Just how do we keep the Sabbath Holy?

Luke 13:10-17

Now he 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.

 Geoffrey Piper's Sermon on August 25, 2013

Today's gospel shows us two different approaches to observing the Sabbath:

We compare the leader of the synagogue with Jesus of Nazareth.

Let’s give the leader the credit due him. The leader of the synagogue is half right.

To our generation of Americans, who, like the desperadoes in the Treasure of Sierra Madre, declare:

“We don’t need no stinking Sabbath!”... The synagogue leader is telling us the truth. We rightly need to observe a break in our work routine to reconnect with God, with our nearest loved ones, and with our own hearts.

We should all be sure that we engage with God in a systematic pattern and rhythm of life, ceasing from being productive in our worldly tasks, putting down our tools, gathering, remembering God’s place in our lives, looking into one another’s eyes, celebrating all that God does to make us new.

Jesus is right: the Sabbath is not about being self-consciously inert, and a self-appointed critic of all others around us who are not as mindful of our meticulous inertia as we might be.

A grandmother took her toddler grandson to the beach one summer day. While gram settled on her beach chair, little Rupert toddled down to the water’s edge. A sudden wave broke over the sand, knocking the little fellow over, and dragging him out into the deep water. Grandma screams, and prays passionately to God to save her grandson. An instant later, another large wave tosses the boy back onto the sand, where Gram scoops him up and clutches him to herself. She looks the toddler over, then looks back into the heavens and declares, “He had a hat, you know…”

What is it about us that refuses to see the good and glorious, but insists on finding fault? We encounter this trait at work: a creative advertising agent wins the big contract for his agency, and the boss notes that it took a couple of days longer than he would have wished. We see it in our families: the diligent student brings home four A’s and a B on the report card. The critical parent withholds congratulations for the A’s and accuses the child of shoddy study habits in bringing home the B. And obviously, as today’s gospel story recounts, we see it in a religious community. New parishioners joining the church may be ignored by long-standing members in the pews, but the office staff will hear the complaint from the veteran member about the kind of pretzels served for Sunday School snack.

Wouldn’t you think the ruler of the synagogue might have been pleased with Jesus’ ad hoc healing? Might he not have recognized the good work of God right before his eyes? After all, the rest of the crowd, we’re told, was rejoicing at all the wonderful things Jesus was doing.

So what’s with this gloomy Eeyore? Why won’t he join the party? And more to the point, what prevents any of us from rejoicing--or enables us to rejoice--at all the wonderful things God might be doing in our midst day to day? Let’s look at two religious hazards, Convention and Control. And then let’s consider the power of Compassion to carry the day.

One of the occupational hazards of the religious life is that we can worship convention. The rules, directions, and ceremonies that are meant to lead us to fellowship with God can become ends in themselves. Perhaps the ruler of the synagogue didn’t want his conventional plan for the Sabbath Day service interrupted or upstaged by this itinerant guest rabbi. He understood that the commandments, along with the footnotes of the lawyers and teachers, were at the heart of Israel’s covenant with God. He couldn’t see beyond the sets and props of the faith to the central drama of the faith.

 It’s easy for us, in the Christian liturgical worship tradition, to think that we have fulfilled all righteousness by simply going to church and reading the words of the prayer book. In churches with great liturgical ceremonies, it is possible to focus so much on the performance of the worship leaders, their clothing, and their ceremonial manners that we miss connecting with God and refreshing our collective spiritual fellowship.

The prophet, Isaiah, warns of the danger of honoring God with our lips when our hearts are far from him. A good remedy for this is in our prayer of thanksgiving from the morning prayer rite. The prayer asks God to help us to demonstrate a genuine faith, genuine gratitude, and an authentic life of service. I love the passage:

“…we beseech thee, give us that due sense of all thy mercies, (in other words, make us deeply mindful and appreciative of all you have done for us)

that our hearts may be unfeignedly thankful (not merely an outward verbal show, but springing  from a truly grateful heart);

and that we show forth thy praise, not only with our lips, but in our lives, by giving up our selves to thy service, and by walking before thee in holiness and righteousness all our days…”

So we, worshiping Episcopalians, have to find ways to invest our oft repeated texts with focused souls, attentive minds, and sincere hearts, looking for intimate communion with the Lord to whom our words are addressed.

A second impediment to celebrating the works of God is our own desire to remain in control of our activities. The synagogue ruler is described as “indignant” that Jesus introduced a new element to the Sabbath worship service. It wasn’t in the script. Why couldn’t Jesus just do his healing spectacle somewhere else, at some other time? Another possible indicator at the ruler’s threatened sense of control is seen in that he kept on addressing the crowd with his protest. He is seeking support for his point of view. He wants a following. He seems to be afraid that the crowd’s celebration of Jesus’ action will mean a loss of support for his program.

Are we susceptible to the control hazard?

Let’s see… How might we feel if, after a sermon, the priest spontaneously invited married couples to come forward to meet with prayer leaders to clear away their accumulated relational debris, and vocally forgive one another for all that was past?

Or if a prayer leader spontaneously asked us to take the hand of the person next to us, and to lift our personal prayer requests to God?  We squirm, don’t we, at the thought that a worship experience might draw us out of our private, predictable, controlled spheres into an unscripted, corporate dance with God’s Holy Spirit.

If you’re at all like me, there is a little inner dialogue within that says, “Wouldn’t that be something?”... and simultaneously, “Don’t you dare mess with our dependable little liturgy.”

How did Jesus pray? “Not my will, but yours,” good Lord. What if we prayed, “Come among us, almighty God, with your power and compassion.”

Isn’t that what consistently motivates Jesus to act, Sabbath day or weekday, in a crowd or one-on-one?  Compassion…

“When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. So he began teaching them many things…”

Trying to get away by himself to rest,  Matthew 14:14 When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them and healed their sick.

He encounters a man afflicted by leprosy, in Mark 1:41 Filled with compassion, Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man…"Be clean!"

Jesus comes across two blind beggars...   Jesus had compassion on them and touched their eyes.

The power of Jesus’ compassion--his determined, irrepressible love for friends, strangers, fellow Jews and unaffiliated Gentiles—consistently overrides social convention and the religious customs of his day. He is resolute. If he has the power to make someone’s life whole, or to deliver another from any kind of bondage, or to make God’s power and mercy visible, he does the good thing. He is criticized for it as often as he is cheered; he is blamed for grandstanding and misbehaving as often as he is praised for revealing God’s love. He doesn’t take any public opinion polls before he acts with compassion.

In our worship, in our fellowship, in our service to one another, our community, and the world, can we dethrone convention and control when they hinder Christ’s compassion? Can compassion spark our courage, and then guide our actions in Christ’s name and power? I hope, pray, and trust that we will do this because we see the blessed rightness of it.

So I pray: Good God, help us to see and to seize every opportunity to release one another from what pins us down. Renew your Spirit, and instill your compassion in these hearts of ours, and in our ministry together, for the glory of your name. Amen.