11th Sunday after Pentecost

Grace be to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

One of my hobbies is sewing. When our three children were of elementary school age, my husband Eric gave me a really nice pair of sewing scissors for my birthday. They came in a wooden box; the scissors lay on smooth fabric; they had golden handles and were gleaming.

My children were excited: “Oh, scissors!”

“Yes”, I said, “and if you touch them you shall die.”

I was joking, but for the people of Israel it was no joke. The sentence “You shall die” comes up again and again in the laws of the Old Testament. They are especially prominent when it comes to encounters between God and humans. People were not allowed to come into the presence of the holy unless invited or specially purified.

The reading from the Letter to the Hebrews is quoting this kind of law: If an animal touches the mountain of God, it shall die. God appeared on the mountain in blazing fire and darkness and gloom and tempest and trumpet sound. Even Moses trembled with fear, we read. The people begged God to stop speaking because they could not bear the sound. Everyone was very scared of God because God was so holy, so other.

There are many problems with this kind of faith, a faith so afraid of God. One of them is this: When people are afraid of God’s wrath, they come up with all kinds of rules that would keep them safe from that wrath. These rules are restrictive, forbidding all kinds of things, in order to keep the faithful safe from God’s anger.

Jesus encounters this in our gospel reading. The law he is bumping up against is the sabbath law.

The third commandment says: Honor the sabbath day and keep it holy; neither human nor animal shall do any work. The trouble is that the commandment does not specify what counts as work. Out of fear of breaking the commandment and angering God, people began filling in this gap. They set out to define what all was included in the word “work”. The answer was: almost anything.

Walking was limited to 1000 steps. Cooking was not allowed, or travelling, or weaving or gardening or carrying things or pretty much anything that wasn’t a matter of life and death. It was a day of rest alright, because you weren’t allowed to do anything. You were forced to rest, motivated by fear of God.

You were, of course, allowed to worship. That is what Jesus is doing one Sabbath day when he spots a woman who was crippled by a bad spirit. For 18 years, she has been bent over and is unable to stand straight.

I have known people bent over by osteoporosis or old age. Their backs are curved. Their heads are bowed down, looking at the ground. Looking up, looking people in the eyes, looking at a tree or rainbow or butterfly takes special effort, maybe even pain. Breathing is hard in that position, too. It is quite miserable.

So when Jesus sees a woman in that situation, his heart goes out to her. He calls her over right away and says, “Woman, you are set free from your ailment.” Then he lays his hands on her and helps her to stand up straight. After 18 years, she can finally stand up straight and tall again. She can breathe freely again. She can look people in the eye again. No wonder she breaks out into praise of God.

Unfortunately, not everyone in the synagogue shares her joy. The leader of the synagogue is upset. Healing is work and work is not allowed on the sabbath. Jesus should not have done this.

Jesus argues right back: The sabbath law allows you to take a donkey to get a drink, but it doesn’t allow you to heal a child of God? You are worried about a valuable farm animal, but not about a suffering sister in faith? What is wrong with you people!

Not for the first time, Jesus is debating the true meaning and purpose of the sabbath. What is the sabbath for? What was God’s intent when he commanded the people to keep a day of sabbath rest?

One commentator pointed out an interesting fact: The Ten Commandments are given twice in the Old Testament, once in the Book of Exodus and once in the Book of Deuteronomy. The commandments are the same. Almost everything is pretty much the same. The only remarkable difference between the two versions is the reason given for why Israel is to keep the sabbath day holy.

In Exodus 20 we read: For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea and all that is in them, but rested on the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed it and consecrated it.

In Deuteronomy 5, we read: Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there with a might hand and an outstretched arm; therefore, the Lord your God commanded you to keep the sabbath day.

These two versions of the Ten Commandments give us two reasons for keeping the sabbath day holy. One has to do with creation, new life, joy in bringing about new things. The other has to do with rescue, redemption, salvation, freedom. Sabbath is meant to be a day when we ponder the blessing of creation and re-creation and the blessing of being set free by a loving God.

I see both of those themes in what happens in the synagogue that day. When Jesus heals this poor woman, he re-creates her. She is given new life, new breath, new health. In healing her, Jesus sets her free, rescues her from that spirit that had controlled her and bent her for 18 long years. She is now free, free from pain, free from bondage, free from the pity of others, free from the burden she had carried for so long.

Jesus points to this connection in the way he addresses the woman: “Woman you are set free from your ailments.” You are loosed. You are unbound. You are rescued. We also read that the woman “stood up straight”. In the original Greek, this verb is passive: She was straightened up. This happened to her. God’s power touched her, set her free, and blessed her with a new life in which she can stand up straight.

This woman knows exactly where this healing came from: She immediately praises God. She recognizes God at work in her life. She rejoices in the gifts of re-creation and redemption, the gifts of sabbath.

What a different sabbath experience this was for the woman in contrast to the leader of the synagogue and people like him. They safeguard the sabbath by many laws and are afraid of breaking any of them, for fear of God; thus the healing miracle leaves them angry. The woman is jubilantly praising God for the blessings she has received.

The Letter to the Hebrews describes the same contrast between life under the law and life in Christ.

Mount Sinai, where God showed up in fire and gloom and tempest, versus the heavenly Mount Zion, the city of the living God.

People of Israel being terrified of God’s presence versus the assembly of the firstborn enrolled in God’s heaven.

The blood of Abel crying for vengeance versus the blood of Jesus that offers a new covenant with God.

People afraid of breaking God’s law versus the righteous being made perfect through Christ the mediator.

Our relationship with God, our lives of faith, our hope, our motivation for faithful living – all that has changed in Jesus Christ. People used to be afraid of the presence of God; now here is Jesus touching a poor woman in order to end her suffering. What a clear image of the difference Christ has brought into the world. From “get too close to the mountain of God and you shall die” to “come here, let me touch you, and I will set you free”. Wow.

It is this latter side of God as revealed in Jesus Christ that we have come here to meet. It is the sabbath day, and we have come here in response to Jesus’ call: “Come here, let me touch you, and I will set you free.”

For just like the woman, we, too, are burdened. We might not show it, might not walk bent over, but inwardly we are weighed down. Worry, fear, tension, illness, addiction, grief, a general feeling of being overwhelmed by all that’s going on in the world – it all threatens to keep us from breathing deeply.

 That is why Jesus called us here, where we are blessed with the gift of sabbath. Here, Jesus reminds us of God’s gifts of re-creation and redemption. Think of all the parts of worship and how they convey those gifts to us:

We begin with words of confession, bringing before God the regrets and the shame that weigh on our conscience. With words of forgiveness, God sets us free.

We read scripture and hear anew of the love God has for us, of his desire for all people to live in peace.

We pray about all the things going on in our lives, our church, our community, our nation, and the world; we do it trusting God’s promise to hear us.

We look at the baptismal font and remember our baptism when God made a covenant of salvation with us.

We receive holy communion and are allowed to touch and taste Jesus’ body and blood.

We receive God’s blessings, God’s assurance that he loves us as we are, that we are welcome in his presence.

No wonder we break into praise and song!

Our gospel today reminds us what sabbath is for: Coming into the presence of God to be freed from our burdens and to be gifted the new life in Christ.

I am so glad you are here. My prayer for you is that you would experience the gifts of sabbath today. Throughout the rest of this worship service, listen for the themes of new life and salvation. May they speak to you, lift your burdens, and move you to sing for joy. Amen.