REMEMBER OVERTON PARK AS A MAGICAL PLACE. On Sabbath afternoons we�d go for walks in the woods there. We�d explore paths that meandered among great oaks and hickories; we�d look for frogs in the creek. In the summer we flew kites. I played my first and last game of golf there. On summer evenings my parents would take us to concerts at the band shell. There was an art academy set in a sweep of lawn spotted with trees. On the north side of the park was the Memphis Zoo, with my favorite animals, bears. And I haven�t mentioned the swing sets, the duck pond, and picnic areas. For a kid there simply was no better park in the world than Overton Park. I remember one other aspect of life in Memphis in the fifties and early sixties. It took forever to go anywhere. There were no freeways. Rumor had it that the commissioner of roads visited Los Angeles and came back to report that freeways didn�t really help anything. They had freeways out there and still had traffic jams. I remember the first expressway that came to Memphis. It was a magical roadway�four lanes wide, no traffic lights. It felt like flying. As a student in junior high, I was developing an interest in politics and urban planning, and my own wonder at the luxury of a superhighway was heightened by economic facts:� If Memphis was going to compete for industry and population, it had to improve its roads. People had to be able to drive across town in less than eternity.

The master plan called for a beltway around town and a crosstown expressway carrying Interstate 40. The beltway was the easier right-of-way to acquire. The east-west crosstown route, working its way through established neighborhoods, progressed more slowly. The greatest challenge was finding a way through or around a band of exclusive neighborhoods running north and south in the center of town�right across the projected path of the crosstown expressway. (Memphis, in those days, was a typical Southern city with a well-stratified aristocracy. You did not bulldoze the homes of the wealthy.)

There was one obvious gap in this roadblock of fine homes:� Overton Park. And fortunately for the planners, while there were exclusive neighborhoods north and south of the park, on both the east and west sides there were working-class neighborhoods that would present little effective opposition to an expressway cutting through.

he route through the park was equally obvious. There was an old trolley line through the place. It hadn�t been used for years. It skirted the zoo, didn�t bisect the golf course, and didn�t come too close to the art academy.

There was just one problem. An elderly woman in town with a lot of money didn�t want the park desecrated by an expressway. And she went to court.

Nearly everyone I knew was outraged by this woman�s opposition. Memphis desperately needed an expressway. And the defunct trolley line through the park was the most obvious, least expensive, most politically feasible route available.

Figuring that it was just a matter of time before common sense prevailed, the state moved ahead with construction. They built the freeway to within a couple miles of the park and demolished houses right up to the park border.

The court battles dragged on for 20 years. The park won. And most of those who 30 years ago thought the old woman was crazy now realize the wisdom of her opposition to cutting up the park with an expressway. When they take their grandkids to the zoo they�re glad it�s not bordered by a thundering highway. It�s good that the view from the art academy north does not feature fences, exit signs, and passing semis. And it�s right that when you golf or take your kids for a walk in the woods you hear birds, not traffic.

Memphis still needs a crosstown expressway, but the city would be immeasurably poorer if it had allowed an expressway to cut through the heart of Overton Park.

And that�s the way it is with open space in a city. If someone doesn�t champion its protection, it will disappear, used for �more productive� purposes. The press of development will occupy every square inch.

abbath is like a park in time. It�s intended by God as a tranquil open space in the frenzy of our lives. But like open spaces in a city, it will disappear without vigilant protection. Nearly every adult I know needs more time�more time for work, for business, for education, for shopping, for home, for whatever.

The idea of a weekly holy day (whether Sabbath or Sunday) has disappeared from American society. In Seattle not long ago Boeing proposed a floating workweek in which work on the weekend would be treated like any other day of the week. No more time and a half for work on Sabbath or Sunday. In most Christian churches Sunday is regarded as a convenient day for church attendance, but not as a holy day. There are a few voices among American Protestants protesting against the loss of the blessings of the Sabbath (they mean Sunday), and the head of the Roman Catholic Church two or three years ago issued a strong appeal for the restoration of Sunday as a holy day. But these are isolated voices in a larger cultural trend to fill up every available hour with �productive� busyness.

od needs a champion of the Sabbath, just as Memphis needed a champion of Overton Park. And He has given that role to Seventh-day Adventists. There are other Sabbatarian groups that teach the Sabbath commandment, and we should encourage them. But the only group with the social and geographical reach to be effective in defending God�s park in time is the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

Let�s be honest. Some Christians have thought we are a little crazy. Why worry about a park? Why worry about a special day?

