Sermon delivered Sunday, August 21, 2016 (The Fourteenth Sunday After Pentecost, Proper 16, Year C (Track 2)), at St. Cuthbert's Episcopal Church, Oakland, CA.
Sermon Text(s): Isaiah 58:9b-14, Luke 13:10-17
“Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy.” (Exodus 20:8)
So God commanded the people of Israel when he gave them the Ten Commandments at Mount Sinai. And pretty much since that moment, people have been arguing over what exactly it means to “remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy.” Does it mean not doing any work? If so, does that mean just not doing whatever it is we do for a living, or do other things count as “work” as well? Does it mean spending the day worshipping God? If so, does that mean doing only religious activities, and preferably those that are serious and dour, leaving no room for fun? When we attempt to figure out what is acceptable and what is unacceptable on the Sabbath, what things we can “get away with” doing and what things are forbidden, we’re pretty much missing the point of why God gave us the Sabbath in the first place, why God commanded us to honor the Sabbath.
The most basic purpose of observing the Sabbath is to give us a day of rest. The passage from Exodus where God gives the Ten Commandments to Moses says:
“Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy. For six days you shall labor and do all your work. But 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. 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.” (Exodus 20:8-11)
In this passage, keeping sabbath is linked to God’s own pattern of action and rest: we are to work for a certain number of days and then rest, just as God did at creation. The book of Genesis tells us that on that day that God rested, he stepped back and looked at his creation and observed that it was good. So although there is no explicit reason given in the commandment as to why the people should keep the Sabbath or what the purpose of it is, by linking it to the creation story, the message is that we are not only given a break to rest, but to take delight in our work and in the work of God around us. To step back from our busy life just long enough to appreciate what we have and what is all around us.
In the book of Deuteronomy, a different reason is given for keeping the Sabbath:
“Observe the sabbath day and keep it holy, as the Lord your God commanded you.”– Then it goes on to repeat what is in Exodus about how nobody, not even the slaves or the livestock, is to do any work on the sabbath. But rather than a reference to the creation story, in Deuteronomy the commandment about Sabbath concludes with this line: “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.”
Here the day of rest is linked with the liberation of the people from slavery – a condition in which they likely had had very little rest. Every time they observed the Sabbath, it would be a reminder to them to be grateful for their liberation. So the Sabbath is to be not just a day of rest, but a time to be grateful for the freedom to take that rest, a time to celebrate liberation.
When Jesus heals on the Sabbath – as he does in today’s Gospel reading and in many other places throughout the Gospels – he gets flack from Jewish leaders who saw this as a violation of the rule to do no work on the Sabbath. But Jesus rebukes them with this comeback:
"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?"
Without directly saying it, Jesus is alluding to that other reason for keeping Sabbath – to celebrate liberation. Notice the language Jesus uses: “Ought not this woman… be set free from this bondage on the sabbath day?” He’s reminding them of the connection between the Sabbath and the exodus from Egypt: “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.” Remember that part, guys? Being set free from bondage? Remember that that’s one of the reasons God established the Sabbath? So why should it be considered inappropriate to bring someone freedom from an ailment on the Sabbath day?
The ancient prophets had a lot to say about people who dishonored the Sabbath, and we have a glimpse of their critique in our Hebrew scripture passage today, from Isaiah:
“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.”
The prophets chastise people who “pursue their own interests” on the Sabbath day, who dishonor the Sabbath for selfish reasons, like wanting to make more money by keeping their store open one more day. In an ironic twist, the adamancy of the religious leaders that Jesus clashes with who insist that he should not heal because no work should be done on the Sabbath becomes a perfect example of those who “pursue their own interests” on the Sabbath day, as these religious leaders seek to maintain the order of the social institution that benefits them.
Jesus’s healing on the Sabbath, although it breaks the technical letter of the law, is not an example of “pursuing your own interests” on the Sabbath day. Jesus’s actions are not done out of a selfish desire to do whatever he wants on the Sabbath, disregarding God’s commandments. His act of healing is an unselfish act, an act in which he gives of himself to someone else, an act that honors the Sabbath by bringing someone freedom from bondage, echoing the action of God in bringing the people out of slavery in Egypt that prompted the establishment of the Sabbath day in the first place.
