Not on the Sabbath

August 25^th, 2013      “Not on the Sabbath”        Rev. Heather Jepsen

Luke 13:10-17

          Appearing only in Luke’s gospel, this morning’s reading is one of my favorites in the Biblical narrative.  Perhaps I love it because it features a woman, which few passages of scripture do.  Or perhaps I love it because it involves Jesus breaking the rules which is one of my favorite things.  Or perhaps I just love it because there is always something new to find in this wonderful story of freedom and redemption.

          The story begins with Jesus visiting the synagogue on the Sabbath day.  So often as modern believers, we have a tendency to forget that Jesus was a faithful Jew and was part of the Jewish culture and religious system.  Just as we find his spirit teaching us on Sunday in worship centers across the world, so Jesus taught in the Synagogues during the Sabbaths of his lifetime.

          While he was teaching that day, Jesus noticed a bent over woman on the edge of the crowd.  According to the author of Luke, a Spirit had crippled her body and kept her bent over for eighteen years.  She was unable to stand, forced to perpetually look down at the dirt.  To speak with someone she would have had to crane her neck around and strain to see them.  It is a very uncomfortable position. 

          She is on the margins of the group, sticking to the sidelines because her condition had made her unclean.  She doesn’t ask for healing or show any sign of faith, but Jesus sees her in the crowd and calls out to her.  He proclaims that she is set free from her ailment and he reaches out and touches her with both of his hands, crossing the boundary between clean and unclean.

          It is a miraculous healing and the woman is suddenly able to stand up straight.  Anyone who has been bent over in any position either from physical pain or even from working on a project in a tight space, knows what a relief it is to finally stand up straight.  The woman stands fully up for the first time in eighteen years and she praises God.  It’s a great story.

          The crowds are amazed but the religious authorities are less pleased.  “The Sabbath is a day that has been set apart and made holy.  There are certain things we do on the Sabbath and certain things that we don’t.  This was not a day for healing, it sets a bad example, this woman should have come another day to be healed.  If we have crowds at the synagogue asking for healing on the Sabbath, then that will distract from worship.” 

The leaders of the synagogue are responsible for keeping order and following the rules, and the fact of the matter is that Jesus has broken the rules.  The synagogue leaders are taking their understanding of the Sabbath from Exodus where we read that “Six days you shall labor and do all your work.  But the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work.  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.”

          Here, as in many Biblical stories, Jesus has a different understanding of the rules.  Yes, the Sabbath was made for rest, but it was also made to remember the redemption out of Egypt.  It was made to remember the freedom from bondage and captivity.  Jesus is thinking about the understanding of Sabbath in Deuteronomy where we read “Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm; therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day.”   If we care for livestock on the Sabbath, how much more should the religious community care for a woman who has been suffering?  Shouldn’t the community celebrate the redemption of this woman, this daughter of Abraham, on the Sabbath day, a day for remembering redemption and freedom?

          As often happens, Jesus manages to out argue the religious authorities.  The healing stands, the religious leaders are put to shame, and the crowd rejoices at Jesus and his teaching.  It’s a great story.

          Now, there are a lot of ways a pastor can preach a sermon here.  I could talk about the woman, what it would be like to be bent over for so many years; and how the church offers healing, restoration, and new life to her and to us.  I could talk about the religious leaders; how they were bound by the rules and how the actions of Jesus bring them freedom here as well.  I could talk about the church community that pushes different people, people who make us uncomfortable like the bent over woman, to the outside of the circle.  How the church community often says this is not the time for full inclusion, and that those who want to be healed and restored to the community should come back later.  I could talk about how Jesus always challenges us to be in fully community with all people.  Wherever we draw a line between ourselves and others we can be confident that Jesus is on the other side of that line. 

          But the truth is, I wasn’t feeling any of those sermons this week.  Plus I wasn’t sensing that this community really needed to hear those messages right now.  That’s not the gospel for us today.  Instead, this week I was really drawn to the theme of the Sabbath itself.

