"You hypocrites!"

Sermon for August 25, 2019 – St. Paul’s SacramentoProper 16C – RCL Track 1

Jeremiah 1:4-10

Psalm 71:1-6

Hebrews 12:18-29

Luke 13:10-17 

Now Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues on the sabbath. And just then there appeared a woman with a spirit that had crippled her for eighteen years. She was bent over and was quite unable to stand up straight. When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, "Woman, you are set free from your ailment." When he laid his hands on her, immediately she stood up straight and began praising God. But the leader of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had cured on the sabbath, kept saying to the crowd, "There are six days on which work ought to be done; come on those days and be cured, and not on the sabbath day." But the Lord answered him and said, "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?" When he said this, all his opponents were put to shame; and the entire crowd was rejoicing at all the wonderful things that he was doing.

After last week’s Gospel reading of Jesus saying that he did not come to bring peace but to bring fire.  Not to bring unity but to sow division, I am happy this week to come back to the Jesus that I expect to encounter in the Gospel of Luke.  We expect healing stories in the Gospel of Luke.  After all it is the in the Luke’s gospel that Jesus starts his ministry of healing in a synagogue by reading from the scroll of the prophet Isaiah and saying that that he was the one that the prophet predicted when Isaiah said:

 ““The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
    because he has anointed me
    to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
    and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,”

Today we encounter the Jesus that we expect to encounter.  Today we have an amazing story of healing.  An amazing story of Grace.  The woman in this story did not approach Jesus for healing.  She, like Jesus, was planning on attending the sabbath services at the synagogue.  It seems that she was not there seeking a miraculous healing.  She was there, like the others, to worship God.   When Jesus sees her come in, he sees the spirit that has bent her over, and calls her over.  Jesus sees not just her physical suffering but sees her spiritual suffering as well. Jesus calls her over and simply tells her that she is free from her ailment and she immediately stands us and began praising God.  There is no prelude dialogue.  There is no proclamation that her faith has made her whole.  There is simply the grace filled healing from Jesus. 

And here is where the story gets interesting.

One of the leaders of the synagogue took issue with the fact that Jesus has just done some work on the sabbath.  And not only did he do work but he did it in the place set aside for the worship of God. In the synagogue.  Jesus, in the eyes of this leader has broken God’s law about keeping the sabbath holy.  He does not object per se to the healing but objects to the time and place of the healing.  He would, it seems, be perfectly ok with the healing if it took place on any other day.  He is upset with the breaking of the law of the sabbath.

Now before we too start calling this man a hypocrite perhaps we should look into our own hearts.  I bet we all have rules, or norms, that have risen in our hearts to the level of laws.  And I am willing to bet that we get pretty upset when those laws are broken.  I certainly have norms that, when violated, can make me upset.  Some of them are pretty silly too.  Like the one about not trying to hold a meaningful discussion with me before at least the second cup of coffee has been consumed.  Others are more serious.  Like taking the commandment to love God and Love our neighbors seriously – although I admit that even with that one, I can fall far short of my own ideal. 

We also take secular laws seriously.  While we may disagree with some of the laws and regulations the government has set four our wellbeing there is a set that we would take as important.  We feel strongly that killing another is wrong.  We feel strongly that abuse is wrong.  I feel strongly that we really should stop at stop signs and for red lights – especially having suffered the consequences of a car not stopping! To name just a few. 

In our worship space we have spoken and unspoken rules of interaction.  And when those are violated, we can get pretty upset.  I belong to a Facebook group of Episcopalians.  And while many of the posts are requests for prayers there are some that talk about when people’s “rules” for worship are broken – and how dare they.  A recent post – which generated many comments – was about the passing of the peace.  The author’s norm was that the peace should last about 10 seconds with a polite handshake only to those in the near vicinity.  Anything longer, anything more expansive than that was not worship and was really degenerating into an intermission that interrupted the flow of worship.  That is certainly not the norm in this congregation – although I have attended churches where that is the norm.  There is no law about how to pass the peace – the prayer book simply says that the “ministers and people may greet one another in the name of the lord.”  We all can get pretty upset if our worship norms are violated.

