Proper 16C – George Yandell
When I was in seminary, Professor Charlie Price remarked in a theology class that he had been phoned by a 7th Day Adventist pastor on a Saturday afternoon years before, as he was preparing his Sunday sermon. “Rev. Price,” the pastor asked him, “Why do you Episcopalians worship on Sunday? Don’t you know Saturday is the Sabbath Day?” Charlie said he stormed back at the pastor, “We worship on Sundays because it’s the Day of the Lord’s Resurrection!” and slammed down the phone. The pastor and Charlie were both right – Saturday is still the Sabbath, and we worship on Sundays because every Sunday celebrates Easter.
When I was a boy, blue laws were still in force throughout the south. Of course, blue laws were enforced on Sundays, not the Sabbath, Saturday. It meant that most of the distractions of shopping and working were stopped for a day, and our energies were focused around home or the community or the church. I miss the feeling and the results of the blue laws. I think the whole community ceasing the normal flow of work and business caused us to appreciate more the point of the other days of the week – that everything we did for those 6 days was to benefit the community and fellow citizens, not just ourselves.
Jesus taught in synagogues on the Sabbath. He performed 7 miraculous Sabbath miracles, as recounted in the gospels. Each time he healed on the Sabbath, Jesus restored the Sabbath to be a benefit for humankind against any distortions of human religious traditions. Jesus maintained that it was certainly lawful to do good on the Sabbath. It was God’s will since the beginning of creation that the Sabbath have the purpose of serving humankind, for resting and bringing blessing to all, including non-Jews. Jesus recalled for the worshippers of his day the true intent of the Sabbath, and the true intent of synagogue worship. The Sabbath activities of Jesus were neither hurtful provocations nor were they mere protests against rabbinic legal restrictions. His Sabbath teachings and healings are part of Jesus proclaiming God’s domain to be coming near. God manifests God’s healing and saving care of humanity in Jesus, in company with the people open to God’s actions. (Anchor Bible Dictionary.)
The Sabbath day is a temporary stay of inequality. It’s a day of rest for everyone alike, for animals and humans, for land-owners and indentured servants. The Sabbath opens us to how God sees the world. It is a regular stay against the activity that creates inequalities the other 6 days of the week. (John Dominic Crossan, The Birth of Christianity, p. 189) Everyone is to be at ease and at peace, reflecting on God’s work in the world.
Picture our Sunday worship. If a guest preacher gestured for one of us to stand up and some forward, then the preacher announced she would be healed of an 18-year debilitating illness, then laid hands on her and she was miraculously cured, and she started praising God and dancing for joy, how would we feel? Startled? Glad? Would any part of us think, “This is not normal, it’s not the Episcopal way, this is out of order?”
Years ago Lenny Bruce did a sketch “Christ and Moses”. Cardinal Spellman is preaching at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in NYC. Bp. Sheen interrupts him, whispering, “I think you ought to know, we have two very important visitors in the back. And no, before you ask, I haven’t been drinking: It’s Christ and Moses.”
Cardinal Spellman asked, “What are they doing here?” Bishop Sheen said, “I don’t know, but don’t look now, there are lepers streaming through the front door.” Cardinal Spellman said, “Get the pope on the line… John this is Frank, we’ve got a small problem here – we’re up to our eyeballs in crutches and wheelchairs. These two guys are attracting crowds. Yeah, they’re in the back, and you know them. How do I know it’s them? Well, they look like their pictures. Well, one of them is a dead ringer for Charleston Heston, and the other one is Mary’s boy. Yeah, that Mary. Look, can we send them over to your place? They’re disrupting everything here, and man, they’re glowing.”
Our worship is not so different from synagogue on Sabbath day in the time of Jesus. What we forget, like the devout Jews in Judea forgot, is the real intent of gathering on the Lord’s Day. Listen to Isaiah: “If you offer food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your light shall rise in the darkness. The Lord will guide you continually. 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.”
When the Bent woman was healed in the synagogue, I think she was as surprised as anyone else present. She represents you and me. I suspect we did not come here this morning to be healed, at least most of us. But that’s what God offers, healing of soul, healing of relationships, healing of everything that afflicts us. That’s the intent of the Lord’s Day: resurrection now. We may be stuck a little in our conventional ways. We may get a little out of whack when the service has a new turn in it.
But think of the Bent Woman, standing up straight for the first time in 18 years- that’s the freedom of healing power God intends us to enjoy, right here, right now.
I’d like us to leave here today, like the crowd in the synagogue, rejoicing at all the wonderful, caring things God has done for us. It may seem impossible, especially if we’re grieving, or suffering from illness and pain. But we proclaim that Jesus is present, now. And the healing power he offers is ours to receive. Not just for our own distress, but healing of relationships, bringing the people of God together in wholeness, equality and justice. God means to heal this world through the work of Jesus and his church. The Sabbath and the Lord’s Day are the weekly tools of observance that bring us back to ourselves, back to the community of God, and give us healing power to share with everyone we meet in our daily places. The lesson Jesus offered is timely now as it was then. Each time we gather for worship on the Lord’s Day, we’re to heed the spirit calling us to prophetic response and action. Not because it’s required, but because when another is healed, so are we. Maybe we’re the ones who are glowing in hope and power, along with Moses and Jesus.