Sabbath Justice

Sermon for Aug. 21, 2022

Isaiah 58:9b-14; Luke 13:10-17

So, with all the crazy things happening in the world around us, our readings this morning focus on the burning question, what’s the right way to keep the Sabbath.  Really?  Could it sound less relevant?  Sabbath-keeping may be one of the 10 Commandments; but in our culture at least, that requirement to set aside one day each week as God’s day might seem right up there with rules against eating shellfish or sewing old and new fabric together.  

When you hear “keeping the Sabbath,” what images come to mind for you?  From my childhood, I remember reading Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder.  In one scene, Laura and her sister Mary have to keep the Sabbath, which meant sitting in a chair all afternoon in their best clothes, maybe looking at their dolls but not playing with them – not doing anything as the hours dragged on, other than listening to Bible stories.  At the end of the scene, Laura yells out, “I hate Sunday!”  If that’s the Sabbath, I can’t say I blame her.¹

What does it look like to observe the sabbath now?  As you know, I really struggle with this part of my spiritual life, workaholic that I am.  In the past month or so, I’ve done better (though not perfectly) at following God’s direction to set aside a day for something other than my job.  Turns out, sabbath is a deeply loving gift that God’s given us by modeling on the last day of creation that it’s right and good even for God to take a rest.  Sabbath-keeping isn’t about restricting our life but giving us life, tending soil where new creation can blossom.  And I’m pretty sure we can even have fun as we keep Sabbath, and God won’t barge in and break up the party.

But what does make God grumpy about our Sabbath choices?  Well, first and foremost would be ignoring that fourth commandment.  If we really think our work is too important to set aside even for a day, there might be a deeper issue to straighten out about who is God and who isn’t.

Our readings today also give us some clues about how Sabbath-keeping can go wrong.  The reading from Isaiah asks the question, whose interests are being served?  If we’re “pursuing [our] own affairs,” we might be missing an opportunity to see the Sabbath in its full scope – not just as a day off but as a day on differently, a day to honor God explicitly and “satisfy the needs of the afflicted,” as the reading says (58:10).  I think the point there is to see the time not as ours but as God’s, recognizing in our offering of one day that actually all time is God’s and not ours.  So, a good way to remember that truth is to spend some intentional time loving God and neighbor – especially since that happens to be God’s bottom line.

Then we come to today’s Gospel reading, a different example of Sabbath-keeping that advances our own agendas.  Jesus is at a synagogue worshiping on the Sabbath, and he sees a woman whose spine is badly bent.  For 18 years, her condition has kept her hobbled, and Jesus decides to intervene.  Interestingly, that’s not based on any special attribute of the woman herself.  We don’t hear about her deep faith, or persistence, or anything else that other healing stories raise up.  She doesn’t even ask for healing; in fact, we don’t even know whether she knows Jesus is there.  She’s just bent and in pain.  So, Jesus calls her over and says, “[Y]ou are set free from your ailment”; and he lays his hand on her to straighten her painful spine (Luke 13:12-13).

But not so fast, says the leader of the synagogue.  Where Jesus sees a chance to meet a human need, the synagogue leader sees a violation of Sabbath law, which prohibited work on God’s day.  And on a certain level, the synagogue leader is right.  The Law did prohibit work on God’s day, and the leader’s role was to make sure people observed the Law faithfully.  Why?  Because being faithful to the Law was the primary way you lived out your identity as a Jew.  So, the synagogue leader correctly notes that “there are six days on which work ought to be done; come on those days and be cured,” he says, “and not on the Sabbath day” (13:14).  Of course, Jesus notes the hypocrisy and asks whether that same strict construction applies to feeding and watering your livestock.  If you can untie a donkey to get a drink on the Sabbath, doesn’t this woman deserve to be unbound from her affliction so she can drink deeply from the water of life?

But here’s the bigger question I think Jesus is raising: What does it mean to be righteous, and how far must our righteousness extend?  “Righteousness” is one of those words we throw around like we know what it means, but it’s not just being good versus being bad.  Righteousness is about relationship – specifically, being in right relationship with God and with other people.  It can help to have rules, even commandments, to guide us in pursuing that goal, but the rules of righteousness aren’t the point.  The point is orienting our hearts, vertically and horizontally, so that Love guides everything we do.