In the case of the leader of the synagogue he is not just upset that a norm was broken.  He was upset that a commandment that was given to honor the sabbath was broken.  He was advocating for a strict reading of the commandment that came after the people of Israel were set free from the Egypt.  He is worried that if you let some work happen during the Sabbath that pretty soon the sabbath will lose meaning.  David Lose, a preacher I follow said “Which is what the leader of the synagogue is worried about. Once you start making exceptions for this reason or that, pretty soon no one is really keeping the Sabbath and it’s lost its point altogether. And it’s not just the Sabbath. The whole law is like that -- keep making exceptions and it’s not really a law anymore; it’s more like a suggestion, with little or no power to protect and preserve us.”^[1]

Jesus, even though he called this man a hypocrite, is not calling for the abolishment of the law of the sabbath.  He is calling for a different interpretation of the law.  He points out that there are already exemptions allowed.  There are actions that can be taken during a sabbath that look like work even in the strictest readings.  Jesus reminds him that livestock are allowed to be taken for water.  Jesus argues that one is allowed under the sabbath rules to take actions that preserve life.  In this story Jesus says that this daughter of Abraham – this decedent of the house of Israel – a faithful member of the synagogue – should not have to wait until the day after the sabbath to be healed.  She had already suffered for 18 years – another day was a day too long.  For Jesus this act of healing was no more work that taking livestock to water.  It was a mercy that promoted life.

Jesus argues that the law of the sabbath allows for healing.  It allows us to give those in need water to drink and food to eat.  It allows us to expand the reach of God’s kingdom into the places where we live.  Jesus is not telling the people to ignore the rules around the sabbath.  He is instead allowing a more generous reading of what can be allowed.  He is advocating that allowing actions that bring about God’s dream are allowed.  Actions that show God is loved and all of our neighbors are loved – all of God’s beloved children are loved are allowed.

If we continued to read this chapter in Luke Jesus goes on to tell the parables about the Kingdom of God.  The kingdom of God is like a mustard seed, the Kingdom of God is like yeast – parables that we skip for now.  But they make clear that the healing was not a breaking of the law but was the in-breaking of the kingdom of heaven. 

David Lose said “Jesus came preaching the kingdom of God, and while the law helps us make sense of and get more out of life in the kingdom of the world, it must always bend to the grace that constitutes the abundant life Jesus proclaims. For above and beyond all the laws ever received or conceived, the absolute law is love, love God and love your neighbor. Or, perhaps, love God by loving your neighbor.”^[2]

The good news is that Jesus calls us to mercy and forgiveness.  Jesus calls us to bring about the inbreaking of the kingdom of God. Jesus does that by showing us examples of where we can interpret the law with grace.  Where we can read the laws with a heart tuned to healing.  Jesus calls us out when we, like the leader of the synagogue, read the laws, and our own norms, in ways that preclude being agents that bring God’s love into our world. 

This reading from Luke calls us to look into our hearts and souls.  To look for those places where we worship at the altar of idols.  To look for those times when we see others not as children of God but as disturbances to our sensibilities. To look into our hearts to see where we fail to welcome the stranger into our midst because their reading of God’s commandment is different than our own. 

Jesus tells us later in Luke that it does not take much for the inbreaking of God’s love.  A small seed, a measure of yeast, seemingly insignificant actions, cause the inbreaking of God’s love into our world. In today’s reading the healing of a women who had been bent over for 18 years showed God’s kingdom of love.  I invite you to look into your heart and see where you might need healing in order to see the inbreaking of God’s love, to look and see where you might be overly strict in your interpretations of law and norms that prevent God’s inbreaking love.  And most importantly to look and see what seeds you have that will cause the inbreaking of God’s love into our world.

---

^[1] http://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?post=2699 Accessed August 24, 2019

^[2] ibid

I came to bring fire...yikes!

Sermon for August 18, 2019 – St. Matthew’s Church

Proper 15C – RCL Track 1

Isaiah 5:1-7
Psalm 80:1-2, 8-18
Hebrews 11:29-12:2
Luke 12:49-56

Jesus said, "I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and what stress I am under until it is completed! Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division! From now on five in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three; they will be divided:

father against son

and son against father,
and daughter against mother,
and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law."

mother against daughter

mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law

He also said to the crowds, "When you see a cloud rising in the west, you immediately say, `It is going to rain'; and so it happens. And when you see the south wind blowing, you say, `There will be scorching heat'; and it happens. You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time?"

