Sermon. Jesus and the Sabbath, Revisited

Sermon. 21 August 2016, St Michael and All Angels, Little Ilford.

Trinity 13 (Year C)

Isaiah 58.9b-end; Luke 13.10-17

I've been away for some time, and am very glad indeed to be back. I thought I might begin here by reverting to type (as they say), and asking a question. 

Here it is: Was Jesus right to heal someone on the Sabbath...?

It would be surprising if we were to think that Jesus was wrong to heal on the Sabbath. This is true for at least two reasons.

First, as Christians, we are not used to thinking of Jesus being wrong about anything. But this is more interesting than it looks. It's not so simple. It is true that Christian teaching is that in Christian faith, Jesus is highly exalted. He is divine, is uniquely the Son of Gd, is Gd the Son. But, even though Jesus can be and is called 'Gd', he is still always as human as we are. Human like us in all things save sin alone. But then it follows that Jesus, like every other human being, had limited knowledge of the world about him. Some of his ideas may have been wrong. Some of his ideas will have been wrong, in the sense of mistaken, just like some of ours are. I am not being unfaithful in saying this. Jesus did not sin. Any imperfect knowledge on Jesus' part does not refer to his moral compass, and did not lead to sin. But we can still say (still have to say) that some of his ways of thinking about the world will have been wrong.

A second reason we are unlikely to think that Jesus was wrong to heal on the Sabbath is that there is something of an ingrained way of thinking about Jesus in the gospels. You know: that pattern which sets the Jewish religious authorities as one monolith, one thing, on one side of a spiritual struggle, as the baddies, and Jesus on the other side, as the single goody. And you may remember that one of my themes is to question that. Indeed, let me be blunt: to undermine that.

So about Jesus healing on the Sabbath we are used to hearing something like this: the Judaism of Jesus' day was boring, cold, authoritarian, and concerned with rules and more rules and more and more rules, relating to all aspects of everyday life, including the Sabbath. This because they thought Gd was distant, or angry, or both. Jesus (so this pattern of thinking goes) came to free us from all that, and restore a sense that what counts is a warm and loving relationship with Gd. So the idea that Jesus in his love shocked the cold, legalistic Jewish religious establishment by doing the loving thing, and healing on the Sabbath fits this pattern well. Brothers and sisters, I say: it is not like this.

***

It has to be worth asking: was it ever against Jewish Law to heal someone on the Sabbath? It is not clear that it ever was. The commandment in the Torah, in the Books of Moses, the first five books of the Bible, states that you are forbidden from working on the Sabbath. But it is not at all spelled out what counts as work. 

The later Jewish book, the Mishnah, does spell out in great detail what counts as work. Simply put, it is anything that counts as 'creating' anything. Or more specifically it's any act that was involved in the building of the tabernacle or temple. This of course rules out quite a lot. You cannot really carry things about any distance, for example. But! But it is vital to note that this later document, the Mishnah, is much later than Jesus and than the completed gospels; it was finalised about the year 200 CE.

What this means is that in Jesus's own day it wasn't at all clear what the 'Jewish Law' in all its details was. We really must find a way to give up the idea that there was one monolithic Jewish establishment which Jesus and his followers stood over against. There were different factions; there was different ideas; there were, some would say, different Judaisms. So the only answer to the question: 'was it against Jewish Law to heal someone on the Sabbath in Jesus's day?' is: 'it would depend who you asked'. So, you see, the synagogue leader who thought it was not lawful to heal on the Sabbath was not giving an effective ruling, or quoting from a law book that everyone agreed on. He was speaking for himself.

For what it's worth, when later Judaism - the Judaism of the rabbis as we know or think of them - did spell things out, then there is no ban at all on healing on the Sabbath, if 'healing' means prayer, or declaration of healing, or even laying on of hands.

In any event, it is important to be clear what the rules about the Sabbath – whether there be few or many – are all about. We know that Jesus says that the Sabbath was made for humankind not humankind for the Sabbath. But/and/but that idea is also expressed by the rabbis [e.g. b.Yoma 85b]. It is not a challenge to the Jewish way of thinking; it is very much at home in Judaism. We do not refrain from working because work is a bad thing. Not at all. Rather we stop working in order to enjoy and relish rest and recreation.

Jewish friends put it to me like this: it's like having Christmas Day once a week!

That's not in terms of presents (which you don't really get – sorry about that). But in most other ways. You eat, eat a lot, and good, rich food. You gather as a family; family members have to commit to gathering as one. You also invite guests; that is both an honour and something of an expectation. And, most importantly of all, you spend time together. 