Well, right relationship with God and neighbor demands that we actually see our neighbor.  And I think that’s where the synagogue leader fundamentally misses the mark.  He looks at the disabled woman, and he sees an object – a situation that calls for an application of Law.  He privileges the system over the person being harmed by the system.  On the other hand, Jesus looks at the woman and sees … her.  And he grieves that she literally can’t rise into the full stature of whom God has created her to be. 

It's not that the synagogue leader is a bad guy.  And it’s not that he oversees a bad system.  The problem is that that his righteousness is abstract because his interest in the Law makes him blind to the person in front of him.  His position gives him authority and privilege, so he privileges the system over the people living under it.  He can’t see individuals vividly enough to see that the rules aren’t working for them. 

And I think the way the leader and his system diminish this woman is what pushes Jesus’ buttons.  Yes, he sees the leader’s hypocrisy and calls that out.  But at the core, he sees injustice.  He sees a system working for some but diminishing the dignity of others.  The point of following the Law was to build one’s practice of righteousness, training people for right relationship with God and neighbor.  But here, instead, following the Law is leaving some neighbors out in the cold.

Of all the things we might have associated with Sabbath-keeping, justice probably wasn’t on the list.  But maybe this story about an archaic spiritual practice can help us see God’s justice with fresh eyes.

In our culture, justice is about fairness, as well as providing remedies when one party harms another – ensuring that “both the accuser and the accused receive a morally right consequence merited by their actions,” as the Cornell Law School puts it.²  As Americans, we’re wired to think this way: that justice means fairness among equal parties who share common, level ground.  OK.  But, of course, in the real world – in a world bent and crippled by sin – our ground may be common, but it’s not always level, as much as we might wish it to be, even as much as we aspire for it to be.  Life can be like a football game where the two teams don’t change direction at the quarters, meaning one team is always throwing or kicking into the wind.  That wouldn’t be just, so we make rules to ensure the game is fair.

In Scripture, justice has a more God-centered meaning – that the playing field and the conditions of the game must be fair not just because we value fairness but because fairness and right relationship are aspects of God’s own nature.³  So, in Hebrew, the word we translate as “justice” describes “the restoration of … equity and harmony … in a community.”³  In fact, in ancient Israel, those conditions that lead to “equity and harmony in a community” were seen as inalienable human rights given by God to all God’s people – conditions like freedom, security, and fair dealing.  So, justice in a biblical sense refers not simply to shared rules but to a state in which all are equally able to live into the fullness of whom God has created them to be.  

To realize God’s justice in the world, people like the synagogue leader – people who carry privilege within the system they inhabit – so, most of the people here today – they have to see the people whom the system misses.  They have to look past their interest in the system, sometimes even work against their interest in the system, to ensure that no one’s experience becomes invisible, lumped in with others who seem different to create that vast category of “them.” 

And I think Sabbath-keeping helps us remember this call to straighten out broken systems toward justice.  When we set aside time as God’s own and not ours, it helps us see that God is God, not us.  Having to remember that’s true, we also remember God’s priorities: to practice right relationship with God and our neighbors, seeing those who are bound by sin both personal and systemic.  And living out that daily practice of righteousness, working the muscle of our hearts, we build God’s kingdom within us so that we can reveal God’s kingdom beyond us – seeing those whom the system leaves stooped and bent, and calling that out, and together rising into the fullness of the stature of Christ.

1.       Wilder, Laura Ingalls. Little House in the Big Woods. Ebook edition, 2011; taken from the 1953 edition from Harper Publishers, New York. Available at https://www.gutenberg.ca/ebooks/wildersewell-woods/wildersewell-woods-01-h-dir/wildersewell-woods-01-h.html#chapter5. Accessed Aug.19, 2022.

2.       Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School. “Justice.” Available at: https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/justice. Accessed Aug. 19, 2022.

3.       Freedman, David Noel, ed. The Anchor Bible Dictionary, Vol. 3, H-J. New York, Doubleday, 1992. 1164. Internet Archive edition available at https://archive.org/details/AnchorBibleDictionaryVol11992.rocs/AnchorBibleDictionary%20vol%203%201992.rocs/page/n9/mode/2up. Accessed Aug. 19, 2022.