Sermon on Luke 13:10-17
Sunday, Sunday, Sunday (Monster truck promo voice) -
I love that intro… it gets me excited… it makes me reach for my ear plugs… and… it’s too bad the church didn’t think of it first, before the people who advertise things like fabric sales and monster truck races got ahold of that phrase…
Sunday Sunday Sunday…
Something big… special… different than every other day of your life.
Could we co-opt that excitement for our experience of Sunday?
What would that look like this week to throw that out? I threw this quote up on facebook:
SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY! It is the clash of two great titans of tradition: Jesus of Nazareth supporting Deuteronomy 5 vs. the unnamed Synagogue leader holding fast to Exodus 20. Each leader is going to be defending one of the great Sabbath traditions that clashed then and still clash every Sunday Sunday Sunday. This is a battle for your hearts and minds… for your faith and for your soul. Don't ya dare miss church on SUNDAY!
And I got some interesting responses…
the first one… my favorite… was simply “You dummy”… it’s from a friend who thought it was just silly but… it was reported to me that she was telling others what I had wrote using her best announcer voice.
Someone else wrote “Lulz” L U L Z which was shorthand for something I had to look up… basically it meant it was funny or amusing…
So I have amusing and you Dummy.
Next was “Great post (happy face)”
Also I got back “If I wasn’t preaching in Calgary I’d be there” and “Barrhead is to far to drive but I would come”
hmm… so we have Dummy, Amusing, and sparked interest.
Then there was the thinkers… “Sabbath on the Saturday” and yes… it is… but I’ll get to that in a minute.
And lastly there was guilt… guilt… I had multiple side emails asking about that last line “Don’t ya dare miss church on Sunday” and I in fact spent some time thinking about guilt and Sunday… have I guilted people with my playful attempt to introduce Sunday? How is it that guilt and Sunday got associated in the first place…
So… “Dummy, Amusing, I’d love to be there, Sabbath is Saturday and… guilt.
I’m constantly amazed at how much I hear the law of death and condemnation taking first place while the grace and unbinding life of Christ is held back in a corner. Not just on facebook, but in how I think many people think of the church.
I’m amazed at how over here in the church we have grace and forgiveness, openness and newness of life, a promise of life in the God who unbinds… and over here we have so many people… 8000 people in Edson alone with only a few hundred in church… all these people that are somehow being excluded because something in between these two groups has gotten in the way… something has hurt people… has somehow made them unwelcome… whether it is the voice of the synagogue leader telling people that rules are rules and take your healing elsewhere… or it’s wounds of the past… actions of Christians in the past... misunderstandings of what the Church is all about… personal pains that are held onto... something seems to drive a wedge between the unbinding grace and the people that are bound.
I’m amazed that this is the way it is… and not surprised to hear that guilt is a factor as people cling with bloodless, white knuckle grip to hurts of the past and truths that they cannot imagine letting go of.
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I guess the great clash I’m talking about today lacks the ferocious roar of monster trucks and in some ways… the anticipation of a good sale might set our hearts fluttering more than the subtle exchange that we witness in our text today… but more than anything else, the roar of Jesus words and actions reverberate through time and space that to all who see what is done, and hear of what is being done… we have no choice but to join the excitement.
Let’s break it down a little.
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The synagogue leader is not wrong… he is holding to the law… work of all type is forbidden on the Sabbath and in Exodus 20 we have the first time that the 10 commandments are laid out… Exodus 20 goes:
8 Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy. 9For six days you shall labour and do all your work. 10But the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work—you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns. (((And here is the “why” question))) For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and consecrated it.
The synogogue leader is not wrong… he has read correctly and from this passage there is no wiggle room to be working on the Sabbath. He has correctly identified what you “Should” be doing. Feel guilty if you don’t do this… and just don’t do anything. Pick another day to do your healing Jesus… God rested on the Sabbath and you should too! Should… should… should...
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Jesus is acting out the second tradition. The sabbath day is to be kept holy as Deuteronomy 5 tells it… but the motivation changes in this second recording of the 10 commandments:
Deuteronomy 5 goes:
Observe the sabbath day and keep it holy, as the Lord your God commanded you. For six days you shall labour and do all your work. But the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work—you, or your son or your daughter, or your male or female slave, or your ox or your donkey, or any of your livestock, or the resident alien in your towns, so that your male and female slave may rest as well as you. (((AND HERE IS THE WHY))) Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm; therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the sabbath day.
Sunday Sunday Sunday --- it’s going to be big... the Lord is moving with a mighty hand…
Why?
To remember what God has done! God has brought release… God has brought you out of Egypt. God has moved with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Remember what God has done for you and does for you in Edson and in all of life. The Sabbath is about being set free! It’s about hearing what God had done and is doing right in our midst today.
And so to Jesus… the sabbath is the perfect day to set this woman free from her affliction… you untie your donkey to let it drink on the Sabbath… you set it free to live… and so Jesus sets this woman free and defends his action saying “Ought not this daughter of Abraham be set free from bondage on the Sabbath day?” Shouldn’t Sabbath be about being set free? Isn’t God setting you free?
Prof. David Lohse puts it this way:
(((http://www.workingpreacher.org/dear_wp.aspx?article_id=389)))
From (Jesus) point of view, our day of worship, while called "a Sabbath to the Lord," isn't finally for the Lord but is for us, for all of us who need rest and release, renewal and re-creation. Little wonder that Christians moved their celebration of Sabbath to Sunday, the day on which the Lord was raised, for this, too, is release and deliverance… in an ultimate sense, as we are released from death itself.
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And so hear again the add for…:
Sunday Sunday Sunday - Grace Lutheran church brings the story of God’s mighty works and of how we were set free from death itself…
Sunday isn’t about obligation to God. It’s not about a law that says once a week you must gather. Feeling guilt about Sunday in fact is missing the point of the Sabbath and Sunday altogether… it’s not about what you do… it’s about what God does and what you are set free from.
Jesus version of the Sabbath being the perfect day to be released from everything is the Sunday we should expect.
Sunday is about being set free.
Sunday is about setting others free.
Sunday is about hearing God’s story of salvation for us.
Sunday is about tasting and seeing what God has done.
Sunday is about faith letting go of the fear that binds and trusting in the promises’ proclaimed to us.
Sunday is about being released from those things that cripple us, keep us bent over, and don’t allow us to stand up.
Sunday is about Jesus again and again stooping down to look us in the eye, and saying the words "you are set free from your ailment."
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May this be the Sunday we receive today.
May this be the Sunday that we leave this place and share with those who could not be with us the unbinding grace that we receive in the Word and the meal.
The Lord has done great things… the need to please God by keeping a white knuckle grip on anything is removed. Jesus calls us to be unbound… to relax our grip on certitude and hurts of the past and let the blood flow back into our hands. As God is shown always to be trustworthy, let us join with out actions and our voices in the freedom that God gives… warm hands full of life and movement and potential… with our whole lives… let us join the unbound crippled women, the synagogue, Grace Lutheran in Edson, the church in the world and praise God for the wonderful things that have been done, and for setting us free from all that binds us on this the Sabbath day.
Amen.
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