Sunday - 08/25/13 RWJ/Pottersville
UMC
Sermon: “But it’s my
day off!”
Scripture Lesson: Jeremiah 1:4-10
Gospel Lesson: Luke 13:10-17
Welcome and greetings in the name of
the risen Christ, on this Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost! That day so long
ago, that church was born, and the Holy Spirit flowed powerfully through the
early Christians. The day we boldly went forth and preached the Gospel of Jesus
Christ far and wide.
In looking at today’s message though,
I want to talk you this morning about our coveted “time off” that we all look
forward to. You know that cruise, that exotic vacation, the old fishing hole.
Even we pastors look forward to a day off or some time away. In fact, an older
pastor friend of mine recently bought a nice boat to go out on the lake with
his family and friends. He had always wanted a boat, and now that he is nearing
retirement, he was finally able to afford this boat. This pastor and I were
recently serving in a pastoral role together on a retreat weekend, and he
talked about his excitement over his new boat. A few of the guys that were at
this retreat weekend then asked, what is the name of your boat? Well before the
pastor could answer, I piped up and said, “his boat is named Visitation!” This
pastor then looked at me like “huh.” Well for the rest of that retreat weekend,
when someone was trying to track that pastor down, and they couldn’t find him,
I would just tell them, “I know where the pastor is, he’s on Visitation.”
So taking that time away from it all,
this Sabbath day, this day of rest that even God took after making the earth.
In the Gospels Jesus would often retreat to the dessert to rest, after extended
periods of teaching, healing, and ministering. Given this then, certainly we
should take the Christian Sabbath of Sunday seriously right? I mean isn’t today
the “Lord’s Day?” This means today, no work at all, and the whole family gets together
for dinner right?
Well wait a second though, doesn’t mom
cook the dinner? Well she certainly can’t cook it today then, because that will
be work. No she must have cooked dinner last night. Well come to think of it
then, do the kids do the dishes after dinner tomorrow, because today is the
Sabbath? No they do the dishes tonight. Well what about the lawn, the grass
looks light it is ready for a brush hog to cut it? Well I guess that dad will
have to wait until tomorrow, when the Sabbath is over.
You see, in the Jewish faith, the Sabbath, of when the Sun goes down of
Friday night until it goes down on Saturday night, means no work. This is so
strict that even in conservative Jewish communities today you cannot drive, cook,
or do any work on the Sabbath. You can do some things like worship in the Synagogue,
pray, eat, and etc., but nothing intense or to physical on this day.
What if though, a friend’s car was
broke down on the side of the road today? What if they called you franticly,
and told you that there car was on fire? What if you then said, “Well John I
would like to help you, but its Sunday, the Lord’s Day. Don’t you know
Christians don’t work on the Lord’s Day John?”
Quite a predicament isn’t it. Jesus our Lord said in the Gospel according
to Matthew
12:11-12 “Which one of
you who has a sheep, if it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will not take hold
of it and lift it out? Of how much more value is a man than a sheep! So it is
lawful to do good on the Sabbath.” This is what Jesus says. Yet, in the Jewish
tradition you are not supposed to work on the Sabbath, or do anything physical for
that matter. On our Lord’s Day or Sunday, all the stores used to be closed, no
business occurred, and it was a quite restful Sabbath day. If we were called on
such an emergency on a Sunday on the Lord’s Day though, such as “John” who I
mentioned, we would most certainly help them wouldn’t we? Or would we make them
wait until the day had ended? Until the Sabbath was over.
What did Jesus have to say about what
the Sabbath is? How did he become “Lord of the Sabbath?” Well let’s look at our
scripture this morning, first from the Prophet Jeremiah. In this scripture the prophet
Jeremiah spoke about the power of God. The prophet Jeremiah said, “Now the word
of the Lord came to me saying, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and
before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.”
Jeremiah then continued, “Then I said, “Ah, Lord God! Truly I do not know how
to speak, for I am only a boy. But the Lord said to me, “Do not say, ‘I am only
a boy’; for you shall go to all to whom I send you, and you shall speak
whatever I command you, Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you to deliver
you, says the Lord.” So whatever the Lord tells Jeremiah, Jeremiah will do, for
the Lord has given him the words and authority to do so. Jeremiah then went on
to say, “Then the Lord put out his hand and touched my mouth; and the Lord said
to me, “Now I have put my words in your mouth. See, today I appoint you over
the nations and over kingdoms, to pluck up and to pull down, to destroy and to
overthrow, to build and to plant.”
Well, if I was the prophet Jeremiah,
I would say “wow that is quite a lot of authority the Lord has just given me.”
Given this power, this truth, and this authority, and given the loving nature
of the Lord, would God want me to let someone suffer, if I can help them,
Jeremiah might have asked? Does God not allow me to serve Him on the Sabbath,
Jeremiah could have asked, as well?
