The text of a sermon preached at Central Methodist Church Chippenham on 21st August 2022
Sometimes people make Religion
horribly repressive. And our passage from Luke today (Luke 13: 10 – 17) certainly
reflects it. The story opens with Jesus teaching in a synagogue.
Jesus
noticed a woman, identified in scripture as only "crippled"
and "bent over" — some disease that deteriorated the spine,
maybe osteoporosis or scoliosis — a condition she had suffered for eighteen
years. Jesus called to her to come forward. "Woman, you are set free
from your infirmity" (Luke 13:12). Jesus touched her and immediately
she straightened up and praised God.
Of course,
we know there is more to the story. Enter the rabbi in charge. He thundered to
the people, “There are six days for work. So
come and be healed on those days, not on the Sabbath.” (Luke 13:14).
Truth be
told, what Jesus did was bound to cause a stir. He had healed this woman on the
sabbath. That was a clear violation of God's commandment.
"Observe
the sabbath day to keep it holy ... Six days you shall labour and do all your
work, but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall
not do any work...." — Deuteronomy 5:12-14
Healing is
work; ask any doctor or nurse. Therefore in the eyes of the rabbi Jesus had
broken the law.
Good Jews to
this day are scrupulous about what may and may not be done on the sabbath. Some
of the rules may sound nit-picky, but the tradition goes back to the days when
the nation was in exile. Sabbath-keeping was the way Jews then, and Jews now
assured themselves a unique identity. Through the centuries, the rabbis had set
up all sorts of "fences" around the sabbath to assure its special
place. By the time of Christ, there were 1,521 things one could not do on the
sabbath.
And to this day, Orthodox Jews conform
to many strict do’s and don’ts for the sabbath. The Jewish website Chabad.org
for example says this:
Let's start with some basic activities
from which we Jews refrain on Shabbat:
- writing, erasing, and tearing;
- business transactions;
- driving or riding in cars or other vehicles;
- shopping;
- using the telephone;
- turning on or off anything which uses
electricity, including lights, radios, television, computer,
air-conditioners and alarm clocks;
- cooking, baking or kindling a fire;
- gardening and grass-mowing;
- doing laundry;
The web site goes on:
Does all this mean that Shabbat is
somewhat of a miserable affair, where we sit hungry in the dark? Not at all. It
simply means that we have to prepare for Shabbat in advance, so that, on the
contrary, we celebrate in luxury, without doing any of the actual work, on
Shabbat.
The website explains:
For example: Lights which will be
needed on Shabbat are turned on before Shabbat. Automatic timers may be used
for lights and some appliances as long as they have been set before Shabbat.
The refrigerator may be used, but again, we have to ensure that it's use does
not engender any of the forbidden Shabbat activities. Thus, the fridge light
should be disconnected before Shabbat by unscrewing the bulb slightly and a
freezer whose fan is activated when the door is opened may not be used.
Christians may find this strange. But following these rules helps Jewish people keep their identity.
Obviously,
some of these rules have been introduced since Jesus’ time. And these rules are
followed mainly by Orthodox Jews. Not all Jews would follow them. But the basic
principles remain the same.
When Jesus
did this healing, in the eyes of the rabbi present, in the strict eyes of
Jewish law, he was working on the sabbath. Work, including healing was not
permitted. Not even an emergency healing. In fact, the woman had not even asked
to be healed. But Jesus did it anyway. It is not much of a stretch to conclude
that Jesus did it on purpose. He knew the rules.
It is not
that the rules were designed to be repressive. On the contrary, it was this
commitment to the Sabbath that reminded the Jewish people who they
were and whose they were. Why would Jesus deliberately provoke
the Jewish authorities?
And while he
was at it, he called them a nasty name
"You
hypocrites! Doesn't each of you on the sabbath untie his ox or donkey from the
stall and lead it out to give it water? Then should not this woman, a daughter
of Abraham, whom Satan has kept bound for eighteen long years, be set free on
the sabbath day from what bound her?" — Luke
13:15-16
There was
not much the local synagogue leaders could say to this. In fact, Luke sums the
story up with,
"...
all his opponents were humiliated, but the people were delighted with all the
wonderful things he was doing" (Luke 13:17).
Generally,
when people are stuck in a system or a particular way of understanding, they
need to be shocked out of the old and into the new. Logic and reason usually do
not work. Jesus could have spent all day arguing with the synagogue leader
about whether or not it was legal to heal this woman on the sabbath while she
remained ill. In this instance Jesus didn’t bother discussing the finer points
of Jewish law. The healing took place before the discussion about whether or
not it was the right thing to do.