          As modern believers we have done a great job of taking this story about doing work on the Sabbath and twisting it around.  In fact, I think most of us here, read this text and think that doing anything of import on the Sabbath is an OK if not a good thing to do.  In the old days, you could lead the donkey to water on the Sabbath and still be OK.  In our modern times you can make breakfast, go to church, go out to lunch, mow the lawn, pay the bills, make a big dinner, clean the house, do laundry, play with the kids, watch the game on TV and take a nap if you’re lucky; all on the Sabbath, and still feel justified.  In fact, you can do anything you want on the Sabbath and that’s OK.  If the Sabbath is about freedom, then I am free to do anything I want on the Sabbath, right?

          If we can do anything we want on the Sabbath and anything we want the other six days a week then suddenly we become very busy.  Suddenly we have a whole list of things to do, a whole load of work.  We are in the office and making dinner at home and doing laundry and running errands and cleaning house and visiting people, and the list becomes endless, and rest is discouraged, and before we begin to realize it we have become the one who is bowed down.  Like the woman in the story, we are bound by our to-do list, we are hunched over with the weight of our many obligations, we are bowed low by our work load and we can go on like this day after day for 18 years and more.

          In fact, like this woman, we can just accept this condition as the way things are.  We can even come to worship, on the Sabbath, bowed under our load of busyness and burdens and stand at the edge of the worship community and try to worship God.  We can try to worship God with our eyes on the ground and our back breaking because that’s just the way it is.  We’ve been so crushed by real work and imagined work for so long that we can’t envision anything else, so we don’t even ask for healing.

          And if we bring the story around to here, if we follow this alternate vision and reading, then the situation is flipped.  In the role of synagogue leader we no longer quote the Exodus understanding of Sabbath, no, we come at Jesus with Deuteronomy.  The Sabbath is about freedom so I am free to work as hard as I need to.

          And Jesus comes back at us with Exodus, “Remember the Sabbath day, and keep it holy.  Six days you shall labor and do all your work.  But the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God.”  God rested, and so should you and frankly, to rest at this point would be a freedom wouldn’t it.

          And Jesus sees us in the crowd and he comes to us, to touch us and heal us.  Jesus comes to us and lifts the burdens off our backs.  Jesus comes to us and removes that to-do list.  Jesus comes to us and takes away that sense of needing to do it all by ourselves.  Jesus comes to us and heals us by enabling us to ask for real help.  Jesus comes to us and heals us by saying, this is the Sabbath day, you shall do no work, you shall rest.  Because rest is holy, and work is not.

          I think that is the message that we need to hear this morning.  Rest is holy, and work is not.  God has given us a gift, God has given us a freedom, God has given us a day and commanded us to rest.  And in our modern busy culture, where we are bowed under the weight of all the things we just have to do, Jesus is offering us healing and redemption by telling us that the best thing we can do today is to do nothing at all.  The best thing you can do today to honor your God, is to do nothing at all.

          Now, my husband Lars says that in some sermons he can tell that I am preaching to myself, and I think this is probably one of those days; but I know I am not the only one here who needs to hear this this morning.  I know that I am not the only person here with an endless list of projects and chores, a sense that I need to do it all by myself, and a Sunday Sabbath that only lasts as long as worship does.  I know how hard some of you work, I can see it.  And even if we are doing good works, even if we are doing good things that make a difference, if we aren’t taking a Sabbath rest then we aren’t honoring our God.

          This week, when I read about the bent over woman, I saw all of us, bent over by the start of the school year and the return of the heavy work load.  In this morning’s scripture reading, Jesus is offering us healing.  Jesus is offering to take the weight of our burdens and work load, by reminding us that the Sabbath day is holy, and that on the Sabbath we should rest.  We will never be able to stand up straight and praise God if we don’t. 

So keep that in mind this afternoon as you head home.  In six days the Lord created and on the seventh day our God, our busy God, with a to-do list that would trump any of our own, on the seventh day God rested.  And not only that, but our God commands us to rest as well.  Though the day of the week may have changed, this is our still Sabbath day, and today rest is holy and work is not.  It is my prayer that we would all honor our Lord and God this afternoon by taking a nap.  Amen.