So Jesus heals on the Sabbath? Good. That’s
what the Sabbath is for, isn’t it? The stuffy leader of the synagogue in the Gospel
lesson appointed for Pentecost 11, Year C (Luke 13:10-17) seems to have missed
the memo. He quotes only part of the Third Commandment as it appears in Exodus:
“Six days you shall labor and do all your work (Ex. 20:9),” but he leaves out
the whole rationale for the rule in the first place:
“But the seventh day is a Sabbath to the
Lord your God; you shall not do any work—you, your son or your daughter, your
male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns. For
in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea and all that is in them,
but rested on the seventh day; therefore, the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and
consecrated it.” (Exodus 20:10-11)
Get the point? The Sabbath is for rest. Rest
restores and heals. It’s necessary. Ever go without sleep? Ever deal with something
that was so relentless you couldn’t catch your breath? Sucks, doesn’t it? We need the rest. Our souls need it as well
as our bodies. The Sabbath is God’s gift so we can be healed. Nothing should be
more natural in the world than that Jesus should see the woman who is in
slavery to her affliction, and—without her even asking for it—he calls her over
and makes her whole. That’s what the Sabbath is for.
Granted, over the years we Christians have
made Sundays as dreary and burdensome as the synagogue leader who gives Jesus a
hard time in our Gospel story. In one of my favorite novels, Of Human Bondage, W. Somerset Maugham
describes a dreary English Sabbath in which a young boy must suffer through
interminable Anglican liturgies in both the morning and evening, interrupted by
a monotonous Sunday afternoon in which all activity ceases and an oppressive
edict of silence is imposed on the household. It’s shear Purgatory. And it was
supposed to be good for the soul.
For me, however, the Sabbaths of my youth
were always very pleasant times. I got to see my buddies at church, the folks
were friendly, the singing and preaching were joyful, and there was always—even
well into my adulthood when my siblings and I had moved out of the family home—family
time. We’d gather around the dining table in my parents’ home or at a local
restaurant. We’d get caught up. We’d talk about the service we’d just attended
or whatever else. After Sunday dinner there was our traditional Sunday snooze.
I think the whole clan would hit our bunks and doze off until it was time to
watch 60 Minutes. The Sunday afternoon
nap was as much a part of Sunday as church and dinner. Even when I went away to
graduate school, I pretty much kept up our Griffiths family Sabbath routine.
But today, it’s different for a lot of
folks. There’s no rest on the Sabbath. Some people have to hold down more than
one job to make ends meet. Sales clerks and waiters don’t get their weekly
schedules until the last minute, so they can never commit to weekly worship.
The “gig” economy has people working seven days, or so dog tired on a Sunday
morning that all they can do is stay in bed. America—once home of the “blue
laws” which forbade businesses to be open on Sunday mornings and forbade the
sale of alcohol on the Sabbath—has effectively killed the Lord’s Day of Rest.
So, okay. The Sabbath doesn’t have to be a
specific day. When I was in seminary I knew a Lutheran pastor from Tanzania who
had a seventeen point parish back in his home country. It didn’t matter what
the calendar said. Whenever Pastor arrived in the village, that day was Sunday.
Martin Luther interpreted obedience to the
Third Commandment as hearing the word of God and learning it. This could be
done during a lunch break at Walmart or before a shift at the Taco Bell. I
think what’s necessary for the Sabbath is not the liturgy or the trappings of a
church building (as much as I love these things), but the quiet moment to come
to the Word and know that you are loved and valued. If you can couple that with
the fellowship of other believers—with your Christian “family” in whatever form
they take—and find a few restful, peaceful, healing moments to do it, so much
the better.
A Good Sabbath to you, my friend. Thanks
for dropping in.
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