A Conflict on the Sabbath Day

Our Gospel reading begins with a conflict between Jesus and the ruler of the synagogue on a particular Sabbath Day. Jesus had called a woman with a disabling spirit to himself. He had laid his hands on her and healed her. The ruler of the synagogue had taken exception to this, arguing that this counted as work and that it could have waited till one of the other days of the week.

Before we look at Jesus’ response, we need to provide a little bit of background to understand what is going on here. After all, it might seem strange to us that a religious ruler would forbid supernatural healing on the grounds that it wasn’t the right day of the week to invoke it. Surely, if the healing had come from God that was reason enough to endorse it? So let’s see what is behind this objection.

The Story of the Sabbath

The Old Testament

We have to go right back to the beginning of creation and remember that the Sabbath Day was instituted by God himself after he had created the world. The first six days were days of creation – days of work – and on the seventh day God rested. And he blessed the Sabbath Day and made it holy because it was a day of rest (Gen. 2:1-3).

We go from there to the giving of the Ten Commandments. The people of God are told to observe the Sabbath and keep it holy, to labour on only the other six days of the week and not to do any work. Not only members of the family or the tribe should rest but even the livestock, even the male and female servants, even the sojourner who was within their gates. And the logic given is as follows:

“You shall 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” (Deuteronomy 5:15).

In other words, God did free the Israelites from slavery in Egypt so that they could continue their life of slavery in another location. The Sabbath Day helps them remember that they are divinely liberated from this oppression.

The Intertestamental Period

If that all seems quite clear, think again. Human nature being what it is, the people of God began to try and work out what exactly was meant by this commandment and how it should be put into practice. In order to safeguard against breaking the Sabbath commandment, various rules were put into place by the religious leaders of the time. In the period after the writing of the Old Testament, which began about four-hundred years before the coming of Christ, the religious authorities began to place a greater emphasis upon the minutiae of the Sabbath observance. The rules were eventually written down and compiled in a work called the Mishnah. But, at the time of Jesus, they were kept by oral tradition. They were human interpretations of divine commands.

So, for example, certain types of carrying were considered to violate the Sabbath commandment. In order to work out what types of carrying were acceptable, four domains were defined: private, public, semi-public, and exempt areas. It was prohibited to carry an object from a private to a public domain or to carry an object four cubits (about a metre and a half) in a public domain. So handing an object from the inside of a public house to the outside was prohibited because it constituted passing something from a private to a public domain. In addition to domains, the quantity of a carried object was significant: enough food for a family meal or an amount of ink sufficient to write two letters was prohibited.

Carrying is just one example. All types of work such as sowing, ploughing, reaping, kneading, baking, writing, building, kindling fire, were prohibited. Items such as tools, expensive dishes, writing implements, stray stones and many others were not allowed to even be touched. Other activities such as doing deals, climbing trees, and shaking fruit from trees were also banned.

I’m sure you get the point. There were a lot of don’ts associated with the Sabbath day before the time of Christ. And one wonders, with some justification, whether the authorities had somewhat missed the point.

Missing the Point

A brief word on this missing of the point. It’s very easy to do. It was easy for the religious leaders of the day. And it is easy for us as well. Let’s look at the problem before we look at the solution.

One of the words we might use here to describe this situation is “legalism”. Legalism, as the name suggests, is a preoccupation with law and rules. People who are legalists are normally quite good at keeping specific rules but they neglect to observe the deeper meaning behind the rules. They keep the letter of the law but not the spirit of it.

In our story today, for example, the ruler of the Synagogue is upset that Jesus has healed on the Sabbath. But Jesus reminds him of the compassion of God: “Ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath Day?” (Luke 13:16).

The religious leaders knew their Scriptures, and this statement would have instantly recalled the Fourth Commandment as given in the Book of Deuteronomy. Why was the Sabbath given in the first place? Firstly, because God rested on the seventh day. But also to remind the people that God had brought them out of slavery in Egypt. He had liberated them from bondage and, on the seventh day, they were to remember this liberation and give glory to God for it.

