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I’ve often heard old-timers talking about how when they were children you weren’t allowed to do much on Sunday because it’s the Sabbath. No cooking or cleaning, no vigorous play, no card playing, no going to the movies, no dancing, no singing unless it was hymns, and definitely no him/her-ring. No stores were open except for maybe a gas station so that those of laxer traditions which allowed driving on Sunday could enjoy a Sunday drive or a trip to Grandma’s. The way they tell it, it’s like you couldn’t do anything on Sunday but sit around in your Sunday best in a God induced home incarceration until you nodded off to put yourself out of the misery. But then again, they all had their stories of sneaking a smoke, or sneaking off to go skinny dipping, or sneaking this, or sneaking that. It’s as if God made the Sabbath for both resting and sneaking. That whole way of doing Sabbath was the by-product of a legalistic way of serving that Almighty bearded old man seated on a throne of judgement keeping a list of whose naughty and nice so you better think twice. Somebody just didn’t get Jesus’ message that “The Sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the Sabbath.”
Things have changed today. Less than 10% of Canadians even attend church on Sunday. Everything is open for business. You can even get Amazon packages delivered on Sunday. If someone doesn’t have to work on Sunday, it’s usually because they have the weekend or the day off because of work scheduling not because of religious reasons. In the clergy world, IF we take a Sabbath day to rest and relax, it’s not Sunday. We work on Sunday’s. In our busy world, to get a day off where you don’t have anything to do is a near impossibility. And then there are the screens. Books on the topic of Sabbath these days have whole chapters dedicated to how to take a Sabbath rest from those devices we’re addicted to. Physiological studies are teaching us that time spent on a device is not checking out for some rest, but rather quite the opposite. Apparently, we don’t get the message at all that humankind was made to have a Sabbath. But keep in mind that a Sabbath is more than just a day off to take it easy. It is the Lord’s Day. It’s time for resting with him.
Well, there you have it. A stock sermon on the Sabbath – God made us to have one, so take one, but don’t get legalistic about it because that just backfires in so many ways. Weell, we could go home now, but I don’t think we’ve really gotten to the heart of this passage. I kinda think Jesus may have just redefined what Sabbath is. It’s not simply a day of resting from work that helps us to rejuvenate. It is a resting in him that restores us to new life in him. There’s very profound healing in it for us.
Looking at our passage, the dispute Jesus had with the Pharisees over his disciples’ gleaning wheat on the Sabbath seems to be stuff the usual Sabbath sermon is made of. The Pharisees were saying that this gleaning is too much like the work of harvesting and shouldn’t be done on the Sabbath.
Incidentally, gleaning on the Sabbath would been something that the very poor regularly had to do during the harvest season back then and today as well. Depending on who owned the field, the Sabbath may have been the only time you could do it because the owner was in the habit of harvesting his whole field even though the Law of Moses told them to leave the outer rows for the poor to glean. Or, he may simply have not wanted a bunch of poor people getting in the way of his workers and so you weren’t allowed to glean while they were harvesting. The farmer himself may not have wanted to suffer the shame of harvesting a ready crop on the Sabbath but would have been ready with excuses why he didn’t leave the outer rows for the poor. Topping that list would have been “They had their chance”…on the Sabbath.
Jesus countered the Pharisees’ argument by saying that even King David, righteous King David whom everybody loved, once broke Sabbath and in a worse way than gleaning. They ate the Bread of the Presence that Abiathar the High Priest gave them to eat in order to not get famished and be militarily vulnerable on the Sabbath. The Bread of the Presence was twelve loaves made from very fine and choice flour that the priests put before God every Sabbath in an area just outside the place called the Holy of Holies where sat the Ark of the Covenant upon which God was believed to sit. The Bread represented each of the Twelve tribes and their hospitality to God. There was also a constantly burning candelabra there to represent the Light of God and also the prayers of the people. Only priests were allowed to eat that Bread, but Abiathar gave it to David’s men to keep them alive. Though it was an unlawful thing to do, it kept them alive and battle ready so to speak. Preserving life is more important than keeping the jots and tittles of the Law and the traditions.
