To Hell With the Rules

Luke 13:10-17

Now [Jesus] was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath. 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. When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, “Woman, you are set free from your ailment.” And when he laid his hands on her, immediately she stood up 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.”

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? 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?” 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.

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I have a new plan for our High School Sunday School this year, which is kind of an extension of what we did last year. Last year, we learned about “Things They Never Taught Me in High School,” so we changed a tire, we tied neck ties, we talked about budgeting our money and managing our time, we tied bows for wrapping gifts and I did my best to connect all of those things to Bible stories, studies and devotions to bring “life and faith together” as we say.

This year’s theme is going to be “Things They Never Taught Me in Sunday School,” and I hope to take some Bible stories to the next level for our young people; to talk with and teach them about the deeper, more grown-up – sometimes even R-rated – meanings behind stories from Scripture that aren’t always appropriate for elementary kids in Sunday School or VBS. We’ll talk about David and Bathsheba differently, and Sodom and Gomorrah, and the Ethiopian Eunuch, too. And we’ll do more with Creation and the Tower of Babel and David and Goliath, too, than even most grown-ups are used to hearing about those stories.

And I’ll keep it PG for worship this morning, but I want to talk about this morning’s miracle differently than we’re used to, too. Of course, so many people, for so many generations, have been drawn to the miracle of this broken woman being made well. Like so many other healing miracles, we are drawn to the magic of what Jesus does for the woman who’d been sick and crippled for so long. And that’s great – and a good and holy thing, for sure. But that healing is only a small part of the story. And not really the point of it all, in the end.

And I believe that’s the case with most – if not all – of Jesus’ miracles, actually. They are less about the hocus pocus, abracadabra of it all than they are about telling a better story… teaching a larger lesson … proclaiming a wider mercy, love, and grace not just because of what Jesus does in those magical moments – but because of how and why and when and where and for whom, in most cases, God does what God does through Jesus.

Think about some of the other miracles of Jesus with me for a minute. We can start right at the beginning, with the virgin birth, for example. The most impressive thing about all of that – the greatest lesson, for my money, isn’t so much about an immaculate conception. The hope of Mary’s motherhood, no matter how it came to be, is about a young woman who had faith enough to say “yes” to God. The power of that story comes from the notion that God would use a poor young girl to do an amazing thing for the sake of the world. It’s about casting the mighty down from their thrones – by way of a poor peasant girl and helpless baby boy – and uplifting the humble in heart.

And think about the miracle of Jesus turning water into wine, at that wedding in Cana. It could have been milk or honey, Pepsi or Bud Light … the substance of it didn’t matter so much. The point was – the lesson to be learned, the good news to be shared – was that there is more than enough to go around and that God always saves the best for last. (So no. I guess it couldn’t have been Bud Light, after all. That stuff is terrible.)

Or what about the miracle of the guy who was born blind but who Jesus helped see again? His friends and neighbors thought he had been born blind because of something he or his parents did to make him deserve that hardship. So when Jesus restores his sight, it wasn’t about the miracle of Lasik surgery in the 1st Century. It was about showing that God doesn’t punish us with sickness or disability. It was about showing, perhaps that, even if you believed his blindness was the result of some sin, God could and would and does delight in undoing that through the power of forgiveness; and that God will go to great lengths to restore someone to their community.

When Jesus walked on water, he wasn’t proposing a new Olympic sport, he was showing us something about faith. When he calmed the storm, he wasn’t concerned about the weather, he was revealing the power of God’s peace in the presence of our fear. When he cleansed the leper it wasn’t about better skin-care it was about God’s love for the outcast and the outsider among us.

Do you see what I mean? As much as we love a good miracle story, the magic of it is rarely the point. And today’s episode, in the synagogue is no different.

It’s great that this woman who’d been hunched over, crippled, for nearly two decades was “up-and-at ‘em” again without the help of a chiropractor, don’t get me wrong. But in light of what we know about the kind of things Jesus can do, this isn’t the most impressive thing about that day. What we’re supposed to pay attention to – what matters most about all of this in the first place – is that it happened on the Sabbath. The Lord’s day. The established day of rest and for worship.

What I mean is, it wouldn’t have meant as much – this story wouldn’t have made the news – had the woman done what the leader of the synagogue suggested and come back for her healing the next day, right? It would have been great. It would have been no less miraculous had Jesus commanded this woman to stand up for the first time in 18 years on a Tuesday. But, again, the miracle – the healing, itself – is barely the point.

So, miracle, schmiracle. Our faith can’t be just about the miracle or else all we’re left with is the hopeless reality that we can’t do what Jesus does and that Jesus doesn’t do what he can for everyone, in every way we would like. So there must be something more than the miracle here.

And the “more” … Jesus’ greater point and larger purpose … is to heal and to comfort and to share love and offer grace at all costs. In excess of every expectation. At the expense of every rule. Breaking the rule about working or healing or whatever on the Sabbath is Jesus’ larger mission – and our greatest hope – this time around.

