Day of the Church Year: 11th Sunday after Pentecost
Scripture Passage: Luke 13:10-17
The leader of the synagogue is not wrong. Work is not permitted on the sabbath. There are six whole days on which work may be done, but work is not permitted on God’s holy day of rest. And Jesus knows. Jesus, like all the faithful Jews gathered around him, knows the Ten Commandments, one of which reads: Remember the sabbath day and keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. Jesus, far more than any one of us, honors scripture, honors God’s law, honors what is right and good. But today, on the sabbath, Jesus sees a woman bound by a spinal condition that leaves her back bent and unable to straighten, a condition that likely causes pain and trouble breathing, frustration and isolation. When Jesus does the spiritual, ethical calculation of right and wrong, good and bad, instead of telling the woman to find him tomorrow when the sabbath has ended, he frees her then and there. The leader of the synagogue is not wrong. Jesus breaks God’s own law. In order to show the woman grace and to free her from her ailment.
I feel this story deep in my bones. This story and others like it challenge me, plague me, make my life messy. For I’m a rule-follower and a boundaries-lover. I like clarity and absolutes with crisp edges on my ethical standards. I like to understand and follow the spirit of the law, and here, God’s sabbath law is partly about honoring God and also partly about God wanting us to care for and love ourselves, to ensure we get the rest we need so that we can care for and love our neighbor. The law Jesus breaks is not arbitrary. It is law meant to provide a boundary that leads to health and wholeness, not only for the ones who observe it but for all creation. Jesus, too, needs rest in order to do his ministry. To follow this law means no work, for Jesus no healings and no miracles, for us no work phone calls, no work text messages, no work emails on the sabbath. It means no stopping by for a quick second to do this one little thing. That’s how I love my boundaries: clear and absolute with crisp edges.
But, but, in this story, Jesus reveals something that makes me very uncomfortable, that life is messy, not clear and absolute. And this story is not just about the sabbath. It’s about God’s law—and even civic law—and how we assess its relevance in the face of human need and especially human suffering.
At this point in my sermon writing process, I got stuck. Because, while the law is clear, grace is messy. Not Grace the church but grace the theological concept of undeserved favor. I guess Grace Lutheran Church is also messy. Grace cannot be codified in law or fit into a policy. Grace resides in a gray area. Not all decisions, not all circumstances, not all ethical questions are messy, unclear, or gray; indeed, the law of God is right and good. Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy. But when faced with human need and especially human suffering, sometimes, what is truly right and good alters.
Several years ago, someone in our community called to let me know they were in the hospital. As I usually do, I got in my car and drove to the hospital to see them. People told me that this person wasn’t really sick, that they just wanted attention, that they had problems but that illness wasn’t one of them. I went anyway. When I arrived at the hospital, the person in question was laying in the hospital bed hooked up to IVs and looking very much like every other person I had ever visited in the hospital. During the course of our conversation, they described to me the various struggles they were having, struggles having nothing to do with their health. Finally, in lowered voice, they revealed to me that the reason for which they were admitted to the hospital wasn’t true. They were perfectly healthy. I felt duped. I felt stupid. I felt betrayed. This person called on me and on numerous medical professions in the hour of their supposed physical distress, but they were, actually, fine. “I can’t believe I went to the hospital,” I said to a friend. “I feel so stupid. People told me this person was fine, but I went anyway.” My wise friend responded, “They’re not fine. Someone who would feign illness in order to get help is in distress. And now, they know you care about them. If you have to choose between being right and being loving, don’t you choose loving?”
Yes, I choose loving. But it’s not that easy all the time.
Fortunately for us, in today’s story, Jesus does not end the story commanding his disciples, the leader of the synagogue, or the crowd gathered in the synagogue to “go and do likewise” in showing grace or making that choice between being right and being loving. Instead, Jesus simply breaks the sabbath to show grace. Instead, he points out one situation where the leader of the synagogue himself does the same and calls him on his hypocrisy for, of course, we each of us break laws in order to show grace sometimes. Instead, Jesus acknowledges that life is messy and teaches God is gracious, that God sees us in the particularity of our lives, sees the distress we are in even if no one else does. And God cares for us enough to break even God’s own law. That’s it. Thanks be to God! Amen.