14th Sunday after Pentecost --- 25 August 2013

I'd been on holiday from about August 1st to the 21st. This is my return sermon as it were.

“...ought not this woman... be set free from this bondage on the sabbath day?"

• How does the commandment go? “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.” There are, of course, other translations and variations, but that version gets the gist of the commandment. So what does this mean?
• We could take it to mean that the Sabbath is the Day of the Lord and we should not involve ourselves in anything but Godly endeavours the whole day long. So no TV, radio, music, sports – only worship in church. That's been done, we all know.
• We could take it to mean that we should do nothing at all on the Sabbath. Cleaning, cooking a meal, turning on a light switch – all would be forbidden. Were we to follow the letter of the law in the Law of Moses, we could only travel a very short distance on the Sabbath and we'd have to cook our meals before sundown the night before in order to avoid working or even lighting our stove on the Sabbath. Or we could do what some observant Jewish people have done and hire a person to do such things. This has been done, too.
• We could skip the Sabbath altogether... and that's been done, too. In such a case, all days are the same and God might be forgotten.
• In our Gospel reading, Jesus is criticized by the leader of the synagogue for healing on the Sabbath day: “There are six days on which work ought to be done; come on those days and be cured, and not on the sabbath day." The man's chosen interpretation is one of 'No work on the Sabbath. Healing is a work. So no healing on the Sabbath.' The woman's suffering and the length of that suffering does not come into the discussion.
• Jesus responds rather sharply, calling the indignant people hypocrites and asking if they'd water their livestock on the Sabbath. Shouldn't this woman, who has suffered long, be released from her bondage, even if it is the Sabbath?
• His opponents were shamed and the crowd rejoiced. We might wonder why there was both shame and rejoicing. Shame came when the people upset by Jesus' actions remembered what the Sabbath was about. The crowd rejoiced to see the power of God made manifest all around them for the benefit of those who might not be able to keep the Sabbath perfectly. Remember, in Jesus' day, sinners were those who could not keep the Law perfectly, whether deliberately or not.
• For what the Sabbath means to God, we have to turn to the reading from the prophet. “If you remove the yoke from among you, the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil, if you offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted... if you refrain from trampling the sabbath, from pursuing your own interests on my holy day; if you call the sabbath a delight and the holy day of the Lord honorable; if you honor it, not going your own ways, serving your own interests, or pursuing your own affairs; then you shall take delight in the Lord...”
• Keeping the Sabbath has more to do with doing what God wishes for God's people than simply not working. To take it a step further, living a Christian life involves more than saying 'yes' to a number of propositions in a book, going to church, and being nice to people... much more. The prophetic strain in the scriptures tells us this and Jesus stands as the fulfilment of that. For him to heal on the Sabbath shows us what the Lord's Day is really for – for doing the will of the Father.
• A true Sabbath is one where suffering is relieved, where hunger is filled, where true justice is done, and were evil is not spoken. Isaiah speaks of “the yoke” being removed. This is the yoke of slavery to whatever it is that keeps us from being what God has created us to be, whether that is poverty, prejudice, guilt, fear, or anger, just to name a few of the slave-masters of human life. It is that Sabbath where God's Word is heard and honoured.
• Our Small Catechism says this about the commandment on the Sabbath: You must keep the Sabbath holy.

Q. What does this mean?

A. We must fear and love God, so that we will not look down on preaching or God's Word, but consider it holy, listen to it willingly, and learn it.

• To consider God's Word to be holy and to learn it means ultimately to live it. That's what we are called to. That's the mission we were baptized into. That's still the reason the Church exists.
• If you remove the yoke from among you, the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil, if you offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your light shall rise in the darkness and your gloom be like the noonday. The Lord will guide you continually...