Jesus heals

Everyone be seated, and grown-ups, you are invited to turn on your listening ears because you get to go first today.  Usually we have the children’s sermon first, but today I want the children to sit for a moment while I say a few things to the grown-ups.   

Jesus will heal us on the Sabbath.  God doesn’t stop having power to heal, and actually when we take time for Sabbath, God’s healing is already happening for us: the healing of our broken relationship with time, our broken relationships with creation and with each other.   

God knew Sabbath would be difficult and possibly problematic: I think that’s why God made Sabbath a commandment.  Sabbath is the ultimate declaration of trust in God’s goodness—we’re taking one day to refuse to work and to refuse to make other people or animals work, because we trust that God will provide.  It’s simple but not easy.   

Why are we talking about Sabbath?  Not just because tomorrow is Labor Day, the unofficial end of summer and one day that everyone takes time off together to celebrate the work of those who labor.  Sabbath is mentioned in this week’s Gospel text, but you wouldn’t know it because that part got cut out.   

If you were reading along in the Bible, perhaps you noticed a big chunk of text missing: we read verse one from Luke’s 14^th chapter, then skipped ahead to verse seven.  What was in between?  It was a story of Jesus healing on the Sabbath, and I guess we skipped it because it was too similar to the story we read last week, about a woman bent over, and Jesus healed her on the Sabbath.   

Last week’s story was of a woman who had been bent over for 18 years, perhaps crippled by debt.  In the next story, Jesus heals a man with edema (some Scripture translations call this condition “dropsy”), which is a kind of swelling, and in ancient times, people would have associated this condition with gluttonous or luxurious living.¹  But Jesus doesn’t question how the man got this condition, doesn’t blame him or lecture him about the perils of luxurious living: he simply heals him, very purposefully on the Sabbath, setting him free from his sickness.   

And he does this in full view of the Pharisees, in the context of a Sabbath meal to which Jesus had been invited.  The Pharisees were the religious leaders, the scholars, the ones asking the good questions about God and how to be a faithful Jew and follow God’s law—they invited Jesus because they wanted to learn what he was up to.   

And Jesus wasn’t perhaps the kindest, most gracious guest—he notices how people jockey for position at the table, lacking humility, and starts telling parables to point out their rudeness.  Which might be rude for him to do since it wasn’t his table.   

As far as Scripture reports and any scholars can guess: Jesus, in his earthly lifetime, didn’t ever invite anyone to a banquet because he didn’t have a table because he didn’t ever own a house.  So, uh, what right does Jesus have to lecture any of us about table manners?   

Actually he might be the best and most qualified person to lecture about being a guest because he was only ever a guest.  He wasn’t caught up in the stress of hosting a meal; he was focused on the people around him.  And that may be a value worth noticing—are we paying attention to the humanity of the people around us, rather than establishing some kind of moral order or popularity contest or something?  Who do we think of as deserving of table fellowship?  Who do we think of as less-deserving?   

And the way we answer that question will tell us the degree to which we are removed from our own humanity—if we can think of several types of people we imagine ourselves to be better than, that’s how far away we are from humility and humanity.  If you can think to yourself, “at least I’m not”—and fill in the blank with some group of people—then those are the ones to pay attention to because they probably have something important to teach you.   

Jesus is still here for your healing too, whether you have a lot of earthly wealth or whether you have none.  Jesus is still here to set you free, no matter how much you have bound yourself to your ideals.  Jesus is still here to invite you to this table, because even if he didn’t own any table in his lifetime, this altar table is dedicated to him and Jesus Christ is the one who invites you. 

Amen.   

Pastor Cheryl

NOW the children can come forward.  I’m setting a timer for five minutes, so the adults can let their brains take a rest or maybe take some Sabbath time for themselves to consider what God wants them to notice today.  I don’t know what God wants them to notice, but now it’s time for the children to come forward.   

When the kids are gathered and seated on the blanket: God gave the gift of Sabbath.  When we tell this story in Godly Play, we look at the days of creation as the days that God gave all these good gifts—light, and the sun and moon that give us day and night and a way to mark time, rain and oceans, land and water, sea creatures and flying things, animals of all types as well as human beings, and finally, the great gift of Sabbath: a day to remember the good gifts of all the other days.   

In the Godly Play story, the Sabbath card is a blank space, because God gives the gift of space and time, and we fill it with whatever helps us to rest and be restored, to feel calm and deep joy.  Everyone goes to a different place to be restored.  Some people mark the day with worship and the sign of the cross, some people mark the day with two candles to remember God and the great gifts.   

So everyone take a card and a couple of markers, and I want you to think about what you want to do today to have fun and to say thank you to God for the good gifts of creation.   

I wonder where you go to remember creation and the good gifts.   

I wonder which part of Sabbath you like the best.   

I wonder what is the most important thing about the Sabbath day.   

I wonder what in the Sabbath day is especially for you.   

(I asked these wondering questions, and no one responded.  The kids were quietly coloring, which is the last thing I expected.  God is always at work, sometimes in the most surprising ways. –CWG)