I have to be honest – I don’t like this passage from Luke!  Every time it comes up I hope that I am not the one who is assigned to preach.  This is not a feel-good passage about Jesus going after the one lost sheep.  It is not a passage that talks about radical forgiveness like the parable of the prodigal son.  This is a passage that makes me uncomfortable – and I bet it makes some of you uncomfortable too.  And that is a good thing for me and for you.  It is a good thing to wrestle with difficult passages.  It is good because they make us think.  It is good because they challenge us to look at our theology and see where it might be veering into hypocrisy or heresy.

This passage seems so out of character for Jesus…but is it really?  We find it uncharacteristic, uncomfortable, because we have largely domesticated Jesus.  We want to see the Jesus that we find in stained glass windows or in children’s Sunday School books.  We try to domesticate God so that we are comfortable.

Our presiding Bishop likes to say that if it isn’t about love it isn’t about God.  And this passage is still about love.  Because the fire Jesus yearns to ignite is the refiners fire that leads to God’s reign of Love coming into our presence.  A reign that is characterized by love of God and love of our neighbors.  A reign that welcomes those who society would cast into the fire into the very embrace of God.

The reality in Jesus time, if only the people would look, is that most people do not want that kind of society.  They don’t want to let go of their perks that have been given to them by a conquering empire.  Humans have a propensity for taking what we find comfortable and worshiping that as an idol.  We do it today. 

In Friday’s Sacramento Bee Marcus Breton had an article on homeless folk and our failure to provide housing for people.  He chronicled all the reasons that someone will likely die in the cold this winter.  And he lays it at our feet.  He points out that all the talk from our politicians about providing shelters runs into roadblock after roadblock.  Anyplace that is proposed for a low barrier shelter – one that accepts all people, complete with their needs, their pets, and their partners, someone opposes.  There are limited areas that have the space for a large 100 bed shelter.  And none of the places are right.  None are perfect – and all of them will be opposed by a set of Sacramento residents.  It will not be the same set at each location but there will be opposition.  Some of it is real and much of it is fear.  Fear that “the others” will bring crime to the neighborhood.  Fear that it will drag down the fragile improvements being made in areas that have the space and sewer and water connections needed for a large shelter.   The idea of shelters causes division.  Just a Jesus caused division in his community by eating with outcasts and declaring forgiveness to those who turn towards God.

We live in a country where division is so pervasive that we hardly even notice the headline anymore.  We only pay attention when someone dies – and then only long enough for the bodies to be buried.  This division is, in part, due to folks being fearful that if we let someone else have what they need – be that housing, asylum, medical care, a living wage, God’s love – if somehow we let someone else have something we will lose out on our privilege.  Our society – indeed much of the world – subscribes to an economy of limitations.  An economy of scarcity. And we put that economy on God.

However, God’s economy is one of abundance.  An abundance of Love.  An abundance of forgiveness.  An abundance of welcome.  And Jesus came to try and get those around him to see that economy.  To see the need for radical healing.  To see the need to change how we operate. 

Jesus called us to stop worshiping the idols that separate us from God’s creation.  And that kind of talk causes division because we don’t want to let go of our comforts.  Jesus told the people that just like noticing the weather they should notice the need for change.  And it is still just a true today.  Too many people, many who call themselves Christians, cannot see the need to change.  They continue to domesticate Jesus and God.

The good news is that there are people who advocate for the kind of radical change that Jesus calls us to make.  The good news is that there are places in our scriptures that make us uncomfortable with how our world is behaving. 

The sad part is that advocating for the kinds of change that God desires still causes division.  The sad news is that eating with those society considers outcasts and unclean still causes division. 

I invite you to continue to wrestle with the difficult parts of God’s word… because it is those parts that will call us to shake off our sins and to welcome God’s reign of love into our hearts and into our world.  And when we do it will cause division – it will cause the refiners fire to melt our hard hearts and accept a different society.  The society of love and forgiveness that is the dream of God.