“But the leader of the synagogue, indignant that Jesus had cured on the sabbath, kept saying to the crowd, ‘There are six days on which work ought to be done; come on those days to be cured, and not on the sabbath day.”
From Luke chapter 13
This verse was part of our scheduled readings for this morning in the Episcopal Church, and it sparked some thoughts as we discussed it.
Through the Gospels, we read a lot of vignettes where Jesus does something on the Sabbath, or encourages someone else to do something on the sabbath as part of a healing; and the religious leaders are incensed that He is either doing or directing other to work on the sabbath. We have a tendency to laugh at those silly leaders, getting all excited over the calendar, and not the work of God that is before their eyes. In today’s story, Jesus points out that there is a deeper law, that the leaders themselves know. They have compassion on their animals; and they will take them to water even on the sabbath. Why then are they so upset when he has compassion on these sick people on the sabbath?
We ridicule these foolish leaders. But I think we miss something important. These leaders, often Pharisees, were very concerned about the bad condition Israel was in – captive to and taken over by Roman oppressors. They had fallen from their glory days. They had experienced a brief flurry of independence under the Maccabees, but that fallen again; this time to the Romans. Why are God’s people experiencing such defeat? And they thought they knew.
Throughout the Hebrew Scriptures, there were warnings and blessings; warnings about disaster if Israel did not follow the law, and blessings if they returned, and followed God. The Prophets often proclaimed coming disaster – that Israel was screwing up again. The Pharisees said “OK! We GET IT! We are going to straighten up and follow the law. We will make certain that all Israel straightens up and follow the law. We will be SO RIGHTEOUS that God will remove these cursed Romans and restore us again!” And so they were very scrupulous to make certain EVERYBODY followed the law.
But here comes this Jesus fellow, and he is doing all sorts of things against the law – telling others to do things against law. If we do not stop him, God will curse us even more!
And from the conventional religious teaching, they might have been right. Like Job’s friends.
We will come back to this.
I have been coming to an understanding of “Law” in a religious sense as sort of like this:
The most important thing is to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength.” The second is like it “Love your neighbor as you love yourself.”
Jesus said these were the most important, but he was quoting from the Old Testament – Deuteronomy and Leviticus. Jesus said that all the law depended upon (or arose from) these two things.
So I see the 10 commandments as kind of breaking it down, “What does that MEAN?!” we whine.
And then, “No work on the sabbath? Well how about if I only walk a quarter mile?
Is it OK if I carry something?
How about if I build a fire?
How much work can I do before it is really “work”?
And so we end up with the whole of the Law. But it is not the DEEP law, the original two on which all the rest hang. Some of the prophets knew this. Micah 6:8 says
“He has told you, O man, what is good:
And what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and walk humbly with your God?”
Or in Hosea:
“For I desire mercy and not sacrifice”
The Deep Law that is behind all other law.
And now back…
It seems the leaders had forgotten the Deep Law that was behind all the law.
And this is where it turned personal.
I don’t like just ridiculing somebody from 2000 years ago, and happily thinking how much better we are. As a general rule, I think they are people pretty much like us. Either like we are, or like we were; perhaps like we might become.
So how about these leaders? What seems similar?
And I thought of churches, some very particular about enforcing “righteousness” as they understand it. Some say that the problems in the church, or problems in out nation, come because we do a poor job of following God’s law. That if we would get right, practice righteousness, God would bless the Church, and bless this nation.
They could be right.
It occurred to me that in the Episcopal Church over the last 20-50 years and more (roughly) we have been in exactly such a struggle. One side (I was on this side) were insistent that we should follow the traditional understanding of a number of laws. Not because they commended themselves to me, but because they were written in the scriptures, in a way that seemed clear to me and my party.
In the early years of this century, we argued pretty loudly that among the reasons we were declining was that we did not clearly define righteousness, with an expectation.
And this morning it struck me that this attitude was awfully similar to that of the religious leaders in all those stories where Jesus healed on the sabbath when the Law (in their interpretation) said not to do that.
I still am not convinced about what is right.
But I can see that when we are trying to “Follow the Law” it is important that I look to understand the “Deep Law” and not just the derivative parts.
I must not interpret “the Law” in such a way that it causes me to violate “Love the Lord your God, and love your neighbor as yourself”
“what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and walk humbly with your God?”
Random Musings 