(By the way How
many church meetings are discussions about what should be done, rather
than actually getting things done?)
I’ve long
learned as a Methodist minister that sometimes it is easier to ask forgiveness later
than seek permission first. I’m not particularly a rule breaker but sometimes “A
little rebellion is a good thing” as the American President Thomas
Jefferson put it. Our Methodist Constitutional Practice and Discipline,
the rules governing our church, runs to over 850 pages and has 1150 standing
orders. Every now and again I have found that something I’ve done, or someone
in one of the churches has done, doesn’t really comply. Sometimes rules have to
be slightly bent! Don’t tell the Superintendent!
Don’t get me
wrong, CPD is important. And there are some things such as safeguarding that
are not open to interpretation. Likewise rules on trusteeship. Just sometimes
it is more about the spirit than the letter of the law.
We all know
that at times Christians can become very dogmatic. “That’s what the Bible
says”. Yes of course there are things that are key to our beliefs. But at
times some people who claim to be followers of Jesus have a very funny way of
showing it! It is such a shame that something that can do so much good — our
Christian faith — can be made to do so much that is so bad due to people’s
dogma.
Mahatma Gandhi
once said:
“I like your Christ. I do
not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”
I do not
know what caused him to say such a thing but what he said is so often true.
People
outside our churches learn something of Jesus’ teachings of loving our
neighbour for example and think “Yes that is a message I can relate to.”
But then they see how people calling themselves Christians behave.
When I did
my pulpit exchange to North Carolina in 2013, I was told of a church in the
town – a Presbyterian church I think – that was for the USA very old. Close to
250 years old. There on the floor of the gallery are iron rings. Slaves would
be shackled to these rings. Think about that for a moment. Slaves would be
brought to church to hear the Gospel proclaimed but the slaves would be
shackled. Imagine a preacher in the early 19th century in that church
preaching how Jesus set people free of the shackles of sin and meanwhile as a
slave you’re shackled to an iron ring in the gallery of the church.
That is
Christian hypocrisy in action right there.
And again,
looking across the pond to the USA. In recent weeks the Supreme Court there has
made it much more difficult to have an abortion. We can debate the rights and
wrongs of abortion on another occasion. But the behaviour of the so called “Pro
Life” lobby, made up often of fundamentalist, evangelical Christians, isn’t
exactly Christlike. And I find it strange that many of those who are “Pro
Life” are also in favour of the death penalty and opposed to any kind of
gun control.
More
hypocrisy in my opinion.
But who am I
to judge?
Those
of us who are part of the Church know we are not what Jesus called us to be. We
spend too much and share too little; we judge too many and love too few; we
wait too long and act too late.
Perhaps
you are saying, "Show me a church where hypocrisy has been
purged away; where church members don't waste time and energy squabbling over
petty details; where love is genuine, and I'll become a member."
Well
good luck in finding that church. Even when we look fondly at the early church
as depicted in Acts of the Apostles say, we must remember that that Church was
far from perfect too. Which is why for example, Paul spent time writing many of
his letters to address a lack of love between church members let alone love for
those outside church.
Jesus always met men and women on the level of their need, regardless of
who they were or what they had done. He met everyone as human beings, never as
stereotypes. Stereotypes were as powerful then as they are now. Once a
label is placed on a person the human being vanishes. Many labels were given to
people in the New Testament such labels as tax collector, Samaritan, Roman
soldier, prostitute, rich young man, Pharisee, sinner, publican, leper. They
all appear in the gospel narrative, and every time Jesus completely ignores the
label and deals with the person. Jesus didn’t care that the rules said he
shouldn’t deal with sinners.
Writer David H.C. Read points out that "Jesus knew the ugly side
of society: the brutality of the occupation, the corruption of the tax
system, the racial prejudices, the economic injustice, the
religious hypocrisy, and the sexual degradation. But never once did these
factors blind him to the reality of the human being, the unique son or daughter
of God he saw before him."
Our story
this morning is about seeing the reality of the human being before us. Of
forgetting what the rule book says. Of trying to see everyone with Christlike
eyes.
As St Theresa of Avila is
believed to have said:
Christ has no
body but yours,
No hands, no feet
on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which He looks
Compassion on this world,
Yours are the feet with which He walks to do good,
Yours are the hands, with which He blesses all the world.
Yours are the hands, yours are the feet,
Yours are the eyes, you are His body.
Christ has no body now but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
compassion on this world.
Christ has no body now on earth but yours.
Let it be so. Amen
Acknowledgement www.Sermons.com for ideas and illustrations.
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