Looking at the second story, things are different. For one, the Pharisees are there looking to use Sabbath conduct restrictions as the vehicle to take Jesus’ life. Hence Jesus’ question: “Is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the Sabbath, to save life or to kill?” He’s got their number and they know it. They stay silent and avoid the question because here they are on the Sabbath making plans to kill somebody. Jesus get’s PO-ed. Sorry for the crudeness, but that’s the level of his anger here. He’s also just heartbroken over them. But oddly, his response to their religious thuggery, their spiritual abusiveness, spiritual blindness is not “pouring out the wrath of God” on them. Although, in the Greek the word for wrath is what we translate as angry. Instead of torching them with holy hellfire (sorry if my sense of humour may be inappropriate her.), Jesus heals a man with a withered hand and redefines what Sabbath is all about.
About this man and his withered hand. Being a person with a withered hand, whether he was born with it or developed it somehow, was to live a stigmatized life. People would have seen the deformity as a curse from God because of hidden sin in his life or the life of his parents. So, he really wouldn’t have been graciously welcomed into community life and especially not at the synagogue.
Hands also had symbolic meaning. They represented a person’s personal power. One raised a hand to great another or to strike another. Waving a withered hand to say “hello” was something you did not do. So also, striking another with a withered hand would have brought ridicule. The condition of one’s hands affected one’s ability to work. So, how he earned his keep was affected. In the synagogue, if one wished the right to speak publicly, you stretched out your hand. It gave you voice. Stretching out a withered hand in synagogue to ask the right to speak.
And so, here it is the Sabbath and he just happens to be in synagogue on a day Jesus comes to town and oddly finds himself to be the battle ground over which a dispute between Jesus and the Pharisees plays out. But…Jesus has the reputation for healing on the Sabbath. Would this be the man’s lucky day?
Here comes your Greek lesson. Our translations say that Jesus said to the man “Come forward.” But that misses something that’s a key reference to resurrection. The verb isn’t the verb for “to come”. Rather, it’s the one for “to rise up” or “to get up”. A literal translation would read “Rise up into the middle.” Again, it just sounds like he’s telling the man to get in front of everybody. But that word for “rise up” was a “code word”, so to speak that was used in the early church in reference to people rising from the dead. In the Gospels, when Jesus raised someone from the dead, he used this word. In Jesus’ command to this man there is the deeper message here that He, Jesus, has the power to resurrect, to restore life to people. Hence the question, “Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to harm” (as the Pharisees were motivated to do), “to save life or to kill” (again, what the Pharisees were motivated to do).” The obvious right answer there is the Sabbath is meant for doing good, for saving life.
Next, as I said early thoroughly PO-ed and cut to the heart in grief by the Pharisees motives, Jesus says to the man, “Stretch out your hand” and as he did it was restored. Again, stretching out your hand was the gesture you made when you wanted to speak in the synagogue which was something this man was likely not allowed to do because of his withered hand. The restoration of that man’s hand was the restoration not only of his voice among the people but also everything about his life. It removed the curse stigma. At that act of God, the Pharisees responded not with wonder, awe, and worship. Rather they left, formed a coalition with the political powers, and began to conspire with them as to how they might utterly destroy this Jesus…and they were the ones who claimed to know and to keep most faithfully the ways of God.
Back to the Sabbath, Sabbath is more than just rest. It is opportunity to raise up in resurrection newness and do good; to save life. It is to come into Jesus’ presence and not just rest but also do healing things for people. We’ve been accustomed to thinking of coming to church on Sunday as being something we do because the Bible says do it on the Sabbath because the good God who created us deserves to be honoured and worshipped. Worshipping God on the Sabbath is part of the ordering of the universe. When we don’t do it, things really get out of whack. One could make a very convincing argument that the breakdown in Sabbath keeping in a culture is a major contributor to global warming.
But Jesus is pointing us into a deeper understanding of Sabbath and what we do when we gather for worship. Gathering together on the Sabbath is time for us to gather together in the power and presence of the Lord of the Sabbath, time for us to stretch out own withered hands to gain voice in prayer, time to exchange our shame-withered selves for healing and new life in Jesus. I don’t know if you’ve ever been to a worship service where people come forward to get prayed for and they get healed; or where the troubled and burdened come and are given peace; or where the lost come and suddenly find the direction they’re seeking; where sinners find the strength to repent. Sabbath isn’t just rest. It is the opportunity to stand in resurrection life. I’ve been to worship service like that. Hunger and pray for our services to become Sabbath like that, rest that’s utterly restorative. Amen.
