Jeremiah
1:4-10
Luke
13:10-17
To be people of faith
should be to be people who are awed by the amazing things God has done: to see
beauty and the presence of Love surrounding us in every moment, to be in wonder
about the life we have been given and the many lives that we have touched, to
search for and to find the Divine in everyone around us. However, the reality is that people of faith
often instead find themselves caught in a piety, in doctrine, in a religiosity. To quote Rabbi Abraham Heschel, too often,
“faith is completely replaced by creed, worship by discipline and love by
habit….religion speaks only in the name of authority rather than with the voice
of compassion.” In other words, we are a
people who tend towards legalism, a following of rules and practices, despite
the fact that scripture, and Jesus in particular, avidly opposes this
practice.
Let me point this out
again. The scriptures, and Jesus in
particular opposes legalism at every turn.
Today’s passage is just one more example when Jesus was breaking the
religious laws, laws you can find in the Old Testament, in the name of
love. Jesus had them pick grain on the
Sabbath - against the law. He touched
and allowed himself to be touched by those the laws declared unclean – against
the law. He confronted the Old Testament
passage of “an eye for an eye” saying, “You have heard it said, ‘an eye for an
eye and a tooth for a tooth’, But I say to you, do not resist an evil doer but
when your cheek is slapped, turn also the other cheek.” He stated again and again that all the law
and prophets rests solely on two commandments – loving God and loving neighbor
as self. He also said that the laws were
made for us, NOT us made for the laws when he said, “the Sabbath was made for
humans, not humans for the Sabbath.”
And yet, how many
people in the name of Christ continue to stand on laws that oppress and harm
other people? That are not loving? That are not “Good News” but instead are
judging, condemning, confining, and not inviting people to live in the radical
freedom of the love of Christ? I’m not
saying there aren’t important reasons for the guidance given us in
scriptures. But we are called to follow
the invitations to action that scripture gives us because God loves us enough
to want wholeness for us. The rules in scripture are meant to give us life,
freedom, meaning. That means, however, that when a law is NOT bringing
wholeness, we are called to look at it differently, to re-envision it, to interpret it differently - for example, the law that denied healing on
the Sabbath. In today’s passage Jesus
broke that rule. He healed on the Sabbath. And those who believed they were following
God most closely by abiding rules such as this were outraged. They couldn’t see that the health and
well-being of the woman in front of Jesus, this child of God who was suffering
and in pain, was more important than a rule about resting on the Sabbath.
To say it again, the Pharisees, the religious leaders of
that day, were really upset that Jesus chose to heal the woman on the
Sabbath. And I think it is critical to
our understanding of this passage to look at WHY Jesus did heal her that
day. The laws were strict about what
could and couldn’t be done on the Sabbath.
And the reality is that surely Jesus could have waited one more day to
heal this woman. After all, she had been
crippled for 18 years. In the span of 18
years, what is one more day? But Jesus
did not wait a day, or even an hour. He
chose to heal her then, breaking the law to do so. And it is important to understand why.
There are two answers to this. First of all, Jesus stood by the second Old
Testament understanding of Sabbath. The
first understanding of Sabbath comes from the first creation story in Genesis
in which God rested on the final day. In
this understanding, we are to do the same – rest, completely, as God rested
from the work of creation. Exodus
20:8-11 backs this up “therefore the people of Israel shall not work on the
Sabbath”. However, there is another Old
Testament understanding of Sabbath that comes from Deuteronomy 5:12-15. In Deuteronomy 5:14, when Moses reiterates the
Ten Commandments, he notes the second thing that we must remember on the
Sabbath: "remember that you were a
slave in the land of Egypt, and the LORD, your God brought you forth from there
with a mighty hand and with an outstretched arm; therefore the LORD your God
commanded you to observe the Sabbath day".
In other words, Sabbath day is about remembering freedom and remembering
that God brought about that freedom.
This was remembered through rest because in those times especially leisure
or rest was confined to certain classes; slaves did not get days off. Thus, by resting on the Sabbath, we are
reminded that we are free, not slaves like they had been in Egypt. For today
then, Sabbath frees us from our weekday concerns, from our deadlines and
schedules and commitments. During the
week, we are slaves to our jobs, to our creditors, to our need to provide for
ourselves; on Sabbath, we are freed from those worries in the same way the
Israelites were freed from slavery in Egypt.
In this understanding of Sabbath, the Sabbath practice
or observance is not just about resting – it is a day of doing a holy work, and
especially a holy work that is all about freedom. What could be more holy than healing, or
freeing a person from their infirmity, from a crippling condition, from a life
of estrangement, alienation and isolation from their communities (since they
were considered “unclean” and could not be touched or enter many places,
including the temple)? What could be
more holy than honoring God and God’s people by transforming them from the
physical slavery of infirmity into life?
For Jesus this was absolutely vital, absolutely important that the
healings he did BE done on the Sabbath, on that holy day, on the day when holy
works and acts of freeing and freedom are to be done. Yes, he could have waited one more day. But Sabbath was the right day, the
appropriate day, for him to do a holy work.
Just as the Israelites were freed from slavery, in remembering that, the
woman was to be freed from her affliction.