When
looking at our Gospel of Luke reading for this morning, Jesus Christ had a similar
situation occur. You see Jesus was working on the Sabbath. Well any good Jew
knows that you don’t work on the Sabbath. Here is what the Gospel reading from
this morning says speaking of Jesus, “Now he was teaching in one of the
synagogues on the Sabbath. And just then there appeared a women with a spirit
that had crippled her for eighteen years. She was bent over and was quite unable
to stand up straight. When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, “Woman,
you are set free from your ailment.”
You’ll
notice that Jesus did not say, “Woman, it is the Sabbath, perhaps tomorrow when
the Sabbath is over I can help you.” The Gospel then goes on to say, “When he
laid his hands on her, immediately she stood up straight and began praising
God. But the leader of the Synagogue, indignant because 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 and be cured, and not on the Sabbath day.” I can image that
leader of the Synagogue saying the woman who was suffering, “But it’s my day off!”
“I can’t cure today he might say,” after all he might need to go fishing on his
boat, Visitation, in the Sea of Galilee.
Jesus then
responded to the Pharisee, “You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the Sabbath
untie his ox or donkey form the manger, and lead it away to give it water? And
ought not this woman, a daughter Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen long
years, be set free from this bondage on the Sabbath day?” The Gospel reading
from this morning concludes by saying, “When he said this, all his opponents
were put to shame; and the entire crowd was rejoicing at all the wonderful
things that he was doing.”
So what’s the point of all this, you might
be asking? Does this mean that we should never take a day off? That we should
never take a vacation? No of course not, but it does mean that while our
Sabbath days of rest are important, we can still serve, heal, and help if it is
something that needs immediate attention. I am sure you can think of days off
that you have had, where an emergency occurred, and you had to break your
Sabbath. You see we serve a Lord who took a Sabbath, but broke it when it needed
to be broken. For he was and still is the “Lord of the Sabbath!”
I would like to close this morning with a story. This is story was listed
as author unknown, and is called “bruised apples.” Here is how it goes: “A few years ago a group
of salesmen went to a regional sales convention in Chicago. They had assured
their wives that they would be home in plenty of time for Friday night’s
dinner. Well, as such things go, one thing led to another. The sales meeting
lasted longer than anticipated.
Their flights were
scheduled to leave out of Chicago’s O’Hare Airport, and they had to race to the
airport. With tickets in hand, they barged through the terminal to catch their
flight back home. In their rush, with tickets and briefcases, one of these
salesmen inadvertently kicked over a table, which held a display of baskets of
apples. Apples flew everywhere.
Without stopping or looking back, they all
managed to reach the plane in time for their nearly missed boarding, all but
one. He paused, took a deep breath and experienced a twinge of compassion for
the girl whose apple stand had been overturned. He told his buddies to go on
without him and told one of them to call his wife when they arrived at their
home destination and explain his taking a later flight.
Then he returned to the
terminal where the apples were all over the floor. He was glad he did. The
16-year-old girl at the apple stand was totally blind! She was softly crying,
tears running down her cheeks in frustration, and at the same time helplessly
groping for her spilled produce as the crowd swirled about her, no one stopping
or to care for her plight.
The salesman knelt on the
floor with her, gathered up the apples, put them into the baskets, and helped
set the display up once more. As he did this, he noticed that many of them had
become battered and bruised; these he set aside in another basket. When he had
finished, he pulled out his wallet and said to the girl, “Here, please take
this $20 for the damage we did. Are you okay?” She nodded through her tears. He
continued on with, “I hope we didn’t spoil your day too badly.” As the salesman
started to walk away, the bewildered blind girl called out to him, “Mister….”
He paused and turned to look back into those blind eyes. She continued, “Are
you Jesus?” He stopped in mid-stride, and he wondered. Then slowly he made his
way to catch the later flight with that question burning and bouncing about in
his soul: “Are you Jesus?” Do people mistake you for Jesus? That’s our destiny,
is it not? To be so much like Jesus that people cannot tell the difference as we
live and interact with a world that is blind to His love, life and grace. If we
claim to know Him, we should live, walk and act as He would. Knowing Him is
more than simply quoting Scripture and going to church. It’s actually living
the Word as life unfolds day to day.
This means that when it’s
needed, when it’s necessary, maybe we shouldn’t say, “But it’s my day off!”
Maybe we should take the example of Christ, who was the Lord of Sabbath. The
one who would come back, and who would help the blind girl. Or perhaps the salesman
could have just told the blind girl, “I can’t help you, because it’s my day
off!” This week, take your time to rest, but in that rest be ready to serve if
needed, for our Lord taught us that is Sabbath is important, but serving the
Lord is above everything else. Amen.
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