frustrated because I have not yet started sabbatical and have a load of administrative tasks to do. I am frustrated because I have enough sabbatical-itis (eerily similar to senior-iris) that I do not want to disconnect before necessary. I am fearful because I wonder, “Do people want me to leave, now? Are people ready for me to get out of the building and go do something else?" The ride of emotions amidst trying to complete my work and deal with me is too much. Both my anger and my fear are unwarranted, and most days I can take a deep breath and appreciate both my love for WTS and others’ positive intentions in asking. 

But sabbaticals are an interesting phenomenon. I have postponed my academic sabbatical for the past five semesters. I blamed the postponement on my administrative load and the school’s need. Prior to coming to WTS, I also ignored the possibility of a pastoral sabbatical several times. Regardless of why. I have long feared sabbaticals. They are foreign to me.

I am not from a world that knows sabbaticals. They are a weird thing; I am used to a world that rises on Mondays, works diligently for five days, enjoys the weekend, and then takes periodic vacations for renewal. If it’s not vacation time, it’s GO TO work time. My dad and mom are long-standing employees who work diligently each and every Monday-Friday. My father has been working full-time since he was fifteen. Work is what we do. Sabbaticals are foreign to me.

Even so, sabbaticals are significant. We need leaders to take sabbaticals. These are not sabbaths or vacations or dismissals. Sabbaticals are work in a different vein. Researchers and teachers need to retool. Tim Brown, WTS president, says sabbaticals are the research and development arm for theological schools. I have said elsewhere, sabbaticals are a time to pursue truth wherever it leads with diligence, which includes tenacity and focus. This is hard to find amidst the routine.

I work in a wonderful place. Faculty and staff labor beyond the 8-5 workday to prepare for classes, grade assignments, and respond to email and phone calls. Faculty regularly text one another late in the evenings as we continue reading, writing, grading, and preparing. Staff come to the office on weekends to keep moving the mission forward. Remaining a nimble place goes beyond the workday, so innovating for the future needs additional time and focus. Sabbaticals allow for this. I must admit, I regularly wonder if a system could be created to allow for staff to apply for a work-related sabbatical.

Sabbatical is tied to biblical Sabbath. It’s agrarian in mindset - a relationship between land and worker. The relationship continues, albeit translated, for a technological and institutional society. Sabbatical is rest from daily work to achieve something else. The achievement is not simply for the laborer, but also for the land. Every seven semesters (at some places every seven years), teaching leaders rest from the toil of the daily grind to achieve something else, whether writing or research. Ideally, this work would connect with the mission of the institution granting the sabbatical. It is a jubilee in one sense. 

The first six years at WTS have resulted in ongoing and incessant labor. This sabbatical allows the land to lie fallow and to see what will grow (Leviticus 25 or Exodus 23). In the spirit of a Sabbath year, whatever grows can be taken up by someone else. This may be coursework I teach, committee work, or otherwise, but someone else will come along and pick up what is growing in my absence. They will nourish the land differently. This requires great trust for me. In some ways, my postponement was disallowing someone else to flourish by taking on the work I normally do. The postponement was also inhibiting me to discover new ways to cultivate, plant, and grow in my vocational passion. 

I have three more weeks to release the land for a new living. I recognize my own need to control and manage the land of my work. My hope is that I simply spend the next weeks releasing the land to others; it was never mine to begin with. The reality is that all of our work and all of our land is a gift, and there is no shortage of laborers who can take up the land and see it prosper.  

I recognize my sabbatical as such an endeavor. The land from which I benefit, namely WTS, is gifting me time to go deeper toward the truth of my own questions. The gift allows others’ to see and take up the soil I leave behind. I think now is a good time to do so.