The Thirteenth
Sunday after Pentecost, August 26, 2007, Proper 16C-RCL
Holy Sabbath
(Isaiah 58:9-14 and Luke 13:10-17)
The Rev. Robert B. Wood, St. Aidan’s Episcopal Church, Alpharetta,
Georgia
There is a clear connection today between the words of Isaiah and the
teaching of Jesus: Sabbath. Isaiah says, “refrain from trampling the
Sabbath, from pursuing your own interests.” Jesus takes action on the
Sabbath day and shows how it is a day of freedom from bondage.
Actually, he creates a stir with the leader of the synagogue, who
claims that Jesus has done just what Isaiah said not to do: He has
trampled the Sabbath and pursed his own interests—human interests. The
people who have witnessed the healing of the lame woman—and we—have a
judgment to make about Sabbath purpose and activity.
Sabbath—from the Hebrew shavat meaning “to cease” or “to rest.”
Sabbath: the fourth commandment given Moses and the people on Sinai:
“honor the Sabbath day and keep it holy.” Sabbath. Not to be trampled
like something in the way of a mob of European soccer fans or bulls
rushing through Spanish streets. Sabbath. An appropriate topic for any
Sunday.
This is the Sabbath day, is it not? Well, that is somewhat contested
because people say Sunday is the first day of the week… the day of
resurrection…of re-creation. That makes Saturday the seventh day.
Jesus and the disciples likely observed Sabbath from sundown on Friday
until sundown on Saturday. However, Charlemagne did decree in 789 that
Sunday was to be observed in western and Central Europe as the Sabbath
Day for Christians. Interesting fun-fact, yes?
So here we are today with Sabbath readings, but why not reflect on
Sabbath at the beginning of summer instead of at summer’s end…when the
pace of life picks up again with school, and sports, and life in
general? Maybe because Sabbath does not mean vacation, and now that
the season of vacation is ending, we need a little help or a faithful
nudge as a reminder of Sabbath’s holiness and its central place in our
lives as the holy people of God…as a defense against a culture that
without care or rest tramples Sabbath, that grows indignant when we
try to cease its worldly callings…a culture that hopes to fill every
void in our lives with the next best thing to consume, enjoy, or, as
it might say, “to cure the boredom of our lives.”
Sabbath. A day of rest from worldly matters because God rested after
six days of creating the world. After all, God called that creative
work of those six days “good,” but the Sabbath, the Sabbath he called
holy. The Hebrew theologian Abraham Joshua Heschel—whose book entitled
Sabbath we discussed last spring in Preacher, Priest, and
Rabbi—recounts another way that distinguishes the Sabbath day.
It’s as if a king created a castle with gardens and rooms…even a
bridal chamber, but what did his creation lack? A bride! The Sabbath
day is the bride of creation. Without the bride, the creation is
incomplete. So trampling the Sabbath is like stealing the bride away
from the groom.
Heschel is also clear that the Sabbath is more about time than
place...that the Sabbath is day to set aside things temporal and look
to things spiritual. In that sense, trampling the Sabbath is like
stealing holy time and using it for worldly purposes.
I think about Sabbath, then, in our day to day lives. Where and when
is our holy rest? Our God time? It’s hard to find a minute
sometimes…here in the second most-emailing city in the nation. We are
just behind Washington DC. We send and receive email in meetings when
we should be listening to the speaker. I even hear that people email
in churches and keep PDAs on bedside tables—just to make sure they
don’t miss a message. There are some examples of trampling.
I’m just as guilty. Just the other night, I emailed something to the
vestry at 11:30 PM…not that they were up to read it, but because I was
up typing. A response came back the next day: “Working late, aren’t
you?” I was caught. Work time trampled on personal time…just as easily
as it tramples on holy time—for a priest as for anyone.
But Atlanta is not all bad. We are the home to Chick-fil-A. They keep
the Sabbath. They close on Sundays and bear witness to holy time while
other chains are open to earn more money and build a stronger customer
base. Somehow, Chik-fil-a can afford to stay in business even with 1/7
less of revenues than Burger King and Subways get. Amazing. Can we
afford to honor God the same way? Or asked another way, can our souls
afford to lose the holiness of the Sabbath… which God ordained in the
very fabric of life? Or is that holiness trampled by self-desire?
I do find Isaiah’s use of the word ‘trampling’ interesting. He does
not say “refrain from ignoring the Sabbath” or “refrain from
forgetting the Sabbath.” Instead he says, “refrain from trampling it.”
Trampling: an active and harmful move. Trampling destroys.
Trampling—like intentional steps right one of God’s commandments.