You chat. You may chat about the Scripture readings of the day, or the rabbi's sermon (if you went to synagogue – not all that important in the great scheme of things). You may chat about issues of the day, or your more personal concerns. The point is that the conversation flows, and is 'discursive'. This means it has twists and turns. So you stand every chance of hearing new ideas, and thinking about old ideas in new ways. But even if you don't, through spending what we now – and rightly – call 'quality time' with one another, you deepen your friendships, with friends, and also within the family.

Once you have a sense of this, you might then be able to see too how there do have to be some rules. It is perfectly true that we all might have our own personal views about what counts as rest, and what counts as work. But if you want your family to share the same rest and recreation, you'll have to agree on some ground-rules. And it's the same (or more so) if you are to agree as a community. Think about it. To go back to the analogy: we could not keep Christmas Day as a society unless we agreed on the date, and agreed that at least most things will be closed.

To say it again: the rules are all there so that the Sabbath can be what the prophecy of Isaiah in today's reading calls a 'delight'. The Jewish liturgy in turn says that the Sabbath is 'orah ve-simchah', a light and a delight, and 'Shabbat menuchah', a Sabbath of rest'. And Jewish worship and mysticism goes further. The mystics say that the Sabbath is the Bride of the Jewish people. You turn to greet Her as Queen as she 'comes in' on a Friday evening. It is so much the jewel of Judaism that it has been said 'the Sabbath has kept the Jews more than the Jews have kept the Sabbath'. Another idea is that a Jewish person receives a second soul each Shabbat. All of these ideas are different ways of insisting that Gd is close, and comes close to us, not only when we 'work', but also when we 'rest'. Being at rest, being most naturally and uncomplicatedly ourselves, means we can enjoy a special closeness with Gd. 

So I say that if you ever get the chance to experience a Jewish Sabbath, to feel its specialness, sacredness and recreational, re-creational power, my advice is: grasp it! (Just leave your mobile phone at home.)

Today's gospel says that after the healing, Jesus's opponents were 'put to shame'. It isn't clear why they were so ashamed. There are different ideas about this. But, in any event, it might be said that, today, where we are, Christians might be put to shame by the way our Jewish friends keep the Sabbath. Delightfully but also seriously. Seriously, but also delightfully.

So, yes, I commend to you the light and the joy of the Jewish Shabbat. In saying this, I don't think I am suggesting that we as a church join the Lord's Day Observance Society or anything like that. I fear that Christian Sabbath-keeping as that has often been understood can tend to mean just the rules about the things you are forbidden from doing. That school of thought that imagines the commandment says: 'Six days shalt thou labour and on the seventh day... thou shalt have no fun either'. No. Anything but that. But, heaven knows, in our '24-7' commercialised, consumerist world, we surely do need to protect a sense of Sabbath rest as our birthright. We are worth our Sabbath rest. For we – all human beings – we are more than producers, and we are more than consumers. We are all children of Gd. Like the woman in the gospel today, we are called to think of ourselves too as sons and daughters of Abraham, made for rest, recreation, fullness of fun, and healing. Amen.

 

Sermon for 3rd Sunday of Lent: Happy Easter!

Sermon. St Michael and All Angels, Little Ilford.

Lent 3 Year B

Exodus 20.1-17

1 Corinthians 1.18-25

John 2.13-22

Today's readings are sharp. I mean they can set your teeth on edge, like a sorbet ice-cream. They shock, like getting Marmite, when you were expecting chocolate spread. They challenge us. Which is good. It is Lent, after all.

In the first reading, we have the Exodus version the Ten Commandments. Whatever the details (are they meant for all people or just the People of Israel? etc), their very existence, at the beginning of the revelation to the People at Sinai insists that God can command us, can make demands of us. Gd is not there just to reassure or rescue. But to command and demand. Sharp!

And it gets worse. In the second reading, Paul tells us bluntly that we preach - we must preach - Christ crucified. That sounds as natural as breathing to people used to church-language. But think of what it actually means: at the heart of our 'good news' (if we can call it that), is that our founder was tortured to death as a criminal, if not – let me say it – a terrorist. 

So Christian faith does not begin with us asking what it would be good, important, timely for ourselves and our neighbours to hear, whether to build a Big Society or a revolution for that matter. We start just there, with the image of the tortured-to-death one. Because Gd loves us yes, but loves us by showing us who we are, tied up in violence or the desire for violence in all kinds of direct and subtle ways. Oh dear. Shock!

And it gets worse still. In the gospel, we see Jesus at his most oppositional, judging, and apparently violent himself. In any event, we are a long way from 'Gentle Jesus meek and mild'. Zeal for Gd's House overcomes him. Zeal, or, many would translate – anger, rage. Sharp and shocking.

