Your Worth Is Not What You Produce

This is Father Jared Cramer from St. John's Episcopal Church in Grand Haven, Michigan, here with today's edition of Christian Mythbusters, a regular segment I offer to counter some common misconceptions about the Christian faith.

Today I want to talk about rest. And why so many Christians are terrible at it.

The myth I want to bust is one that runs so deep in American Christianity that most of us don't even recognize it as a theological claim. It's this: that your worth is determined by what you produce. What you accomplish. What you create, what you say, what you do. That busyness is next to godliness.

This is often called the Protestant Work Ethic, and its roots go back to the Reformation — particularly to Calvinist theology, which tied disciplined, productive labor to signs of divine election. If you worked hard and prospered, it meant God was with you. Over time, especially in America, that theological framework got absorbed into the culture so thoroughly that it no longer needs a church to sustain it. It just is the water we swim in. Hustle culture. Productivity optimization. The glorification of busy.

But here's what the Bible actually says: on the seventh day, God rested.

Not because God was tired. Not because there was nothing left to do. God rested because rest is built into the fabric of creation itself. Sabbath isn't an afterthought. It's the crown of the creation story. The whole week points toward it.

The Hebrew word is shabbat — to cease, to stop, to let be. And in the Torah, sabbath rest was not optional or aspirational. It was commanded. It was liberation theology in calendar form — a weekly reminder that the Israelites were no longer slaves in Egypt, no longer defined by their output, no longer subject to Pharaoh's endless demand for more bricks.

And precisely because they were once slaves, God insisted that not only should they rest but that they must build a society in which everyone, down to the lowest and most vulnerable, was given a day to rest… a day simply… to be. 

Which means that when we refuse to rest, when we feel guilty about stopping, when our identity collapses without our to-do lists, we are acting like people who have forgotten they've been set free.

And this touches my own life. Starting tomorrow, I begin a sabbatical — what our church is calling a “Renewal Leave” — that will carry me through mid-September. (That means there won’t be any more productions of Christian Mythbusters for the next four months.) This sabbatical is a genuine gift, and I don't take it for granted for a single moment. I know that most people listening don't get sabbaticals. The rhythms of sabbath rest are not equally available to everyone, and that itself is a justice issue worth naming. When rest becomes a luxury only some can afford, something has gone badly wrong.

But sabbath was always meant to be more than a perk for the privileged. The Torah extended it to servants, to animals, to the land itself. It was a social practice, not just a personal one. Which means the church should be asking hard questions about a society that makes rest impossible for so many — and should be working to change it.

In the meantime, here is what I know from theology and from my own life: you can build sabbath into your days even without a sabbatical. Not by escaping your responsibilities, but by regularly, intentionally, ceasing. One evening a week away from the screen. One morning that belongs to something life-giving rather than productive. A walk where you are not also listening to a podcast or wor. A meal where you are just eating. Small sabbaths, practiced faithfully, can begin to loosen the grip of the myth that you are only as valuable as what you produce.

Because here is the truth: God is saving the world. Not you. Not me. We each have our part to play — and those parts matter deeply. But the weight of making things right does not rest on our shoulders alone. That is God's work, and God will see it through. Which means it is not just permissible for us to rest. It is essential. It is an act of faith.

I’ll try to live in that trust, to rest in that grace and love, until I talk to you again in September.

Thanks for being with me. To find out more about my parish, you can go to sjegh.com. Until next time, remember: protest like Jesus, love recklessly, and live your faith out in a community that accepts you but also challenges you to be better tomorrow than you are today.