This exchange between Jesus and the religious leaders is a perfect illustration of what the apostle Paul observed in his second letter to the Corinthians: “the letter kills, but the spirit gives life” (2 Corinthians 3:6). Jesus is observing the spirit behind the law of keeping Sabbath, even if he is not strictly obeying the letter of the law. But the religious leaders who are so focused on the letter of the law – “no work should be done on the Sabbath, ever, not for any reason!” – lose sight of the spirit of the law. They become focused on obeying the law for the law’s sake rather than for the reason the law was given in the first place – to bring freedom and new life. Jesus calls out the religious leaders who are so upset that he has healed this woman, and yet despite their insistence that no work be done on the Sabbath ever, they still untie their animals and take them to drink on the Sabbath day, which, if we’re using that strict interpretation of the law, would be considered work. So, he challenges them, you’re willing to make an exception to keep your own animals alive, but not to serve and care for a woman who is suffering?
Living on the West Coast in 21st century America, we’re perhaps in an opposite situation from Jesus’s audience in today’s Gospel reading. Sabbath laws prohibiting work on a certain day are so far from our consciousness here that this passage likely has little relevance to us in that regard. We get that “the letter kills,” and so as a society, we’ve largely thrown out the letter, seeing religious observance as burdensome and restrictive. But what we’ve forgotten as we’ve done so is that excessive work also kills. A constant stream of information input coming at from our phones, our tablets, our televisions, the internet – 24 hours a day – that also kills.
Our problem is not so much being overly restricted about what we can’t do on the Sabbath, but having absolutely no restrictions about what we can do on the Sabbath! Running from one event to another, from one meeting to another, being too busy to do anything – our hectic lives never slow down anymore, not even over the weekends. There is no social pressure – from the society or from the church, anymore – at least, not the Episcopal Church! – to refrain from any action on any particular day of the week, and so it is left to each one of us, individually, to impose healthy restrictions on ourselves, and oftentimes it is easier to obey external laws than it is to set up internal ones for our own good. As a result, many of us today have no concept of what it means to “remember the Sabbath day,” to follow the wisdom of the ancients in listening to God’s commandment to just STOP, already. To remember that there is value in doing nothing, in resting, in just being.
Donna Schaper, a Baptist minister in New York City who has written extensively on the Sabbath, says, “When we do not keep sabbath, our life is a list.”
“When we do not keep sabbath, our life is a list.”
Lists are good. They keep us going and help us get things done by keeping us accountable. But if we don’t ever take a break, if we don’t ever just stop and rest, our entire life becomes one long to-do list.
This is the flip side of keeping Sabbath too strictly – not keeping it at all. And in both scenarios, actually, life becomes a list – either a list of “dos” and “don’ts,” a list of rules and regulations, or a list of “to-dos,” a list of things for which there will never be enough time, shutting out any time for ourselves or for God.
What might it look like to take charge of our own Sabbaths and stay true to the spirit of God’s command to “honor the Sabbath and keep it holy”? What kinds of things might you do to reclaim that Sabbath time, that rest time, on whatever day of the week works best for you?
If you have any preconceived notions about what it means to keep Sabbath, throw them out and ask yourself this question: “What brings me life? What rejuvenates me? What reminds me to be grateful for God’s grace and mercy in my life and motivates me to work for the liberation of others?”
Whatever your answers to those questions, make intentional time during your week to do those things, without worrying about whether you are “working” on the Sabbath or not, or whether you are being “productive” or not. Worrying too much about either the religious commandment to not do any work on the Sabbath or about the unspoken secular commandment that we must be productive and “get things done” 24 hours a day leads to the same result: a life in which true spiritual joy and connection is squelched. The letter kills, but the spirit gives life. Honor God by making time in your schedule for what brings you life and what motivates you to bring life to others. In doing so, you are “remembering the Sabbath day and keeping it holy.”
Sunday, August 21, 2016
Sunday, August 14, 2016
What kind of "peace" does Jesus come to bring?
Sermon delivered Sunday, August 14, 2016 (The Thirteenth Sunday After Pentecost, Proper 15, Year C (Track 2)) at St. Cuthbert's Episcopal Church, Oakland, CA.
“Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division!” (Luke 12:51)
Jesus’s words in today’s Gospel passage stand in stark contrast to the understanding many of us in the mainline churches have of the teachings of Jesus. Jesus is the “Prince of Peace,” Jesus “loves the little children,” Jesus’s message was to “love God and love neighbor,” and that’s about it, right? We often talk about our faith as if we think “be nice to each other” pretty much sums up the Gospel.
