A Day for Liberation (Luke 13:10-17; Proper 16C; August 25, 2013)

A Day for Liberation

Luke 13:10-17
Proper 16C
August 25, 2013

Rev. John M. Caldwell, PhD
First United Methodist Church
Decorah, IA

She looked like she bore the weight of the world on her shoulders.  And who knows?  Maybe she did.  She was “bent over and couldn’t stand up straight,” the story tells us.  She had been that way for eighteen years.  We can safely conclude that she wasn’t born that way.  If she had, the story would have mentioned that because it would have made her healing all the more remarkable.  Life somehow had done this to her. 

We might have said that she had osteoporosis, but the story says that she had been disabled by a spirit.  We smile at such a naïve, superstitious detail, but maybe there was more than the merely physical going on.  At least we should recognize that a condition like this, if it didn’t begin in the spirit, certainly had an impact on the spirit.  Can anyone bear such a burden for eighteen years and not be profoundly changed by it?

She was in synagogue on the Sabbath, hoping for some good news.  There was lots of news, but mostly it was the same old news, none of it the kind that would change her world for the better.  The Romans were particularly testy lately and everyone was on edge after some Galileans had been murdered by Pilate while they were offering sacrifices.  What did it mean?  What had they been doing to deserve such a thing?  What more can we do to stay out of trouble and avoid the notice of the Romans than we are already doing?

Some of the news was closer to home.  Sarah’s husband Judas had been robbed while coming home from the market town after selling some sheep.  The thieves took the money, of course, but they also left Judas badly wounded.  He would live but healing would be a long time in coming.  What were Sarah and her family going to do in the meantime?  They already owed the money lender.  Would he demand their land?  And then what would become of them?

Another neighbor, Isabel, had just given birth.  The baby boy was doing well, but Isabel was in bed with a fever.  This was the third day and the crisis would come soon.

This bent woman, this dispirited woman, this woman who bore the weight of the world on her shoulders was in synagogue on Shabbat, hoping for some good news.  Shabbat should have been a good day for good news.

That it was not was not the fault of the day itself.  In fact the Sabbath was remarkable.  It was a part of the oldest Jewish traditions.  The Sabbath is the fourth of the Ten Commandments that were given to lay out for Israel a way of life that stood in contrast to their life as slaves in Egypt.  There they served the gods of Empire and had little in the way of genuinely human community.  And especially they had no rest.  Exodus describes it this way: “[T]he Egyptians put foremen of forced work gangs over the Israelites to harass them with hard work.  They had to build storage cities named Pithom and Rameses for Pharaoh…They made their lives miserable with hard labor, making mortar and bricks, doing field work, and by forcing them to do all kinds of other cruel work.” 

The Empire du jour, Egypt, demanded unending work from the Israelites, work without end, work without rest.  When the Israelites tried some collective bargaining, the Egyptians responded by making their work even harder.  Day after day, week after week, year after year, the Israelites toiled to build the warehouses to store the loot from Egypt’s wars, the tribute of empire.  There was no end to the accumulated loot and no end to the Israelites’ labor in service to the gods of Egypt.

For the Israelites, led by Moses out of slavery in Egypt, it was no burden to be told to rest one day each week.  It was sweet freedom.  It was a gift.

It was a gift that made the Jewish people special.  Their pagan neighbors couldn’t understand why or how, on one day of every seven, Jews would do no work.  They would neither buy nor sell.  They wouldn’t work in the fields.  They wouldn’t even cook any food.

Instead, they rested.  They gathered with their friends and families.  They ate cold leftovers.  They drank a little wine.  Not too much, but some!  They took walks.  Not too long and only at a leisurely pace.  The grownups talked and sometimes argued about the Torah, having decided that studying the Torah is never labor, but always a delight.  The kids played games.  They all sang and danced and laughed a lot.  The Sabbath was a gift.

