Putting God First

Proper 16 C--Text: Luke 13:10-17

This gospel depicts one of the most controversial visions of Jesus in the New Testament: Jesus encourages the breaking of a covenant with God. On the surface it seems to be pretty simple: worship God first, ignore the rules. We’re naturally drawn to Jesus’ side on this. Obviously the woman needed healing, so what does the day matter? And it’s in God’s name? Sabbath? So what! Do it anyway.

But what we have is not a case of the leaders ganging up on our poor guy, Jesus, but of Jesus flaunting his disregard for the Law. He, as a Jew, is flaunting Torah. In Exodus 20:10-11 it says:

The seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God; you shall not do any work—you, your son, or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns. In six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and consecrated it.

Or Leviticus 23:3:

Six days shall work be done; but the seventh day is a Sabbath of complete rest, a holy convocation; you shall do no work: it is a Sabbath to the LORD throughout your settlements.

Jesus, in healing on the Sabbath, is going against the interpreters of the Law, who all agree that this woman in question could have been healed the day before or the day after. They’re essentially saying: “Pick any other day, Jesus.” And Jesus could have waited; he wasn’t in any hurry. Every other Jew would have waited, including his own disciples. They would have waited. Jesus put himself in conflict with the Pharisees and church leaders on purpose. He intended to make it difficult.

Though this particular conflict only appears in Luke, there a variety of similar conflicts over the Sabbath that appear in all the Gospels, beginning in Mark chapters 2 and 3, which Matthew and Luke maintained in their writing. Jesus treats the Sabbath law as he does laws governing purity and divorce: in confrontation with legalism. In each of these instances, Jesus appears to be providing rank order for Mosaic Law.

What laws do you elevate or subordinate? What do you make most important? Are moral laws more important to you than civil laws? Or even state laws above federal? Personally, I tend to believe that complete stops at stop signs and red lights are more important than driving the speed limit. What’s five miles over when not stopping causes confusion and disrupts the flow of traffic? Or does it really matter if you drive your bike on the left side of the road? Who is it hurting? It reminds me of the famous quote from Oliver Wendell Holmes: "The right to swing my fist ends where the other man's nose begins."

We already interpret some laws as more important than others. In a postmodern world, our actions and our thinking are constantly informed by relativity. One of the popular icebreakers we use to spark conversation is the medicine scenario: most of us are familiar with it. What if your spouse is terminally ill and the only way to save him/her is to get medication immediately but you can’t get any for him or her [you don’t have enough money, for instance]. Is your adherence to civil law more important than a moral imperative to save your spouse: will you break into a drug store or let him or her die? We love these questions, and as Americans, we are innately rebellious [come on, admit it: we are]. The vast majority of us will say “yeah, break in: Life is more important than the law.” This same sense of natural law causes us to hear Jesus as rejecting the Torah in favor of a higher law—a better and more convenient one.

But Jesus isn’t rejecting the Torah, he is embracing it. He is embracing it with a gusto that none of the Jewish leaders can match. He is not throwing out the Sabbath law as much as placing a greater law above it, from within it. Remember in Mark 12 and Matthew 22, when Jesus is asked which is the greatest commandment, and Jesus responds with: ‘the first one’? He says “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” He holds it up suggesting that upon it “hang all the law and the prophets.” His response is taken from the Shema: “Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one…” and so on, which is among the oldest most beloved Jewish prayers, repeated by Jews twice daily for centuries. Because everybody would know this, Jesus is demonstrating his Jewishness by highlighting his devotion, his sensitivity to custom, and by showing how that relates to everything else! What happens when you do love your God with all of your heart and all of your soul and all of your mind? What is it to really put God first? In saying this, Jesus’ stance on Sabbath, purity, and divorce is more extreme and demanding than the Pharisees’ and even the Sadducees’ stance. The apostles, the gospelers, and even Paul felt the need to temper Jesus’ position; to justify a position that was even too extreme for them.

I have to admit that I’m glad the What Would Jesus Do craze is long-dead. It makes it easier for me to do things that Jesus wouldn’t. But more important, we can return the gospel to a frame of reference that is much more helpful and Christ-centered. Jesus said “follow me” not imitate me. We can certainly learn a lot from doing the things that Jesus did and believing the things that Jesus is reported to have said. But each of us is called to interpret what that is to be. The beauty of Jesus’ teaching is that there are things that are more important than others. That you acted on the Sabbath is less important than that you acted in faithful devotion to God. Paul rightly interpreted this for the church in Corinth over the question of idol meat. So we must interpret this for ourselves today in the midst of a society interpreting civil laws, an international community interpreting human laws, and church leaders that interpret our Christian laws.

I am excited for this time—a time in which our church is actually discussing doctrine, discipline, and adiaphora [things essential and unessential to salvation] and they are at the center of our national and international discussions right now.

Our gospel today tells us that “the entire crowd was rejoicing at all the wonderful things that he was doing.” Jesus isn’t being a jerk, but gives the people a freedom they had never before understood: a true, multi-faceted freedom. A freedom, not from the Law, but from narrow-mindedness and legalism. In short, Jesus gave us a way to worship God that is at once unfettered and full-bodied. May we learn to follow Him in this way.