Stand tall-sermon Aug. 26, 2007

Sermon-C Proper 16 –Aug.12-07
The Cloud of Unknowing, "O God, our great companion, lead us ever more deeply into the mystery of your life and ours, that we may be faithful interpreters of Life to each other, through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen."
“Mike Yakonelli the founder Youth Specialties and a much sought after speaker for many years in churches all over America, tells a story how a woman in his congregation who was not used to "how we do things" in church, raised her hand to ask him a question in the middle of his sermon. The point he had just made was unclear to her.”
I don’t know how many of you struggle with something in your life-physical, spiritual, emotional-I know very few people who don’t-so we should all understand how this woman feels. Deborah and I were sitting over dinner, talking about this gospel and how hard it is to be released from things. We carry around so many things that bend us over. This woman, in this morning’s gospel, had “a spirit that had crippled her for eighteen years. She was bent over and was quite unable to stand up straight…” 18 years, can you imagine? 18 years of increasingly being bent over. Something that makes you smaller, more weighed down, less able to stand up. Something that cripples you, shackles you, binds you? Can you imagine going through that kind of pain and discomfort? That much distress and disfigurement? I can imagine it. I know a lot of people that have carried around their pain, their hurt for a lot longer than that.
I was asking Deborah, I wonder what that kind of release, that kind of freedom felt like-to be so crippled by a spirit for that long, whatever it is-and then suddenly to be free. What does that freedom, that relief feel like?
I’ve been repeating over and over this summer that Jesus set his face towards Jerusalem. He’s very focused now, very goal oriented. And he goes into the synagogue to teach on the Sabbath. What do you think he is saying?
In Jewish Law there are 39 categories of activity Or "melachot" (m'-LUH-khuh) that are prohibited on the Sabbath-the Day of Rest:
1. Sowing
Plowing
Reaping
Binding sheaves
Threshing
Winnowing
Selecting
These are categories of activities of work which you are not supposed to d on the sabbath and over the centuries they have been greatly expanded. Number 27 is tieing. No. 28 is untieing. You’re not supposed to untie some thing (it is considered work) on the Sabbath. We don’t get Jesus’ pun here. The leader of the synagogue chastizes Jesus for doing work on the sabbath, and Jesus angrily replies,
Does not each of you on the sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger, and lead it away to give it water?
13:16 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 word that Jesus uses for “be set free” comes from the same root word for , untieing the donkey or ox. In other words, you can untie your animals, but not your people.
And it says, everyone rejoiced. One because Jesus healed this long suffering woman, and two, because the religious leader, someone who was the pronouncer of the rules, was put in his place. It’s easy to cheer against religious leaders, I know. But don’t miss the bigger picture. Who was really tied up in this story? The woman was set free, the religious leader was bound up. For her, it was the body that was crippled-for the leader-it was his soul. Let me give you some more Judaism.
This from a preacher online: There are different explanations/interpretations in Exodus and Deuteronomy about the Sabbath commandment. Exodus says:
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--…. 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.
Here it is tied to God's rest on the seventh day of creation.
Deuteronomy says:
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…. 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.
Here remembering the Sabbath is tied to liberation from slavery.
Jesus fulfilled the law from Deuteronomy (not from Exodus)-he released the enslaved. He didn’t ask the woman if she wanted to be healed, she didn’t profess any faith in Jesus. I’ve always wondered, “what was Jesus teaching that day in the synagogue-what was he teaching on the sabbath?” Was he teaching about healing? About freedom? About release? Was he teaching about Deuteronomy?
You know what I think? I think he was teaching about the Kingdom of God. I think he was telling the people that in the Kingdom come, people could be free and healed-no matter how long they carried around their affliction, no matter how overwhelming their pain, their guilt. I think he was telling folks that no matter what the rules were, that a day was coming when people could be free from the past, that a day was coming when the hurt and grief and guilt and sorrow and illnesses and traumas of the past would be untied. I think Jesus was saying that in the future Kingdom of God, the only afflictions that would bend us over and cripple us would be the ones WE chose to hold on to. And then he untied this bent over woman from her 18 year affliction, but he couldn’t unbend this leader of the synagogue.
Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem. He stops in the local synagogue to teach. And while he’s there, he frees one person, but not another. I think this is a story about two people-the bent over woman, and the synagogue leader. I think this story is about us. Who do we want to be? Are we the ones who hold on to our afflictions, our crippledness-or are we the ones set free? Jesus is going to Jerusalem. He’s on a mission. I think Jesus is trying to set people free as he journeys. Sometimes, I think, we don’t want to be fee from our burdens. But sometimes, sometimes, we come to church on the sabbath, and we hear the gospel message of freedom and release, and we stand up straight, unbound, let loose-and all the people rejoice with us.
Luke 13:10-17
13:10 Now he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the sabbath.