Of course, there is no gift so good that it can’t be spoiled.  The rule-makers, no doubt anxious to protect the Sabbath and keep it holy, made a lot of rules.  How far could you walk on the Sabbath?  Two thousand cubits beyond the city limits.  Could you tend a fire that had already been lit before the Sabbath started?  No.  Can you act to save a human life?  Yes.  Eventually there were thirty-nine different categories of prohibited activities, each with their own rules.  If you add enough rules, even the gift of Sabbath becomes a burden.

So the President of the synagogue, doubtless one of the rule-maker types, had harsh things to say.  But I notice that he didn’t say them to Jesus.  Maybe he was from Iowa where nice people who have a beef with someone are not permitted to say anything.  To them.  They may and do tell other people.  So, the President of synagogue, as a way of rebuking Jesus, told the people that if they wanted to be healed, they should come on other days, but not on the Sabbath.

Jesus replied that anyone who set their ox or donkey free to lead them to fodder and objected to setting a woman free from her sickness was a hypocrite, that is, was “under judgment.”  The Sabbath is all about being set free.  Of course it is lawful to set someone free on the Sabbath.  The rule-makers weren’t pleased, but the crowd was glad to hear what Jesus had to say.  It was good news for them.  It was especially good news for the woman who had been bent over for eighteen years.  Whatever the burdens of her life at least she no longer looked as if she were bearing the weight of the world.

So her story ended well.  Our story?  Well, it’s not done yet, but when it comes to the question of rest, of Sabbath, it’s not looking too good.

Some of you can remember when a Sunday Sabbath was the law.  Stores were closed.  Gas stations were closed.  The pharmacy in our neighborhood was open but the soda fountain in the same store was closed on account of what were called “blue laws.”

We got rid of those laws.  It’s probably just as well.  Sunday may be the day that passes for a Sabbath among Christians, but Christians aren’t the only folks in our country.  It’s inhospitable—as well as illegal—to impose one religion’s practices even on other members of one’s own religion, let alone the members of other religious traditions.  So, I’m not in favor of bringing back blue laws.

But it’s clear that we have a problem with the notion of rest.  Our “days off” are a blur of frenetic activity.  The United States is the only developed country that does not require employers to provide paid vacation.  Even at that over half of American workers don’t use all the vacation days they are allowed, some because they have too much work to do and don’t want it to pile up while they’re gone, others because they don’t have any money to travel and a few because they are afraid it will reflect badly on them.[1]  We aren’t sleeping enough.  Adults need between seven and eight hours of sleep each night.  Half of us are getting less than seven hours a night.[2]  That’s for adults.  School aged kids need between ten and eleven hours, teens between eight and a half and nine and a quarter hours.  So how are you doing?  I’m guessing you’re not getting enough. 

The reasons for our shortage of sleep are numerous, but I believe that many of them come down to this: We aren’t getting enough rest for the same reason that the ancient Israelites weren’t getting enough rest.  The Empire du jour in those days commanded them to work without ceasing.  It set task masters over them. 

Things are different now.  We now deprive ourselves of rest and give it to the tasks we are convinced we need to do.  Collectively, we have been deprived of our ability to say, “Enough!”  We have become our own taskmasters.  We live in Egypt and think that we’re free.  The Empire today has learned to be subtle. 

But the Empire is still with us as it was for the Israelites.  We are bent over like the woman in our story, bent over as if we were carrying the weight of the world on our shoulders, bent over and waiting for deliverance.  The Sabbath was a barrier to healing that kept a tortured woman from being set free.  Jesus broke the Sabbath in the name of the Sabbath for her sake, loosened her bonds and set her free.  In the name of the Sabbath Jesus comes to us and offers to set us free from our own bonds, offers to deliver us from the grip of the Empire.  Jesus comes to give us rest.  It will be good to be able to stand up straight.

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[1] “Vacation? No Thanks, Boss.” CNNMoney. Accessed August 23, 2013. http://money.cnn.com/2012/05/18/news/economy/unused_vacation_days/index.htm.

 

[2] National Sleep Foundation. “Bedroom Poll: Summary of Findings,” November 1, 2010. http://www.sleepfoundation.org/sites/default/files/bedroompoll/NSF_Bedroom_Poll_Report.pdf.