Preached at Canadochly Lutheran Church on August 25, 2013
Scripture text: Luke 13:10-17
I was watching a re-run of
America's Got Talent earlier this week, one of those preview episodes
they put together to fill you in before they announce the latest
winners. John Wing is competing this year and he's a comedian. I saw
his act on this episode and it was really funny. He was talking about
raising your kids and how you often are forced by their
short-attention spans and limited development to only speak in three-word sentences...
Go to bed. Shut your mouth. Eat
your food. Do your homework. Don't do that. Yes we are. No, you
won't. Stop that now. (He does the bit better than I do.)
It's one of the great joys and the
great curses of being a parent is establishing the rules. What our
kids can and can't do. They need to learn these things, to keep them
safe, to teach them how to get along with other human beings, to set
them on the right path to become the adults they should be one day.
Those three-word sentences are those rules in action. Do this and
good things will happen. Don't do this so that something bad doesn't
happen.
Of course, on the flip side when
you're the kid, rules are hard. Why can't I run down the street
naked? My clothes aren't comfortable. Why can't I scream in church?
Mommy's not paying attention to me. Why can't I jump off this 100
foot cliff? It'll be fun! (At least until you hit bottom.) Kids are
driven by the whimsy of the moment and rules get in the way of that.
They get in the way for good reason, but as a kid you don't always
realize that. You don't know why the rule is there, even if mom and
dad do.
That's the nature of rules. Rules
are important. They get us ahead in life and keep us out of harm and
danger. But what muddies the waters for both parents and children and
really for all of us are those moments when doing what is right
requires us to break the rules.
Been a lot of talk in the news
lately about whistle-blowers. We've got Edward Snowden over in Russia
who's told us how extensive the NSA spy program has really been.
We've got Bradley/Chelsey Manning who just got sentenced to 35 years
for letting Wikileaks know about what was going on in Iraq behind the
scenes. You go back a generation and you've got Daniel Ellsburg and
the Pentagon Papers. You've got Woodward and Bernstein and the
Watergate scandal. All kinds of people who felt, rightly or wrongly,
that it was more important for this information to get out into the
public than it was for them to obey the “rules” and keep it
secret.
That brings us to our Gospel story
today. Now, make no mistake, the Sabbath rule was a good rule. It's
such a good rule that I really wish our society obeyed it more.
Americans work themselves to death. We neglect family, friends, our
own health for the sake of the job. And that is precisely why God
established the Sabbath law to prevent.
Back in the days of Moses, God said
to the people. “Look, I'm giving you guys a gift. One day off a
week. One day you can spend dedicated to the things that really
matter in life. Faith, family, friends. The three Fs. (We Christians
have often added a fourth: Food.) Take that day and spend it doing
what is really important. Take it. It's yours. Enjoy.”
It's a day of life. REAL life. Life
that is joy and pleasure and peace and love. It's a day of
restoration, recharge, and renewal, all so you may face the week to
come.
But it is a rule, and as so often
happens, as time went on, the rule itself became more important than
the reason behind it. The rule became more important than what really
matters.
Jesus and his disciples have come
to the synagogue this day to obey that rule. They have come to
experience the gift that is Sabbath. They are here to worship, to
learn, to recharge, to reconnect, and to be renewed by this
experience. To be made ready for what will come in the week ahead.
Along with them comes this woman who is coming to the synagogue for
the same thing. Jesus sees her and you can imagine what runs through
his mind.
“This is Sabbath. This is the day
of rest, of renewal, of peace, and joy. What better way to give this
woman those things than to set her free from her ailment!” And so
he does and he immediately draws the ire of someone who thinks the
rule is more important the what lies behind it.
It's easy for us to look at this
story and mock the foolish stubbornness and hypocrisy of this rabbi.
But if we're truly honest with ourselves, we have to face up to the
fact that there more people in the church like him than like Jesus.
Kids in church are noisy, loud, a
distraction. We won't have them. How do you suppose parents feel when
those are the rules?
There was an article on Facebook this
week about a bride on her wedding day where the pastor outright
refused to conduct the ceremony. The guests were there. The organ was
playing. But the pastor didn't like the bride's dress, so he told
them all to leave. How do you suppose those people, the bride, the
groom, their guests felt when those were the rules?
I've often told the story of my
late grandfather and the last time he was in church. It was in the
Depression and a poor family came in to worship. The preacher stopped
the service and told them to leave because they weren't dressed well
enough. How do you suppose they felt when those were the rules?
Like the rabbi, we often miss the
point. We are more concerned about our love of law than about the law of love. God wants all people of the world to come to him to receive
the peace and the joy, the love and mercy that he offers through
Christ. When the rules matter to us more than that, we become a wall
that keeps people apart from God. We shut them out.
How can we do that when we know
that Christ died on that cross for them just as much as us? Or is it
that we really wish that wasn't true, that God's grace is only for us
and not for them? I wonder sometimes.
I think Jesus wondered that too.
There's a reason when he argues back at the rabbi that he calls this
woman a “daughter of Abraham.” He's driving home the point, driving home to this rabbi that she too is beloved of God. So are
the children, the poor, the black, the white, the gay, the straight,
the Democrat, the Republican, the women, the men, and every one else
whatever shape they take or whatever shape their lives are in. Are
they rule-breakers? Probably, but so are we, sometimes not even for
the right reasons. Does God love them and want to come to him?
Absolutely.
We have to remember what really
matters. Faith, family, friends, and the potential and the
opportunity to share those with others. Don't be a wall that keeps
people away from God. Be a bridge that helps them get to him. Amen.
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