Sabbath Freedom

Proper 16
12 Sunday after Pentecost (C)

Isaiah 58:9b-14
Luke 13:10-17

In a sermon a few weeks ago, one of my pastors said that maybe the reason so many of us are too tired to get anything done is that we are so bad at sabbath-keeping. Keeping the sabbath—living as if six days were enough each week for work (cf. Exodus 20:8-11)—would ironically free us from that deep weariness that sets in after too many days or weeks of trying to fit just a little more into the time allotted. "Rest," my pastor seemed to be saying, "Rest, or face the dual realities of exhaustion and diminished returns for all your work anyway."

It was one of those offhand comments in a sermon that sticks with hearers. I thought of it again when reading Is. 58:13-14. "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, and I will make you ride upon the heights of the earth; I will feed you with the heritage of your ancestor Jacob, for the mouth of the LORD has spoken."

Things are not going so well for the returned exiles, and in Is. 58, they want to know why. They are fasting (vv. 58:3) but the Lord seems not to be noticing. God points out to the people that they fast and pursue their own interests (quarreling, fighting, oppressing others) at the same time which gives the lie to their penitential fast. Instead, a fast is for loosing the bonds of injustice (58:6). It is for satisfying the needs of the afflicted (58:10). In response, the Lord will satisfy the people's needs in the parched places (58:11).

When we use every day as just one more day for all the work that we have promised to do, with no sabbath in sight, we are implying that we do not quite trust God to satisfy our needs or anyone else's in the parched places. We need to satisfy our needs—and if we are "helping professionals," everyone else's needs too—without God. "Look, if I stop pushing the world will stop spinning. My class won't be as good as it would be with more prep, or my dishes will pile up in the sink, or the bills won't get paid, or …."

People in the ministry are particularly vulnerable to the temptation to trample the sabbath while telling ourselves that because so much of what we are doing is the Lord's work, it's ok—maybe it's even necessary—to treat every day like every other day. We use texts like the Gospel reading for this week to argue our point. In Luke 13, the leader of the synagogue tells the crowd that the six days for work are the days when they should look for healing. "Boy, was he wrong," we say. Jesus healed on the sabbath, thereby opening the door for religious leaders and rank-and-file Christians alike to work 'til we drop. Right?

Wrong. This way of working has us bent double with care, worry and fear. "If I stop pushing, the world will stop spinning." What torture that is! And what idolatry! Unable to focus on anything but the patch of dirt at our feet, we have lost sight both of our limitations and of God's power for satisfying needs. This is wrong, and it is killing us.

Jesus calls the bent woman over to him, speaks to her and then touches her so she is able to (1) stand upright and (2) praise God. "Jesus is challenging the dominion of Satan," David Tiede writes (Luke [Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1988] 251), and for that the crowd rejoices.

Am I turning this text on its head? I am using a sabbath controversy story to preach against treating the sabbath as just another day. Jesus heals on the sabbath, yes. However, when Jesus heals the woman, he is not offering a model for seven-day-a-week ministry. In her commentary on Luke, Sharon Ringe says of this text, "The core question is not whether to keep the sabbath, but rather how to keep it" (187). There is no "Go and do likewise," at the end of the story, no "You have heard it said… but I say to you" here or elsewhere with respect to sabbath law. Instead, this story ends with the woman praising God and the entire crowd rejoicing at the wonderful things Jesus is doing. What great sabbath activity: prayer, praise and thanksgiving!

When he heals the bent-over woman, Jesus is challenging the dominion of Satan. In his ministry, death and resurrection, Jesus challenges the dominion of Satan over everyone who is buckling under the power of sin in any form, even the form that tempts us to break the Third (and by implication the First) Commandment, the form of sin that says we must work seven days a week, that we cannot trust God to keep the world spinning and to keep the evil one at bay but must manage such things ourselves.

We and the people to whom we preach have much more in common with the bent-over woman than with the one who heals her. Read alongside that woman this week. Figure out what power holds you with her "captive to restricted movement, to the inability to meet another person face-to-face, and to a world defined by the piece of ground around [your] own toes or looked at always on a slant" (Ringe, 187). It is that power which Jesus defeats when he unbinds the woman and all those likewise bound.

Comments

[frank merendino]

I couldn't agree with you more! As a seventh day sabbath keeper myself, I find the renewal and rest that I receive each sabbath to be a weekly reminder of God's grace, faithfulness, and power in my life. The freedom from the pressures and even tyranny of life's demands that Jesus gifts me with each sabbath, is like a little window or foretaste for me of the ultimate freedom that He will bring upon his return. It is a shame that most Christians view the seventh day sabbath experience in Christ as legalism. They don't realize the beauty of what they are missing!Thanks for your insight!

Frank