So here’s the thing about God: God doesn’t come up with a list of rules for the fun of it. God is not a tyrant or task-master. He’s not some sort game-master dictating rules for his personal enjoyment.
God desires to be with us and to invite us to partner with Him in building His Kingdom on earth as it is in Heaven. God’s Kingdom isn’t about how well we tow the line and keep the law. God’s Kingdom is about freedom in Christ and living out the love and joy and peace of the Holy Spirit. God’s Kingdom is about producing good fruit and nourishing others with the fruit we produce.
So the Law isn’t really about the Law. The Law is intended to shepherd us in the right direction, to help us know how to love God and love people. And you might remember Jesus came to dwell among humankind in order to fulfill the Law? Jesus’ life gave us a physical example of what God meant when He inscribed those 2 stone tablets on Mount Sinai. And Jesus summed up the Law like this:
Love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence [and] love others as well as you love yourself.
Matthew 22:37-39 (MSG)
The way Jesus fulfilled the law looks a whole lot different than rigid rule-keeping. The way Jesus fulfilled the law – loving God and loving people – was by paying attention to the invisible people of society, noticing the neglected, bringing healing and wholeness anyone who knows they’re broken.
If we’re supposed to join Jesus in his Kingdom-building work and the law is fulfilled if we love God and love people, then maybe we ought to take an honest look at how we’re living. Let’s figure out why we’re doing what we’re doing. And if you’re feeling especially courageous, maybe you’ll be willing to join me in asking Jesus to show us where our efforts to obey God are actually getting in the way of building his Kingdom. Let’s ask:
What pious practices and religious habits do we maintain on the grounds of “good Christian living” but they may actually be preventing us from loving God and loving people?
One of God’s Top-Ten rules was to keep the Sabbath, right? But why? The practice of Sabbath-keeping is, according to Rolf Jacobson, at the heart of God’s justice and God’s generosity. So whenever our Sabbath-keeping (or any other spiritual habit) gets in the way of being generous or enacting God’s kind of justice, then something’s off. Living a pious and disciplined life (going to church every Sunday, reading your Bible, praying regularly)… that’s good, very good. But what about when (not if) our personal practices prevent us from loving God and loving people?
That’s just the question Jesus is asking in this story from Luke chapter 13:10-17. As we read this lectionary selection, we find ourselves at a Sabbath-day gathering in a local church where it was Jesus’ turn with the microphone. In the middle of his teaching, Jesus takes notice of a woman who was shockingly disfigured by something like arthritis. Her form was small and twisted in two after enduring this 18-year-long ailment.
For whatever reason, Jesus decides now is the time to stop everything and bring healing and wholeness to this one woman. Pausing mid-message, Jesus calls out to the woman and asks her to come over to him. Slowly and intentionally she obeys, weaving her wave through the crowded room. While she’s still moving towards him, trying to keep from bumping into anyone as she passes, Jesus proclaims (probably in a loud voice): “Woman, you are set free from your ailment!” A moment or two later as this woman stands bent over before Jesus, he “[lays] hands on her and suddenly she [is] standing straight and tall, giving glory to God.” (MSG)
This miraculous healing (in the middle of church for pete’s sake) gets the lead pastor super worked up. He snatches the microphone from Jesus and attempts to regain control of the room. “Listen to me, everyone. Y’all know there are six days defined as work days. You can come for healing on any of those days. But on this day – the seventh day – healing is forbidden. It’s Sabbath, people. I mean, come on! You know the law!” (My paraphrase of Luke 13:14.)
This is the teaching moment Jesus had been waiting for. Jesus shot back something to this effect:
“You frauds! Every Sabbath every one of you regularly unties your cow or donkey from its stall, leads it out for water, and thinks nothing of it. So why isn’t it all right for me to untie this daughter of Abraham and lead her from the stall where Satan has had her tied these eighteen years?”
Luke 13:15-16 (MSG)
Ouch. Red in the face and totally embarrassed, these church leaders and probably a lot of people sitting in the pews had forgotten the whole point of the Sabbath (and all of the Law for that matter). True Sabbath is about loving God and loving people. True Sabbath is about seeking the healing and wholeness of Jesus and then bringing that healing and wholeness to the 6 other days of the week. True Sabbath is about healing a woman and leading her and the whole crowd rejoicing at the wholeness she’s experiencing for the first time in nearly 2 decades. Forget the rules. It’s not about the rules. It’s about loving God and loving people.
So ask Jesus:
How are my practices taking precedence over loving God and loving people?
A few days ago Kevin and I were on our weekly breakfast date. While eating a few bites of hash browns off of his plate, I was telling him about the sermon I was planning and the questions I was going to pose. As I’m talking, Kevin gets this look on his face, the one he gets when I know he’s getting some instinct in his gut from the Holy Spirit, and he says, “You know what this means for me, right?” (I didn’t) “It means I think I’m supposed to join my co-workers service project on Sunday morning instead of being in church. When I heard my department was planning show concern and love for our community by cleaning up and repainting the bridge blight, I wanted to volunteer my time, but I didn’t think I could because it was during church.”
Based on the mini-sermon I had just preached to him, we both knew he needed to go, that his pious practice of being in church every Sunday morning at 10am was actually going to prevent him from loving God and loving people on this particular day.
So off he went to hang out with “sinners” and “work” on the Sabbath. Because Jesus was asking him to love God and love people in this way.
What about you? What is Jesus inviting you to do (or not do) for the sake of his Kingdom, for the sake of loving God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence [and] loving others as well as you love yourself?