What would it be like to hear someone admit: “I’m planning to take the
Lord’s name in vain today”? Not that the word slipped out with an
“oops” but that someone admitted their intent to break the
commandment…to trample it. What would we do? Or if someone said, “I’m
planning to commit adultery today.” We’d be shocked…try to talk them
out it, remind them of their marriage vows. Of if someone said, “I’m
planning to steal or bear false witness today.” Well, we’d likely try
to stop them…remind them of the 10 Commandments, of their morality, of
the need for a holier approach to life. But if someone were to say,
“I’m planning to break the Sabbath today, to go work just for a bit.
I’m really behind.” Would we sniff out that sin? Or would we
understand, maybe even say, “Me too.” Would we even feel guilt or
remorse, or is the guilt long gone, also trampled under our same
industrious feet?
Of course, taking the Sabbath too seriously can be unholy in its own
way. For example, there’s a story of rabbis fighting over whether a
crippled man could carry his wooden leg out of a burning house on the
Sabbath. That would be work after all. Some orthodox rabbis debated
the legality of wearing the hearing aids on the Sabbath. Rest is rest
after all. Don’t raise a hand to work.
I’m not sure the leader of the synagogue who got angry with Jesus was
that extreme, but he was holding a very tight line. And Jesus called
him on it. Can you imagine?? A woman, crippled for 18 years. A woman
nearly everyone knew and loved. She had just come to the synagogue—to
be there. To observe the Sabbath and keep it holy like she was taught
as a little girl.
A commandment she treasured even as her body deteriorated. And that
day, she was healed. And the leader of the synagogue gets mad about
it! He claims that Jesus and anyone who came there “to work” had
broken God’s law. He could have even quoted Exodus 31—that any soul
that works on the Sabbath is to be cut off from among the people. I
can only hope that that leader had mistook Jesus as some traveling
medicine man who had disturbed—who had trampled—the Sabbath. But
probably not.
Luke is clear to identify Jesus not as a visitor or just another man.
As you read Luke closely, you can see that Luke gives Jesus a clear
role and name. Jesus is not rabbi, not teacher, not even just
Jesus—but Luke names him Lord.
“The Lord answered [the leader of the synagogue] and said, "You
hypocrites!” (Hypocrites are another kind of trampler.) You are asking
for holiness…for a way to honor God...for a time and place to keep
holiness…and it’s really right here in front of you. “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?"
Being free from bondage—having it cease—shavat—is a holy thing—whether
you are talking about the bondage in Egypt or our bondage from sin
itself—which happened later, as Jesus rose on the Sabbath Day. And as
Jesus acts to heal the woman in the synagogue, we learn that it is not
just sickness and health that are under the Lord’s control—but the
commandments themselves are as well. They were written by the divine
hand. Who else could revise or make exceptions to the Commandments but
God? That’s what undid the leader of the synagogue.
Jesus’ was claiming a divine right, and as he did, he also taught,
saying: “Just as people might do a little work for the animals under
their care on the Sabbath, so too may the Lord do a little work for
the sheep of his flock—particularly those who have shown up to observe
the holiness of the day themselves.
You see, that’s the beauty of this story of healing. The woman did not
ask for it…as so many others did. At least she didn’t ask or beg or
touch his clothing. She just obeyed the fourth commandment and came to
the synagogue.
What if she had stayed home? Found something else to do…something that
might be more productive or more worldly. Or better for her. But she
did not. Her feet trampled on the call of the world, and she showed up
to worship God to honor the Sabbath and keep it holy. And in the
course of an ordinary day, she met Jesus and walked home, upright,
praising God.
If we value God as creator and rester…if we value the 10
commandments…if we value holiness… then we place our feet on God’s
path intentionally. We acknowledge His sovereignty every day, but
particularly on the Sabbath, and we step over and around and on the
stumbling blocks of a culture that would rather our feet stay put in
the world.
We take those feet and we walk ourselves into church on the Sabbath.
We observe this sanctuary in time. We honor the Sabbath day, not just
in Sabbath morning. We keep the day holy by doing God’s thing, not our
own. We observe the day in our house of worship, just as the
once-crippled woman did in her synagogue. And we might even be touched
by Christ in word or sacrament or some other way we did not expect,
and go home praising Him.
As we keep Sabbath, we are able to know the truth of Isaiah’s words:
that “the sabbath [is] a delight” and that “the holy day of the LORD
honorable.” Yes, Sabbath is for rest—for resting from the world—in
time and in space, for carving out that time and giving it to God. Yet
remember this: one thing does not cease or rest on the Sabbath--God’s
grace. God’s grace—as as seen (as met) in Christ Jesus our Lord. What
does not rest or cease is God’s love for you.
That’s what happened in the synagogue that day long ago, and that’s
what happens in church and in Sabbath time. So honor the Sabbath and
keep it holy, and may we each trample everything that gets in the way
of God’s grace, love, and holiness on this day and every day.
© The Rev. Robert B. Wood. All Rights
reserved.
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