Wednesday, August 17, 2016

Jesus Heals on the Sabbath (Reflections on Pentecost Fourteen, Year C)

Circa 1685, English perjurer Doctor Titus Oates (1649 - 1705) in the pillory at the Temple gate for his involvement in the Popish Plot. His false confession led to the trial and death of about 35 people between 1678 and 1683. In 1685 Oates was found guilty of perjury
Our ancestors had very special  ways of making sure we didn't skip church.
When did church-going become a chore? Back in Exodus 20:8-11 the Sabbath was supposed to be a day of rest and a time to be with God and get refreshed. I mean, isn’t that a good thing? Gathering with a Christian community is supposed to be what any family gathering is supposed to be—a happy time to share a meal, get connected with folks who make us feel safe and valued, catch up on what’s important, and come away feeling better than you had when you were dragging your butt all week.

I’ll bet those early Christians in the Roman Empire really looked forward to Sunday. That’s when slaves and free folk could break bread together and be equals. They could sing together and hear God’s promise that they were loved by God even though their lives tended to suck. They also might’ve had the joy of knowing they were doing something really wild, dangerous, and troubling to the folks who were in charge of making their lives suck. But then along came Constantine, Christianity became legal, and church was on its way to being mandatory.

Recently one of my faithful parishioners told me her grandson protested that he could be a Christian without going to church. I’ll admit to having felt that way myself once. Ironically, I was in Seminary at the time. As senior Lutheran seminarians are not required to do field work, I often found myself with a Sunday morning free when I wasn’t scoring some cash by doing pulpit supply. On those Sundays I’d lie in bed and think, “Gosh. I can sleep in today. After all, I’ve been to chapel five times this week, so I think I’m good.” Besides, the local Lutheran church, although racially diverse, seemed to have an unhealthy division between the African American and Caucasian members. It just didn’t feel cozy to worship there. Also, the interim pastor was a manuscript preacher whose interminable sermons and brain-numbingly dull delivery were enough to make me envy the dead.

But every Sunday, feeling guilty about breaking the third commandment, I’d drag myself out of bed and attend that church. And every Sunday, God would speak to me in some way. It would be the music or the liturgy or the readings or the Eucharist, but Jesus would always show up, and I would always leave feeling glad that I’d come to worship. Jesus, you see, heals on the Sabbath.

The Gospel lesson for Pentecost Fourteen in the Revised Common Lectionary (Luke 13: 10-17) contrasts Jesus’ ability to heal and bring mercy and glory to God with the religious leaders’ insistence on turning a joyful experience into a legalistic act of drudgery. The woman with the crippling spirit illustrates to me why our public gathering is so necessary. I don’t know what actual physical malady is being described here, but I do think it’s interesting that the scripture diagnoses her inability to stand upright as the result of a spirit. Jesus will say in verse 16 that this spirit is Satan. Maybe this isn’t a physical condition at all, but an emotional or spiritual affliction. Maybe this woman is bent over because of shame. Maybe she’s been an abused wife for eighteen years. Maybe she suffers from self-esteem issues. Maybe she’s an addict or an alcoholic. Maybe she’s burdened by the memory of past abuse or family trauma. Maybe she’s bent over by the weight of her children’s problems.

Whatever has crushed this woman’s spirit has not kept her from Sabbath worship. There she encounters Jesus who declares her freedom and actually touches her—actually acknowledges her as a child of Abraham and a beloved, valued person before God. Then the power of God’s truth straightens her out. (In the Greek, the verb is anorthothe.  It literally means “she was made straight.” The King James Bible actually translates this very accurately. I personally wouldn’t have figured this out if I hadn’t read it in a commentary. Now I feel really smart for quoting Greek!)

That’s what Jesus does for us. He heals us on the Sabbath. He straightens us out, because we probably wouldn’t get straightened out on our own. He calls us to know him through the word and the sacraments and the music and the fellowship. His touch and proclamation change us from being curved into ourselves and make us able to stand straight, see the world, give God glory, and become agents of healing ourselves.

Now, nobody’s going to put you in the stocks and throw rotting vegetables at you for missing church like they used to do in colonial New England. Most of us believe that God’s grace is merciful enough to excuse a summer Sunday at the shore void of any religious observance. Our culture just doesn’t make church-going into the legalistic burden it was in the past.

No. I think we do that to ourselves. Perhaps we bring to our place of worship our own pre-conceived idea that Sabbath is a stuffy obligation to be endured. Perhaps we should enter the doors of the church with the joyful expectation that we are going to be healed, renewed, and used by our very presence as an instrument of God’s community. Maybe we should take some time to understand liturgy, you think? Maybe we should rejoice that we can share an experience which gives us gladness with our children, and teach them to expect blessings from the Sabbath.

We spend a lot of our time getting bent out of shape. We need to approach the Sabbath with the understanding that Jesus will be there to straighten us out. As the Psalmist says, “I was glad when they said to me, ‘Let us go to the house of the Lord!’” (Psalm 122:1) Jesus will be there. And he heals on the Sabbath.


A good Sabbath to you all! Thanks for visiting this week.

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