What is going on? It isn't actually clear. It is unlikely that Jesus wanted a ban on animals and money-changers everywhere on the Temple's vast premises. People had to buy unblemished animals for the sacrifices, and exchange their ordinary money for the special half-shekel to pay their Temple tax, to keep the whole Temple functioning. Remember Jesus does not object to the Temple or the sacrifices as such. (We may be used to thinking he does, but he doesn't.) So it's actually a more subtle argument that things had got out of hand. The tail was wagging the dog. The business around the sacrifices had taken over from the directness of prayer, prayer for all people, not just Jews, let alone just priests.

You can perhaps imagine the Temple PCC meeting. 'Yes, well of course we'd like to keep prayer at the centre of things, but we are struggling to pay the bills. We will get back to prayer, but for now, we need to rent out a bit more space to the business people. It's “expedient”. It's “necessary”. It's an “emergency”.

It's expedient/necessary/an emergency is the excuse politicians use for every unpalatable thing they want to bring in, from cutting benefits from families to taking away human rights to going to war. 

And when the Church does it – makes it harder for people to pray, for the sake of some temporary expediency – this, we learn today, infuriates Jesus. I don't think that is overstating it. (Thank Gd forgiveness is available to churchpeople as well as others.)

So far, so sharp. So far, so Lenten.

But once again I am going to insisting that Lent is not just about our facing up to difficult things about ourselves (though it is that). Rather, Lent is also always already about Easter. We anticipate Easter joy by enjoying experimenting with our Lenten discipline. And Easter too is here in our readings today.

Let us work backwards, since Easter is explicitly there in the gospels: Jesus 'was talking of the Temple of his body. After he was raised from the dead his disciples remembered that he had said this...'. So already – this is only the second chapter of John – we are told that its climax is Jesus as raised from the dead.

And Easter is hidden but present in the second reading, from 1 Corinthians. 'We preach Christ crucified', yes. But you only have to read or hear Paul's letter more than once to know that this crucifixion is what makes possible the resurrection of Jesus, which Paul goes on (in chapter 15) to have much to say about.

And it is important that it is not that the cross is the curse or the question or the problem, and the resurrection is the blessing or the answer or the solution. The relationship between cross and resurrection is more complicated and mysterious than that. They are profoundly one. How can this be? What does this mean? I'd answer that my saying: Stick around! Stick around, and especially make the journey with us from Palm Sunday to Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter Eve. I am not saying that all will become clear. But I am saying that we will be able to live the truth of the oneness of the cross and empty tomb more deeply.

Where is Easter in the first reading, from the Hebrew Bible on the giving of the Ten commandments? I might say it is there in the command to keep the Sabbath and make it holy. One day in seven which is holy, which I about rest. Which is in the Jewish tradition called a light and a joy. Which is, let's say it, a foretaste of heaven, among us, for us now. A foretaste of heaven, and so a foretaste of resurrection life, and a foretaste of Easter, and in that way, of Christ.

But I have another suggestion. The ten commandments are actually called in the Hebrew Bible the Ten Words [Exodus 34.28; Deut 4.13; Deut 10.4]. This is Words with a capital W (as there are many more than ten words): Ten Utterances if you like. And in the Jewish ordering of the Ten Words, the first Word is: I am the LORD your God who brought you out of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.' And that's it! It stops there.

I am the LORD your Gd – I am the One you already know. We belong together. Moses encountered me in the burning bush. The commandments are not the means by which you come to find me, or please me. You already know me. I have come to you.

I am the LORD your God... who brought you out of Egypt, out of slavery. Who liberated you. Who, when your life was narrow and your hard-labour was crushing, saw you, loved you, who involved myself, aligned myself with you, and freed you. The liberation of the People from Egyptian slavery is of course the theme of Passover. Passover is also a theme of today's gospel, if you look at it again. But it's even more the theme of Easter. Gd is One. There is only One Gd. Gd who frees slaves from slavery is Gd who frees us from death, from all that is deadly and deathly in our lives, from the fear of death. Easter is anticipated in the Ten Words in the Hebrew Bible. Or if you insist 'even' in the Hebrew Bible.

Brothers and sisters, if we are serious about our faith, there is no running away from all that is sharp and shocking in the Bible. It has to be there. But all is in the context of Easter, already. 

Remember, perhaps, what I said on Ash Wednesday, about St Seraphim of Sarov, standing outside Church on Good Friday, eating sausages while others were fasting, and greeting everyone even then with his 'Christ is risen!' On Good Friday! I stand by that, by him. 

So, even if we have taken on a Lenten discipline (a good thing!), let us not only be introspective this Lent. Let us also look, even now, for the newness of life, the raised-up life, which is there for us, and for all. Amen.