PAST SERMONS
Sermon of August 22, 2010 by The Rev. Rosalee Glass
St. Thomas’ Episcopal Church, Camden, Maine
August 22, 2010, Thirteenth Sunday After Pentecost
Sermon by Rosalee T. Glass
Luke 13:10-17
Now he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath. And just then there appeared a woman with a spirit that had crippled her for eighteen years. She was bent over and was quite unable to stand up straight. When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, “Woman, you are set free from your ailment.” When he laid his hands on her, immediately she stood up straight and began praising God. But the leader of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had cured on the Sabbath, kept saying to the crowd, “There are six days on which work ought to be done; come on those days and be cured, and not on the Sabbath day.” But the Lord answered him and said, “You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger, and lead it away to give it water? And 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?” When he said this, all his opponents were put to shame; and the entire crowd was rejoicing at all the wonderful things that he was doing.
Once again in today’s Gospel story, Jesus has offended the religious leaders. In today’s story, while teaching in a synagogue on the sabbath, he heals a woman afflicted for 18 years. This action was considered by the religious authorities a violation of the holiness of the Sabbath.
By the time of Jesus’ coming, orthodox Judaism had added many secondary laws and obligatory practices and prohibitions to the Ten Commandments, the oldest covenant with God. The fourth commandment is simply, “Remember the Sabbath, to keep it holy. Through the centuries of Israel’s history, more and more prohibitions were written into Hebrew Scripture around this. These defined more closely than the fourth commandment what keeping the Sabbath holy meant, and what would be considered a violation of the holiness of the Sabbath. For instance, there were prohibitions against work, commerce, traveling, preparing food, and having fires. Violations were punishable by death.
But even the prohibitions had exceptions and were left open to interpretation by the scribes and lawyers, like the ones Jesus encounters. In these conflicts between the synagogue leaders and Jesus, the synagogue leaders interpret healing people of their illnesses as “work,” and work was prohibited on the sabbath, God’s appointed holy day.
In all four Gospels there are occasions when Jesus heals people of their mental and physical disabilities on the Sabbath. It is worth considering the significance of their repetition of this theme. Not only does Jesus heal on the Sabbath, but he most often does it in the sites of holy teaching, the synagogues. How much more provocative, how much more “in your face,” could Jesus be?
Why does he engage in this particular activity—- healing people? Why on that particular day—-the Sabbath? Why in that particular place—-the synagogue? And why is this scenario repeated so many times? Behind the disputes about observing the Sabbath and whether Jesus should heal on the Sabbath, was the issue of how God wants human beings to be holy. With his actions in the religious centers of his day, he was demonstrating to the world something new about what holiness should be for humanity.
We recall that Jesus does not dispute God’s fourth commandment or any other of God’s laws. As he says in Matthew’s Gospel, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.” When Jesus says “fulfill,” he means fill full, he means that he fills lifeless traditions with new life-giving meaning, God’s meaning.
So by his saving actions, in synagogues, on the holy sabbath, Jesus he is saying that practicing holiness isn’t worth anything if it’s not about promoting life and attending to the real needs of real people, who are themselves holy and beloved of God.
During the past week, I’ve been in workshops with Christian clergy and lay leaders from churches of different denominations, including Episcopalians from several dioceses. The topic of conversations very often drifted to a kind of lament, a lament that our churches today are in survival mode and not renewal mode. The consensus was usually that we in the church are too much occupied with institutional and economic survival and not enough with the nurture and care of people, encouraging and valuing their gifts and ministries, and responding to their needs.
Jesus’ words in today’s Gospel story suggest that the kind of holiness that he cares about, the great good in God’s eyes is setting people free from whatever binds them, whether it be illness, addiction, fear, or whatever. Recall that his words are, “Woman, you are set free.” Being free, not being bound, it is life-giving, even as unbinding animals so that they can eat and drink, is life-giving for them. Even the religious authorities had to allow animals to be free on the Sabbath.
In a larger sense, Jesus is setting free not just the individual woman, but the spirits of all standing by in the crowd of people in the story—-they are rejoicing at what he is doing. He is also setting Israel free, and indeed is setting all of us free, free from bondage to rules and regulations that prevent us from becoming genuinely holy.
In the Hebrew Scriptures, holiness meant sacredness, separateness, being hallowed or set apart from the world’s every day concerns. Jesus in these Gospel stories gives us a very different idea about holiness. Since Jesus came among us to fulfill the law, holiness is to be understood as up-close caring, healing, freeing, and loving. In other words, now and forever, holiness is being of the mind of Christ. AMEN.