It would be silly to argue that a park is the most important need of the city. Does a city need a park more than roads, a water system, courts, or fire stations? It�s a silly question. The city needs all of this and more.

And it would be silly to argue that the Sabbath is the most important need of modern life or the modern church. Is the Sabbath more important than the good news of grace, Bible reading,� prayer, honesty, or compassion? It�s a silly question. Healthy Christian life includes all of this and more.

But just as healthy cities need parks, so the Christian life is immeasurably enriched by God�s park in time. And God has called Adventists to be stewards of the park.

ow should we take care of this park in time? As in the case of a park, the easiest things to say are negative. Speaking of a park:� No freeways. No fire stations. No McDonald�s. No flower picking. No wood gathering. Speaking of the Sabbath:� No work. No hockey matches. No oil changing. No house painting. No TV news. The blessedness of a park cannot be commanded. It would be silly to post a list of rules at the entrance of a park: 1. Relax! 2. Listen to the birds! 3. Be inspired by the great trees and the vistas! 4. Have fun! 5. Enjoy your children! And it would be equally nonsensical for God to command people to worship, to fellowship, to be inspired, to rejoice. The negative Sabbath commands protect an environment in which these positive experiences are most likely to be elicited.

Most of the biblical commands regarding Sabbath are negative. Don�t work. Don�t have your family or friends work (Ex. 20). Don�t do business (Jer. 17). I would put them into modern language this way:� On Sabbath, don�t struggle to secure your place in the world. On Sabbath, rest in the security I have offered you through Creation and redemption. Don�t worry about earning money or making grades or winning a baseball championship or beautifying your home or fixing your car. All these things are necessary. And I�ve given you six days to do them. On Sabbath, ignore your failures and give attention to My accomplishments. Forget your inadequacies and remember My promises.

Of course, every human rule has exceptions. The park sign reads: No flower gathering. But who�s going to complain if a child picks a dandelion bouquet? We would oppose a McDonald�s, but welcome an ice-cream cart on the Fourth of July or Canada Day. An expressway would destroy the park, but paved roads make it easy for families to gather in the picnic grounds.

And it�s the same with the Sabbath. Don�t work. But it would be wrong to stop the work of saving and protecting life. (And in the modern world that includes more than nursing.) No housework. But God does not call us to fast on Sabbath. And the congregation I serve vacuums our rented facilities after every service so that it will be ready for the Russian believers who meet there Saturday evening.

verton Park offers a variety of park experiences. The zoo. The woods. The picnic grounds. The golf course. The art academy. The band shell. These different features serve different functions and different people. They are united in their contrast with the routine, ordinary world of city life. They don�t make money. They don�t contribute to the industrial, educational, or financial stature of the city. But they serve the relational, artistic, spiritual needs of the citizens.

Similarly the Sabbath is not a single monolithic event. It offers opportunity for individual, family, and church worship; for walks in the woods; for time with family and the family of faith. It offers time away from the pressure to produce, achieve, accomplish. It reminds us that to be fully human includes being in touch with God.

American Protestantism has moved away from the Puritan strictness that regarded laughter with suspicion on the Sabbath (Sunday). And many Adventists have moved away from a rigid, stern observance of the Sabbath. But we need to be careful. If we are not resolute in resisting the encroachment of the necessary and obligatory, before long the quietness of the park will exist only in memory or imagination. The landscape of our lives will be completely full and dreadfully impoverished.

The frenzied pace of our culture is pressuring us to build a freeway through the park. We must not let it happen. Let�s stand at the forefront of the battle to keep the park intact. Let�s do everything we can to keep the freeway out of the park. So that the woods, the zoo, the duck pond, the picnic tables, and the surrounding quiet and peace will be there for our children and our grandchildren, should time last that long.

Let�s enjoy and protect the Sabbath, God�s park in time.

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John McLarty preaches Adventist doctrine through modern parables at North Hill Christian Fellowship, a Seventh-day Adventist church in Federal Way, Washington. He has a passion to help skeptical Adventists rediscover the value of their faith.