Healing on the Sabbath
Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost
August 25, 2019
Bible Text for Sermon: Luke 13:10-17
Now Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath. And just then there appeared a woman with a spirit that had crippled her for eighteen years. She was bent over and was quite unable to stand up straight. When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, “Woman, you are set free from your ailment.” When he laid his hands on her, immediately she stood up straight and began praising God. But the leader of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had cured on the Sabbath, kept saying to the crowd, “There are six days on which work ought to be done; come on those days and be cured, and not on the Sabbath day.” But the Lord answered him and said, “You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger, and lead it away to give it water? And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen long years, be set free from this bondage on the Sabbath day?” When he said this, all his opponents were put to shame; and the entire crowd was rejoicing at all the wonderful things that he was doing.
Sermon
Do I look different to you? Well I am. I am now an empty nester except for holidays and maybe the summer when my children are home from college. On our way back from dropping off Elizabeth, my younger child, for her first year at Lehigh University on Thursday, my son texted, on his way back to Penn State, “congratulations mom and dad, you have now raised your children.”
For our last supper together on Tuesday night, I asked both Elizabeth and Will what I should do with my life now that I was going to have an empty nest and Will said I should consider signing on with his conditioning trainer and become one of those super fit middle aged moms. Elizabeth then reminded me that she hasn’t been home that much this last year so I could pretty much keep on doing what I have been doing.
Moments like these invite us to think deeply about our change of circumstances. Getting married, moving, having children, children leaving home, retirement, injury, ill health – all these states invite us to think deeply about how we are using our time left to us here on earth – especially our discretionary time – and most importantly our Sabbath time.
The point of this gospel story that we heard this morning is not so much about the healing really, but about Jesus demonstrating the true purpose of the Sabbath. As my friend, Dena, a rabbi said, Jesus is not really doing anything particularly new here – she said that there had always been this tension between the true purpose of the Sabbath. In this case the authorities were trying to uphold strict Sabbath observance, while Jesus in the spirit of the prophets, was challenging those standards. Traditionally there had only been one law that allowed you to break the Sabbath and that was to save life. Jesus here is not strictly speaking saving the bent over woman’s life – after all she was living and breathing when Jesus approached her. But he did save her life in this respect – she gained a new life as a person restored to full health.
So, Jesus is challenging these strict Sabbath laws that forbid any kind of works. And the heart of the message is that acts of compassion are not forbidden on the Sabbath – but rather acts of compassion are encouraged and are in the true spirit of the Sabbath.[1] But here is the other thing we need to remember – Jesus is not, through this act of compassion saying the Sabbath is not important – it was and remains important still – but if we are called to do what is humane and compassionate on the Sabbath – then we should do it.
So, rather than be a teaching on the does and don’ts of the Sabbath, I believe this passage invites us to consider our own Sabbath. And that question invites us to think about who we are right now. What responsibilities do we have? Do you have constant demands on your time – like a parent of young children or a child of an aging parent? And ask yourself – what is the most compassionate thing I can do for myself on my Sabbath? What resources do I have that would allow me some Sabbath time? It does not need to be on Sunday. In fact, my Sabbath, as I have told some of you is 5pm Friday to 5pm Saturday – because that is what fits best with my work schedule. When I have a good Sabbath rhythm going on – that means my sermon is completed by Friday 5pm, the house is tidy, and I’m not having to dash to the supermarket for groceries. It’s not always like that I assure you – but that is the ideal and sometimes the reality.
It is so hard to have a Sabbath. There is so much demanding our attention. There is so much available for us to watch, see and do. But as we hear from Jesus, the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath[2]. We need rest. We need time to reconnect with God and we need time to connect with those we love and those who make us feel loved, and we need to engage in those activities that make us feel whole. At least once a week.
To end, I just want to say this. I know in the world of statistics correlation does not imply causation. That is, that we cannot deduce a cause and effect relationship between two variables solely on the basis of an observed association or correlation between them.[3] But I cannot help but question whether the advent of technology, of instant access to news and entertainment, the advent of stores being open 7 days a week, and a whole host of other developments, has been a great detriment to our souls. At the same time as these developments, attendance at cultural events, membership in service organizations such as Rotary or the Lions, and attendance at places of worship have all decreased. And you know what else has suffered? Fewer people in Great Britain attend one of the strongest institutions in that nation – the Pub. And here is what has increased – levels of anxiety in our youth, and staggering levels of loneliness and feelings of isolation in our society. It seems to me that we are all dying for a rest from this world, and a reconnection to ourselves, to God, and to others.
I want to end by sharing with you about a period of time when I felt like we as a family had Sabbath right. At the time I was a school chaplain in Wimbledon in England, and I generally did not have Sunday duties. The kids had an occasional birthday party but they had not started sports. At church on Sunday, I would sit with my friend Lizzie. And Lizzie and I had between us, probably the noisiest four kids in church – and mercifully they generally went to Sunday school and joined us at communion at the peace. That was when I thought that the time of the peace was some kind of ironic gesture from God because that time in the service was anything but peaceful if you had rowdy children. But during the peace or after we received communion and waited for others to do the same, we would speed talk and plan what we were going to do after church. She’d say, “I have a chicken”, and I said, “I have some potatoes, and carrots”, and she said, “I have ¾ of a left over pie” and I’d say “I’ve got ice cream. Which house, yours or mine?” and nearly every Sunday we got together like one big noisy family and had Sunday lunch. And then afterwards we might walk down to the playground or go for a walk. I can honestly say – those were some of the best days we had as a young family.
And now that those days are
gone – my kids are in college – Lizzie’s kids have graduated from college, and
my friend and her husband now live in Wales and we now live in the United
States – and so, at this time of new circumstances, I ask myself – how do I
find that connection to God, and to those who are dear to me, in new
circumstances. And I think the answer for
all of us – in finding the Sabbath – if you don’t have one right now – is to
ask ourselves this: what is the most compassionate and healing thing I can do
for my soul – during these 24 hours that are set aside? Or 12 hours? Or even 2
hours -so that I might find rest and restoration for my soul with myself, with
my God and with my loved ones. And it’s
hard, because the world wants you to ask you a whole host of other questions:
What can I buy? What can I busy myself with? What can I entertain myself with?
What can I cram into this day? And it will ask it in such a way, without you
realizing it, that it has nothing to do with nourishing your soul. So choose
what is compassionate over what is easy and enticing. Your soul will thank you.
[1] Jerome Bible Commentary p. 705
[2] Luke 6.1-5 and elsewhere
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_does_not_imply_causation
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