But that’s not quite all of it. Jesus didn’t just say “be nice to each other.” He also said to free the oppressed and heal the sick and release the prisoners. He called us to fight against injustice, to stand in solidarity with the marginalized, to question any institutional structures whose rules about right and wrong ignore and even perpetuate human suffering. And as most of you know from experience, when you start standing up against injustice and raising up the voices of the marginalized, the reactions from others are often less than peaceful.
“I have not come to bring peace, but division,” Jesus says. Yes, he does call us to love God and love neighbor, but he wants us to understand that “loving God and loving neighbor” doesn’t mean always being nice, or never getting into conflict with anyone, or “keeping the peace” at all costs. Loving God and loving neighbor can be a revolutionary act – an act that compels us to see one other’s wounds rather than hide them.
Jesus’s words here echo other scripture passages from the Hebrew Bible that admonish false prophets for assuring the people that everything was ok when it wasn’t. He would have known these words of the prophet Jeremiah well:
“They dress the wound of my people as though it were not serious. ‘Peace, peace,’ they say, when there is no peace.” (Jeremiah 6:14)
Or, as Taylor Swift puts it in her song “Bad Blood,” “Band-aids don’t fix bullet holes.”
Unfortunately that’s too often how we, in society at large and in the church, attempt to solve problems. We offer solutions that do not take into account the seriousness of the problem. We attempt to “dress the wound as though it were not serious.” We become like the false prophets Ezekiel spoke about, who cover a flimsy wall with whitewash to make look good what is really weak and rotting (Ezekiel 13:11). That’s the kind of “peace” Jesus is talking about when he says “I come not to bring peace” – he doesn’t come to bring the kind of peace that shoves conflict under the rug rather than resolving it, or worse, that denies there’s even a problem at all.
“I’m sure there’s a legitimate reason the cop pulled you over.”
“Just cheer up and snap out of it; you’re not REALLY sick.”
“I’m sure your boss didn’t REALLY mean that as a threat.”
You’re blowing things out of proportion, you’re being too sensitive.
Just put a band-aid on it.
Everything will be all right.
But everything is NOT all right, and as followers of Jesus Christ, we are called to say so, even if doing so causes conflict or division with those closest to us.
How many social issues in our society would cause arguments if you were to bring them up with your family members? When Jesus says, “I have come not to bring peace but division. From now on five in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three,” he didn’t mean that his GOAL was to divide people, to create familial discord, but that whenever the word of God breaks through into human society, it almost always causes conflict because of humanity’s tendency to avoid pain. We’d rather bury our heads in the sand and say “everything will be all right” than to acknowledge that there is something seriously wrong with us or with our society. So the voices that don’t deny the wounds, that shine spotlights on things others would rather stay hidden – they often wind up causing division within their communities, and especially within their own families.
This is playing out right now in American society with Black Lives Matter. One could certainly say that the Black Lives Matter movement has caused division in this country. But the folks affiliated with Black Lives Matter would probably say they haven’t caused division, they are simply pointing out divisions that have existed for a long time. Despite the achievements of the Civil Rights movement, we still have much further to go. When Barack Obama was elected President, it was easy for some people to assume we had “arrived,” that we had reached a point where racism was no longer an issue in this country. And it is easy for those of us who have never lived in this society with brown or black skin to say “peace, peace” on this issue, when in reality there is no peace. For those of us in that position of privilege, our role is to listen. To listen to the voices we have not heard, to bear witness to experiences that we have not had, and acknowledge that they are real even if we haven’t personally experienced them ourselves. We must not turn away from pain, but face it head on, as Jesus and the prophets did.
The apostle Paul wrote in his letter to the Romans that “all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death” (Romans 6:3). Our baptism connects us not just to the washing with water that Jesus got from John in the Jordan River, but to the “terrible baptism of suffering” that he experienced on the cross, the “baptism” he refers to in today’s Gospel that causes him great distress. We should have issued little Benjamin a hard hat along with his baptismal candle a few weeks ago, because while baptism is empowering, it is also dangerous. It means that we are forever connected to God and our sins are forgiven, but it also means we are also forever connected to Christ’s suffering and death.