Through this emphasis upon rules and regulation they had turned an ordinance that was meant to liberate into an obligation which heaped oppression upon people and brought them into bondage.

It is very easy to take the gifts that God gives us and to turn them into a burden, into bondage. We must remember this in all our observances: this is a gift from God that is meant to give you life, not take it away. As Jesus says elsewhere: “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.”

In addition to defining legalism, we should also note the attitude that often goes along with it: spiritual pride and miserable religion.

Spiritual pride comes from the sense that we sometimes have when we believe that we are keeping the rules and others aren’t. It gives us a warm feeling of smugness and superiority and, in its more advanced stages, we begin to believe that, if only we were in charge, we could tell other people what to do and then they would be as good as we are. It leads, in other words, to a desire to dominate and control other people.

Miserable religion is the kind of joyless atmosphere that all of this creates. Here are the words of the poet and visionary William Blake:

I went to the Garden of Love, And saw what I never had seen: A Chapel was built in the midst, Where I used to play on the green.

And the gates of this Chapel were shut, And 'Thou shalt not' writ over the door; So I turn'd to the Garden of Love, That so many sweet flowers bore.

And I saw it was filled with graves, And tomb-stones where flowers should be: And Priests in black gowns, were walking their rounds, And binding with briars, my joys & desires.

William Blake, ‘The Garden of Love’

Friends, let’s not only repent of our legalism but let us rejoice because the news we bear is so much greater and liberating than all of that misery.

The Lord of the Sabbath Day

Ultimately all of this comes to who Jesus of Nazareth is. This remains the critical question of all of history. And this is really the question over which Jesus and the ruler of synagogue were arguing.

In healing on the Sabbath Day, Jesus knew exactly what he was doing. He knew that it was not forbidden to do such a thing in the Scriptures but that the human authorities had pronounced it so. He did it intentionally to provoke controversy. Not only that, but he answered back to the ruler and called him a hypocrite, pointing out their inconsistency in feeding their animals on the Sabbath but not liberating those who were bound.

Jesus was interpreting the Scriptures in contradiction to the religious authorities of the time. He was putting his own interpretation above theirs and therefore making himself a superior authority to them.

As he says elsewhere, “The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath” (Luke 6:5). My authority to define the Sabbath is greater than that of any religious leader. I am the Lord of the Sabbath.

We are told that, at this point at least, ‘all his adversaries were put to shame, and all the people rejoiced at all the glorious things that were done by him’ (Luke 13:17). In interpreting the Sabbath in this way, Christ had reminded everybody that the purpose of God in the giving of the Sabbath was the same purpose that God always intends in his commands: to demonstrate his compassion and love and to lead his people to greater life, light, and joy.

So really all of this is not about the Sabbath – although it is, of course – but about Jesus: who he is and what he reveals about God. And it is good news. By his very presence, Jesus reveals a greater authority than that embodied in manmade rules and religion. By his teaching and action, Jesus reveals to us a God of compassion, love and liberation. If we can entrust ourselves to him without fear, if we can bear in mind at all times that the commands of God are not burdensome but are given for our liberation then we too can find life in him.

Holy Baptism

Friends, today we baptise and welcome a new believer into the Church. This is indeed a joyful day. Not a day of mourning and misery. Not a day even to focus on sin and repentance. But a day of liberation and rejoicing. Only shortly after our passage this morning, Christ tells the world that “there is more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance” (Luke 15:7) and that “there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents” (Luke 15:10). Notice there that it is not the joy of the angels but joy before the angels. That is, the joy of God.

There is no God hidden behind Jesus Christ, no angry Father who will punish us for our half-heartedness. There is only the God that is revealed by Jesus: the God of the Prodigal Son who rejoices that his Son, though once dead, is now alive and though once lost, is now found. This is the God who we approach in Baptism and in all of our lives.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.