As the animals of the Pharisees were freed, even on the Sabbath, to
drink, this daughter of Abraham was freed in the kingdom of God to receive
life. Jesus transformed Sabbath, even as
he transformed the woman. Jesus focused
on freedom, even as he freed the woman, over and above “rest”.
Additionally, after 18 years, for God, that one day
mattered, that one hour mattered. Laws
be put aside, or as Jesus said it, “The Sabbath was made for humans, NOT humans
for the Sabbath.” Therefore, if the day
of rest is not creating freedom and love and healing for all people, then it should
not be observed in the way the Pharisees understood it needed to be. God’s timing is not our timing. God’s creative, transforming love comes
every day because every day is holy for God.
God’s understanding of law is always to be surpassed by God’s commitment
to love. And on this particular holy
day, Jesus would not and could not wait to heal this woman whom God loved.
The Pharisees hated
this for many reasons, one of which had to do with social control.
The desire to control Sabbath observance is critical for
maintaining another social order as well.
For example, when slavery was rampant, Frederick Douglass talked about
how important it was that the slave holders not see the slaves praying or
reading scripture or learning on the Sabbath.
They wanted to see the slaves “wrestling, boxing, and drinking whisky”
because if they were learning, reading, praying, that showed them to be intellectual,
moral, and accountable beings, which was intolerable in keeping up an illusion
of the slaves being inferior. They were told what they could do on the Sabbath,
and were, therefore, forbidden from studying, praying, reading because it was
very threatening to the social system.
While the South and Israel during Jesus time are not the
same, the issues of power and control were present in both as rules were made
and maintained concerning the Sabbath.
Both rules and insistence upon those rules helped to create a system
where specific people had power and others did not. In this case, if Jesus had followed the rule,
it would have literally kept a woman crippled.
From a favorite
commentary, ‘Feasting on the Word,’ “We
are like the woman bent over and unable to look up and see the sun. We know
only the dust and dirt underneath our feet. We struggle to see the path before
us by straining and twisting, because we cannot look straight ahead. To ask for
healing helps us step into Jesus' invitation to mend our souls as we mend
creation.” We must seek freedom from all
that binds us, whether it be physical, emotional, social, psychological or even
political. But again, we have to
remember that God is not a tame lion – and therefore God’s plans for us and
God’s timing for those plans will remain in God’s hands, even as we are called
to seek healing and wholeness. The good
news is, though, again, that God’s dreams are bigger than our own. And God’s call for us to find life is more
insistent and immediate than we could even hope. That is the good news. The challenge then for us is two fold – one
to take the Sabbath seriously as both a time for rest and a time to do a holy
work towards the freedom of all God’s people.
And second, to trust that God is the force and power behind any
transformation towards freedom. But that
God will use us, no matter what our condition, our age, our situation, if we
are open to God’s calling.
I think the idea that
the Sabbath is made for us, rather than us being made for the Sabbath or for
the rules, or for the doctrines – this is a hard idea for us. We want clarity, we want things cut and
dried. We want things spelled out. We all want to know what we are to do, with
absolute certainty. And because of that,
I think even the most “fluid” of us have certain scriptural passages that we see
as absolute, beyond nuance, just as the Pharisees saw the Sabbath rule as
beyond nuance. I want to invite you to
think about that. What are the
scriptures that get under your skin as unbreakable, as un-nuanceable, that even
if it hurts someone else you would insist on it?
I’ll tell you for
myself, one that really gets under my skin is when Jesus said, “the one without
sin cast the first stone.” I stand on
this and it gets so firmly into me that I feel that this is a firm and fast
declaration from Jesus that has no bending.”
And that is where I, too, get into trouble. Because what if what the person is doing that
I’m saying we shouldn’t judge is, in fact, harming somebody else? Then don’t we have a responsibility to judge
it enough to prevent others being hurt?
The same with the “turn the other cheek” business. I can become self-righteous about not
choosing harm to others, even when they are harming us. But what if, again, the person being harmed
is a person without power? Shouldn’t
that person be defended?
What are some that
you might be getting stuck in?
Connie Schultz, a
Cleveland columnist, said this – “I learned that those who are most secure in
their faith feel no need to hammer others with their certainty. The walk of faith begins and ends with the
journey within, and that’s a path fraught with mystery and best guesses. My own faith makes me neither right nor
righteous because it demands so much of me that I am still trying to find. Empathy, forgiveness, compassion – I never
have enough. Mom would say that’s
okay. She taught me that being a
Christian meant fixing ourselves and helping others, not the other way around.”
But I think all of
this can actually be summed up best by scripture itself. In Romans 4:16-17 Paul said this, “The Law
brings about wrath. But when there isn’t any law, there isn’t any violation of
the law. That’s why the inheritance comes through faith, so that it will be on
the basis of God’s grace.”
Jesus showed that
grace by breaking the law so he could heal the woman, not waiting one more day,
but bringing her healing right then. Grace
brings love. Grace brings hope. Grace brings life. Grace should be what
guides us and leads us to faith. To end where I started, it isn’t the laws that
will bring us true faith. They never
will. Instead, it is grace that creates
that awe and joy within us. Grace that
is “amazing” and grace that will lead us home.
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