Many people have criticized Christian theology that emphasizes our call to suffering, that insists that suffering can be redemptive, that we can be saved through suffering, that Jesus saves us through suffering. They don’t want to acknowledge that anything could be positive about suffering because of the ways that idea can be abused by people in power to justify injustice, to keep the oppressed oppressed. “Oh, you guys are called to suffer, it’s ok, just wait and stick it out; your reward will be great in heaven,” the church has said to black people in slavery, to women in abusive relationships, to workers exploited by corporations.
But that’s not the message of the Gospel! That’s the message of the false prophets who say “peace” when there is no peace! The call to suffering is not a call to inflict suffering on others, it’s a call to experience the suffering of others – to “weep with those who weep and to mourn with those who mourn.”
Charles Péguy, a French poet and philosopher, imagines that when we die, the recording angel at the entrance to heaven will say to us, “Show me your wounds.”
A life in Christ calls us to a life of suffering. If we have no wounds to show at the end of our days, we haven’t truly lived the Christian life. We’ve followed the false prophets who say “peace, peace” when there is no peace. We’ve turned a blind eye to the world’s injustices and benefitted from our complicity in them.
In the midst of the national anxiety around the police shootings last month, there was a meme circulating on Facebook that said,
“Things are not getting worse, they are getting uncovered. We must hold each other close and continue to pull back the veil.”
Testifying to the truth might create division, but it is what we are called to do. Pulling back that veil so we can truly see the wounds that divide our society might make things seem like they are getting worse, but in another one of Jesus’s less popular sayings, he refers to this kind of conflict as the “beginning of the birth pangs,” of the necessary pain we must go through to come out on the other side with new life and a true peace, a peace that has its roots in reconciliation rather than denial, a peace that comes from healing the bullet hole rather than putting a band-aid over it.
That’s what “loving God and loving neighbor” looks like. Jesus calls us to a revolutionary love, a love that involves suffering. The suffering inherent in the Christian way leads us to a peace greater than any that would deny the existence of the wounds. And that’s the kind of peace Jesus is the prince of.
“Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division!” (Luke 12:51)
Jesus’s words in today’s Gospel passage stand in stark contrast to the understanding many of us in the mainline churches have of the teachings of Jesus. Jesus is the “Prince of Peace,” Jesus “loves the little children,” Jesus’s message was to “love God and love neighbor,” and that’s about it, right? We often talk about our faith as if we think “be nice to each other” pretty much sums up the Gospel.
But that’s not quite all of it. Jesus didn’t just say “be nice to each other.” He also said to free the oppressed and heal the sick and release the prisoners. He called us to fight against injustice, to stand in solidarity with the marginalized, to question any institutional structures whose rules about right and wrong ignore and even perpetuate human suffering. And as most of you know from experience, when you start standing up against injustice and raising up the voices of the marginalized, the reactions from others are often less than peaceful.
“I have not come to bring peace, but division,” Jesus says. Yes, he does call us to love God and love neighbor, but he wants us to understand that “loving God and loving neighbor” doesn’t mean always being nice, or never getting into conflict with anyone, or “keeping the peace” at all costs. Loving God and loving neighbor can be a revolutionary act – an act that compels us to see one other’s wounds rather than hide them.
Jesus’s words here echo other scripture passages from the Hebrew Bible that admonish false prophets for assuring the people that everything was ok when it wasn’t. He would have known these words of the prophet Jeremiah well:
“They dress the wound of my people as though it were not serious. ‘Peace, peace,’ they say, when there is no peace.” (Jeremiah 6:14)
Or, as Taylor Swift puts it in her song “Bad Blood,” “Band-aids don’t fix bullet holes.”
Unfortunately that’s too often how we, in society at large and in the church, attempt to solve problems. We offer solutions that do not take into account the seriousness of the problem. We attempt to “dress the wound as though it were not serious.” We become like the false prophets Ezekiel spoke about, who cover a flimsy wall with whitewash to make look good what is really weak and rotting (Ezekiel 13:11). That’s the kind of “peace” Jesus is talking about when he says “I come not to bring peace” – he doesn’t come to bring the kind of peace that shoves conflict under the rug rather than resolving it, or worse, that denies there’s even a problem at all.
“I’m sure there’s a legitimate reason the cop pulled you over.”
“Just cheer up and snap out of it; you’re not REALLY sick.”
