Sabbath

This is the sermon I gave on Sunday, August 21, 2016, at First Congregational Church of Maltby.

Sabbath

Rev. Dr. Tom Sorenson

August 21, 2016

Scripture: Isaiah 58:13-14; Luke 13:10-17

Let us pray: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be acceptable in your sight O God, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

You know, sometimes when you do something out of the ordinary, like, say, go to seminary, some things about that experience stand out in your memory more strongly than others. One of the things that stands out for me in my memory of seminary is how everyone told me every chance they got that I live too much in my head. Maybe that resonates with some of you too, for there is truth in it. Another thing that stands out for me is how many times we were told that when we’re doing ministry—any kind of ministry—we need to take a regular Sabbath day. Sabbath rest was a very big deal with those academic types at Seattle U, some of whom had ministry experience outside the university and some of whom didn’t. Their point is a valid one, not that either I or many of my pastoral colleagues are very good at heeding it. Ministry is stressful, or at least it can be. Ministry involves stepping outside yourself and being there for others. That’s not an easy thing to do for many of us. We need time for rest, for relaxation, for renewal. Sabbath time is one good way to do that. Take one day a week and set it aside, we were told. Turn off you computer. Turn off your cell phone. Do something you really love doing, as long as it’s not work. Or do nothing at all. Just sit. Just be. Be quiet. Be restored. That’s what Sabbath time is about as far as those good folks at the Seattle University School of Theology and Ministry were concerned.

The word Sabbath of course comes from the Hebrew, and keeping a Sabbath day originated in the Jewish faith tradition. All three major monotheistic religions have their Sabbath days. The original Jewish Sabbath is Saturday, which actually goes from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday according to the ancient way of counting days. Sunday is the Christian Sabbath because that’s the day of Christ’s Resurrection and because Saturday was already taken by Judaism. Friday is the Muslim Sabbath day, probably because Judaism already had Saturday and Christianity already had Sunday by the time Islam came along. All three of these great faiths value Sabbath time. We Christians used to try to enforce the Sunday Sabbath with blue laws. I remember that most stores were closed on Sunday when I was a kid. Some states, I think including Washington, used to forbid alcohol sales on Sunday. Those laws have gone by the boards, but in theory we Christians still observe Sunday as at least a different day, even if it’s different only because we watch football rather than to go work.

Sabbath is a good thing. Hebrew scripture tells us over and over again that Sabbath is a good thing, an important thing. We heard it doing that just now. In our reading from Isaiah  we heard that if we honor the Sabbath by observing it “then you will find your joy in the Lord.” Isaiah says that honoring the Sabbath means not doing as you please, not “going your own way” or “speaking idle words.” In the Jewish tradition, and in the Christian one too, observing the Sabbath has meant not working. Genesis 2:2 tells us that God rested on the seventh day from all the work of creation. Just why the infinite God needed to rest may be a question, but that’s what Genesis says God did. In the Ten Commandments we read “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work” but on the seventh day, the Sabbath, “you shall not do any work.” Not working is what Sabbath came to be mostly about. I’ve even heard of Orthodox Jewish households that keep a Christian housekeeper around on the Sabbath so she can turn the lights on and off for them, since turning on the lights is considered doing work. I guess directing that person to turn a light on or off isn’t considered work.

So we’re not supposed to work on the Sabbath, I guess except we pastor types who sort of have to work on the Sabbath. But the thing is, Jesus was always getting in trouble with the Jewish religious authorities of his time because he kept violating that rule. We heard about him doing it in our reading from Luke this morning. In our passage this morning Jesus encounters a woman who has been bent over for eighteen years. I guess we’d probably diagnose osteoporosis or some spinal defect, although the ancient world said she was being cursed by Satan because they had no real understanding of actual disease processes. In any event Jesus heals her, and he does it on the Sabbath. The leader of the synagogue where Jesus did this healing is “indignant.” He quotes Exodus to Jesus: “There are six days for work.” So knock it off with the healing on the seventh day! There are lots of stories in the Gospels about Jesus healing or doing other work on the Sabbath and the Jewish leaders getting mad at him for breaking the Sabbath commandment.

I’m afraid that today many Christians read the way Jesus was always breaking the Sabbath law as meaning that we can just ignore Sabbath days. We can do whatever we want, and of course most of live doing whatever we want on Sundays pretty much the same as we do on every other day. Most Christians don’t take the Sabbath seriously any more. That’s probably because we just don’t want to, but we can read Jesus as having said that’s OK.

I’m afraid, however, that the matter really isn’t that simple. If we look more closely at just what it is that Jesus does on the Sabbath that gets the Jewish leaders so upset with him we see that he doesn’t do just anything. He doesn’t actually do anything to benefit himself. Mostly what he does is heal people who need healing. In our story this morning he seems to be saying why should this disabled woman have to wait until tomorrow to be healed when I can heal her today? She needs healing, and I can do it; so I’m not going to wait. I’m going to do for her what needs doing now. Her being healed is more important than some abstract rule about not working on the Sabbath.

There’s another story, this one in Mark, where Jesus tells us how he really sees the Sabbath. That one is at Mark 2:23-27. In that story Jesus’ disciples are plucking grain on the Sabbath, something that a strict interpretation of the Sabbath law prohibits. Harvesting grain is, after all, work. Jesus defends them by citing some obscure story about David, but then he says: “the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” With those few words Jesus brilliantly puts the Sabbath law, and all religious law, into proper perspective.

As he did so often, with what he says here he turns the standard expectations and interpretations of his day on their head. The Jewish officials who criticized Jesus for helping people on the Sabbath had forgotten why God had given them a Sabbath law in the first place. God had given them that law because generally speaking observing Sabbath is a very beneficial spiritual practice. It really is. Sabbath is a time, as Isaiah told us this morning, not to look after our own affairs but to be about God’s work. It is a time to remember that God is God and we’re not. It is a time to rest in the presence of God, to let God embrace us and to feel that divine embrace. It really can be a renewing and reviving spiritual practice.

Now, I don’t mean to disrespect anyone else’s faith. I have some idea how important strict Sabbath observance is to many Jewish people. They say that the Jews kept the Sabbath, and the Sabbath kept the Jews. It held them together as a community in times of oppression and even attempted extermination. Thank God for that. But Jesus had a somewhat different take on the matter. To him keeping the Sabbath was important, but caring for God’s people was more important. He never wanted us to make any religious law so absolute that it kept us from caring for other people, or for ourselves for that matter. Caring for people in need was always more important to him than was any religious law. Compassion trumped law for him every time. For Jesus, love was more important than legalism, and it needs to be more important than legalism for us too.

So, by all means keep the Sabbath. By all means live as much as you can according to the will of God. But always understand: The will of God is that God’s people be loved, cared for, healed, nourished, protected. When observing the Sabbath accomplishes that goal, and it often does, then by all means keep the Sabbath. But when a woman bent over needs healing on the Sabbath, heal her. Don’t wait. Don’t say I can’t do anything because it’s the Sabbath. That’s what Jesus did. He healed her. He didn’t wait. Compassion trumps law every time. That’s the way of Jesus. That must be our way too. Amen.