SERMON FOR AUGUST, 25, 2019     ELEVENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST     TEXT: LUKE 13:10-17
     We get a two-for in today’s Gospel, both what biblical scholars call a healing story and a pronouncement story, in this case about the sabbath. The Scriptures link sabbath rest to two different events: the creation and the Exodus. In the account of the Ten Commandments from Exodus 20 we read: “Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But 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. For 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” (Exodus 20:8-11). The account from the Book of Deuteronomy is different: “Observe the sabbath day and keep it holy, as the Lord your God commanded you. Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work — you or your son or your daughter, or your male or female slave, or your ox or your donkey, or any of your livestock, or the resident alien in your towns, so that your male and female slave may rest as well as you. Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm; therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the sabbath day” (Deuteronomy 5:12-15). 
     Jesus is not dismissing Jewish law and practice out of hand; he is, after all, teaching in a synagogue on the sabbath. He respects the tradition even as he comes into conflict with the unnamed religious leader. The argument he makes for his action is a standard of rabbinic interpretation: arguing from the lesser case to the greater. Jesus points out that the people gathered to observe sabbath rest will nonetheless make the effort required to get water for their oxen and donkeys that day. Technically this is work, but it is a matter of life and death for the animals, and so it is permitted. If you would take such action to preserve them, would you not also attend to the need in the greater case, that of a member of one’s community?
     There were active debates about sabbath observance in Jesus’ day. At the time of the Maccabean revolt in the 2nd century B.C., hundreds of Jews refused to violate the sabbath in order to defend themselves. As a result of this tragedy, the community concluded that sabbath laws could be broken in order to preserve life. The implications of that were still being worked out. Interpreters of this story see Jesus defending a viable position along the spectrum of sabbath observance, one that allowed for exceptions, whereas the leader of the synagogue is a strict constructionist. “You shall not do any work” means exactly what it says. The woman has endured this condition for eighteen years; why not respect the sabbath and wait one more day to do the “work” of healing? 
     Jesus’ critic comes across as a jerk, but his concern is real. I grew up with blue laws, as I expect many of you did. At first all the stores were closed on Sundays. There were no Little League games or dance competitions, and no way you’d be propping up a bar stool when you were supposed to be warming a pew! Then some kinds of stores started opening for limited hours on the sabbath, and they could only sell certain items. I remember going into Leader Drugs with my mom on the way home from church, and while she picked up the needed medication, I peeked under the sheets that covered up the forbidden stock throughout the store. Then more products made the sabbath cut, until finally nothing was verboten. And all the stores were open. People missed church because they had to work retail or take their children to sporting events, where the penalties for missing a game were significant. That’s the kind of slippery slope into a mudslide that the leader of the synagogue likely feared. Once you start making exceptions for this reason or that, pretty soon no one is really keeping the Sabbath, and it loses its meaning. As one critic points out, “The whole law is like that — keep making exceptions and it’s not really a law anymore; it’s more like a guideline, with no real power to protect and preserve us.” But too rigid an interpretation of a law intended to be life-giving, as the sabbath commandment surely was for Jesus’s community, can result in unhealthy legalism.
     Jesus proposes a more liberal understanding; not that one can blow through the sabbath restrictions willy nilly, but that they are not of ultimate importance in every circumstance. The sabbath is not an automatic trump card.The rest God commands for that day is to promote the wellbeing of the people. After the demands of six days of work, it is intended to be healing. So, one could argue that by making whole a woman worn down by contending with a crippling disfigurement, Jesus has fulfilled the spirit of the sabbath law by violating its letter. 
     Another interpretation of the story suggests that Jesus is thinking of the sabbath from the perspective of the exodus, rather than that of creation. Then it is a reflection of the God who brought the enslaved Israelites out of Egypt, rather than the God who “blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all the work that he had done in creation” (Genesis 2:3).  The Lord’s Day reflects the One who freed the people “with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm”; it is about liberation. Remember how Jesus began his ministry in Luke’s gospel? He goes to the synagogue in Nazareth on the sabbath; he stands up to read and is given the scroll of the prophet Isaiah. There he finds and reads this passage: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” (Luke 4:16-19). It is no wonder that Jesus now demands, “And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen long years, be set free from this bondage on the sabbath day?” The response from the crowd at the synagogue is a resounding “Yes.”
     What about the healing itself? The woman does not solicit Jesus’ help. He spies her in the gathering; he calls her over and lays his hands upon her. She is simply made straight. Indeed the exchange about sabbath observance between the leader of the synagogue and Jesus comes after the fact, when, at least in this case, it is a moot point. The healing is a sign through which Jesus reveals the power of God; it allows him to make his point about God’s reign of mercy, God’s care for our wellbeing. Or perhaps we should flip that lens around and regard the dispute about God’s will for the sabbath as the consequence Jesus is willing to take on because of his main concern, freeing this crippled woman from her bondage to Satan. 
     This description is unsettling to contemporary ears. I want to share this thoughtful reflection from the New Testament scholar Ira Brent Driggerson regarding the issue of satanic bondage: “Luke and the other evangelists emphasize Jesus’ power to heal physical brokenness because they are convinced that God created everything and called it “good,” meaning Jesus’ saving mission is not some spiritual deliverance of the soul out of the body but a healing of the entire person. In the case of the bent-over woman, Luke goes so far as to call her condition a form of Satanic bondage, which is an ancient apocalyptic way of saying her condition violates God’s will for her life (and is not her own fault!). To be clear, she is not demon-possessed. But, according to the Lukan Jesus, she is tragically broken.” Moreover, the woman’s bent-over condition had not compromised the validity of her worship, much less the worth of her personhood, in any way.
     Illness and injury, trauma, violence and despair — they leave their mark; they change our lives. The effects can be fierce and far-reaching, readily apparent or barely discernible. Each of us knows what in particular weighs us down, what cripples us. Let us ask Jesus to free and heal us, so that we might live our best possible life in these fragile bodies in this broken world. Amen.