“I’m sure your boss didn’t REALLY mean that as a threat.”
You’re blowing things out of proportion, you’re being too sensitive.
Just put a band-aid on it.
Everything will be all right.
But everything is NOT all right, and as followers of Jesus Christ, we are called to say so, even if doing so causes conflict or division with those closest to us.
How many social issues in our society would cause arguments if you were to bring them up with your family members? When Jesus says, “I have come not to bring peace but division. From now on five in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three,” he didn’t mean that his GOAL was to divide people, to create familial discord, but that whenever the word of God breaks through into human society, it almost always causes conflict because of humanity’s tendency to avoid pain. We’d rather bury our heads in the sand and say “everything will be all right” than to acknowledge that there is something seriously wrong with us or with our society. So the voices that don’t deny the wounds, that shine spotlights on things others would rather stay hidden – they often wind up causing division within their communities, and especially within their own families.
This is playing out right now in American society with Black Lives Matter. One could certainly say that the Black Lives Matter movement has caused division in this country. But the folks affiliated with Black Lives Matter would probably say they haven’t caused division, they are simply pointing out divisions that have existed for a long time. Despite the achievements of the Civil Rights movement, we still have much further to go. When Barack Obama was elected President, it was easy for some people to assume we had “arrived,” that we had reached a point where racism was no longer an issue in this country. And it is easy for those of us who have never lived in this society with brown or black skin to say “peace, peace” on this issue, when in reality there is no peace. For those of us in that position of privilege, our role is to listen. To listen to the voices we have not heard, to bear witness to experiences that we have not had, and acknowledge that they are real even if we haven’t personally experienced them ourselves. We must not turn away from pain, but face it head on, as Jesus and the prophets did.
The apostle Paul wrote in his letter to the Romans that “all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death” (Romans 6:3). Our baptism connects us not just to the washing with water that Jesus got from John in the Jordan River, but to the “terrible baptism of suffering” that he experienced on the cross, the “baptism” he refers to in today’s Gospel that causes him great distress. We should have issued little Benjamin a hard hat along with his baptismal candle a few weeks ago, because while baptism is empowering, it is also dangerous. It means that we are forever connected to God and our sins are forgiven, but it also means we are also forever connected to Christ’s suffering and death.
Many people have criticized Christian theology that emphasizes our call to suffering, that insists that suffering can be redemptive, that we can be saved through suffering, that Jesus saves us through suffering. They don’t want to acknowledge that anything could be positive about suffering because of the ways that idea can be abused by people in power to justify injustice, to keep the oppressed oppressed. “Oh, you guys are called to suffer, it’s ok, just wait and stick it out; your reward will be great in heaven,” the church has said to black people in slavery, to women in abusive relationships, to workers exploited by corporations.
But that’s not the message of the Gospel! That’s the message of the false prophets who say “peace” when there is no peace! The call to suffering is not a call to inflict suffering on others, it’s a call to experience the suffering of others – to “weep with those who weep and to mourn with those who mourn.”
Charles Péguy, a French poet and philosopher, imagines that when we die, the recording angel at the entrance to heaven will say to us, “Show me your wounds.”
A life in Christ calls us to a life of suffering. If we have no wounds to show at the end of our days, we haven’t truly lived the Christian life. We’ve followed the false prophets who say “peace, peace” when there is no peace. We’ve turned a blind eye to the world’s injustices and benefitted from our complicity in them.
In the midst of the national anxiety around the police shootings last month, there was a meme circulating on Facebook that said,
“Things are not getting worse, they are getting uncovered. We must hold each other close and continue to pull back the veil.”
Testifying to the truth might create division, but it is what we are called to do. Pulling back that veil so we can truly see the wounds that divide our society might make things seem like they are getting worse, but in another one of Jesus’s less popular sayings, he refers to this kind of conflict as the “beginning of the birth pangs,” of the necessary pain we must go through to come out on the other side with new life and a true peace, a peace that has its roots in reconciliation rather than denial, a peace that comes from healing the bullet hole rather than putting a band-aid over it.
That’s what “loving God and loving neighbor” looks like. Jesus calls us to a revolutionary love, a love that involves suffering. The suffering inherent in the Christian way leads us to a peace greater than any that would deny the existence of the wounds. And that’s the kind of peace Jesus is the prince of.
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