13:11 And just then there appeared a woman with a spirit that had crippled her for eighteen years. She was bent over and was quite unable to stand up straight.
13:12 When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, "Woman, you are set free from your ailment."
13:13 When he laid his hands on her, immediately she stood up straight and began praising God.
13:14 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."
13:15 But the Lord answered him and said, "You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger, and lead it away to give it water?
13:16 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?"
13:17 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.
From Wikipedia
Jewish law prohibits doing any form of melachah ("work", plural "melachot") on Shabbat. Melachah does not closely correspond to the English definition of the term "work", nor does it correspond to the definition of the term as used in physics.
Different denominations view the prohibition on work in different ways. Observant Orthodox and Conservative Jews do not perform the 39 categories of activity prohibited by Mishnah Tractate Shabbat 7:2 in the Talmud. These categories are exegetically derived - based on juxtaposition of corresponding Biblical passages - from the kinds of work that were necessary for the construction of the Tabernacle. Many religious scholars have pointed out that these labors have in common activity that is "creative," or that exercises control or dominion over one's environment. The 39 categories are:
Sowing
Plowing
Reaping
Binding sheaves
Threshing
Winnowing
Selecting
Grinding
Sifting
Kneading
Baking
Shearing wool
Washing wool
Beating wool
Dyeing wool
Spinning
Weaving
Making two loops
Weaving two threads
Separating two threads
Tying
Untying
Sewing stitches
Tearing
Trapping
Slaughtering
Flaying
Tanning
Scraping hide
Marking hides
Cutting hide to shape
Writing two or more letters
Erasing two or more letters
Building
Demolishing
Extinguishing a fire
Kindling a fire
Putting the finishing touch on an object
Transporting an object between a private domain and the public domain, or for a distance of 4 cubits within the public domain
Each melachah has derived prohibitions of various kinds. There are, therefore, many more forbidden activities on the Shabbat; all are traced back to one of the 39 above principal melachot. Direct derivatives (toledoth) have the same legal severity as the original melachah (although there are marginal differences); examples are the related activities of cooking, baking, roasting and poaching, all of which fall under "baking." Indirect derivatives instituted by the rabbis are termed shevuth and are much less severe in legal terms (e.g. they were not punished with stoning when this punishment was still in force).
Given the above, the 39 melachot are not so much activities as "categories of activity." For example, while "winnowing" (category 6, above) usually refers exclusively to the separation of chaff from grain, and "selecting" (category 7, above) refers exclusively to the separation of debris from grain, they refer in the Talmudic sense to any separation of intermixed materials which renders edible that which was inedible. Thus, filtering undrinkable water to make it drinkable falls under this category, as does picking small bones from fish. (Gefilte fish is a traditional Ashkenazi solution to this problem.)
Another example is the prohibition (according to Orthodox and some Conservative rabbinic authorities) against turning electric devices on or off, which is derived from one of the "39 categories of work (melachot)". However, the authorities are not in agreement about exactly which category (or categories) this would fall under. One view is that tiny sparks are created in a switch when the circuit is closed, and this would constitute "lighting a fire" (category 37). If the appliance is one whose purpose is for light or heat (such as an incandescent lightbulb or electric oven) then the lighting or heating elements may be considered as a type of fire; if so, then turning them on constitutes both "lighting a fire" (category 37) and "cooking" (a form of baking, category 11), and turning them off would be "extinguishing a fire" (category 36). Another view is that a device which is plugged into an electrical outlet of a wall becomes part of the building, but is nonfunctional while the switch is off; turning it on would then constitute "building" and turning it off would be "demolishing" (categories 35 and 34). Some schools of thought consider the use of electricity to be forbidden only by rabbinic injunction, rather than because it violates of one of the original categories. A common solution to the problem of electricity involves pre-set timers for electric appliances, to turn them on and off automatically, with no human intervention on Shabbat itself.
[edit] Extenuating circumstances
In the event that a human life is in danger (pikuach nefesh), a Jew is not only allowed, but required, to violate any Shabbat law that stands in the way of saving that person. (In fact, any law in all of Judaism - excluding certain prohibited actions: murder, idolatry, and various sexual relations and acts such as incest and rape - is to be broken if doing so is necessary to help someone who is in grave danger.) Lesser, rabbinic restrictions are often violated under much less urgent circumstances, e.g. a patient who is ill but not critically so.
Various other legal principles closely delineate which activities constitute desecration of the Shabbat. Examples of these include the principle of shinui ("change" or "deviation") - a severe violation becomes a non-severe one if the prohibited act was performed in a way that would be considered abnormal on a weekday. Examples include writing with one's non-dominant hand (according to many rabbinic authorities). This legal principle operates bedi'avad (ex post facto) and does not cause a forbidden activity to be permitted barring extenuating circumstances.