The point is that the only rule that matters to Jesus is the one about loving God and loving our neighbor and living in any way and every way possible that brings that love to bear upon the world – so to Hell with the rules. Literally. To Hell with the rules. Let the rules – and laws and limited expectations of those in power – be banished to the outer darkness. Let those rules be subject to whatever weeping and gnashing of teeth it takes to dismember them.

Which is something I can sink my own teeth into and something I can wrap my brain around. That’s something each of us can do something about, too – breaking the rules, I mean – that keep God’s love from being shared in as many ways, with as many people as we can manage.

When someone tells you you can’t or shouldn’t love someone because…

When your own score-keeping, rule-abiding heart tells you you shouldn’t forgive someone because or unless or until they…

When your own fear tries to convince you you shouldn’t be that generous…

When society tells you you shouldn’t extend mercy because…

When your own history and experience tell you you should or shouldn’t, or can or can’t because “that’s not the way you’ve ever done it before”…

In the face of whatever rules or expectations that threaten to limit what God can accomplish by grace – for you and through you – Jesus gets up in the synagogue on the Sabbath day and breaks the rules. He breaks the law so that we can see just how brave and bold and beyond reason God’s love means to be. And how beyond the rules we are called to be, just the same.

Because we can’t heal every disease, but we can love one another through the sickness and struggle and sadness of them all – and that’s a miracle.

We can’t change the weather, but we can trust God’s presence, and we can be the presence of God for someone, when the storms of life in this world show up – and that can be magical.

We can’t undo every sin, or change every sinner, but we can accept and offer forgiveness – and that’s nothing to sneeze at.

We can’t walk on water, but we can extend a hand to an outcast or an outsider and welcome them in – and that will work wonders in the lives of God’s people.

Because the greatest miracle of all – Jesus’ resurrection from the dead – shows just how far God is willing to go to break every rule for our sake. And the miracle of that isn’t just something we wait for on the other side of heaven. In a world full of so many rules, too much fear, and so much sadness – all of which try to convince us otherwise – we are set free from all sorts of bondage, like the woman in today’s Gospel, to live in the miracle that is new life and second chances and amazing grace, every day, for all people, in Jesus’ name.

Amen

Both-And Church, Either-Or World

Luke 12:49-56

"I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and what stress I am under until it is completed! Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division! From now on five in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three; they will be divided: father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law."

He also said to the crowds, "When you see a cloud rising in the west, you immediately say, 'It is going to rain'; and so it happens. And when you see the south wind blowing, you say, 'There will be scorching heat'; and it happens. You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time?

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Last week, if you were here, we had a little laugh with that clip from “Will and Grace” – of Jack refusing to see the real, live Cher as anything more than a drag queen, wannabe, impersonator until she sings for him, slaps him across the face and tells him to snap out of it. Then he finally gets it. Then, he sees the light and recognizes her for who she really is.

Today, Jesus’ words feel like a slap across the face and an invitation to snap out of it and pay attention a little differently to who Jesus is.

“You hypocrites! You can interpret the signs of the earth and the sky but why do you not know how to interpret the present time?” “You say it’s going to rain and it does.” “You say it’s going to be hot and it happens.”

He could say the same to us. “You know so many things. You have learned and understand so much. You can predict the rain DAYS, if not WEEKS, in advance. You have technology in your homes to manage the scorching heat and the bitter cold when it comes. You have a telescope that just spotted two galaxies 60 million light-years away and your scientists have predicted that their gravity is pulling them together so that they will be one galaxy in something like 500 million years.”

“You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky but why do you not know how to interpret the present time?”

And our present time is marked by the kind of “division” Jesus seems to speak of and warn about, isn’t it? How often do we talk about the notion – and the reality – of the political division in our country right now? We’re divided by party and presidential preference. We’re divided on issues and ideas about guns and abortion, immigration and civil rights, climate and the economy. We’re divided about what we believe the facts and the truth of the matters at hand to be, even. And it seems like our disagreements have devolved into a next-level sort of division that might have surprised even Jesus.

It’s so bad that extremists storm the Capitol, radicals attack FBI buildings, and that “#civilwar” was trending on Twitter this week. And that’s just in our little corner of the world.

And it’s not just politics, of course. So much of that plays itself out in the Church, too. Our friends in the United Methodist Church are divided and divvying things up, as we speak, over human sexuality – much like we ELCA Lutherans did a dozen or so years ago. Fundamentalist – so called “evangelical” – Christians draw lines in the sand about who’s in and who’s out, who’s welcome and who’s not. Christian nationalists wrap all of it up in the same bag or flag, as it were – their politics and their myopic, self-interested understanding of Jesus, I mean.

It’s frustrating and sad and scary to me. And it’s why Jesus’ words today feel like a slap in the face and an invitation to snap out of it – this division that threatens to consume us.

And, while Jesus doesn’t spell out the answer for the intricacies of our particular struggles with everything that divides us these days … while he seems to indicate that that might even be part of the plan … he points to something bigger that means to cover the multitude of our sins in that regard: his own baptism, and ours, if we’ll let it.

But, when Jesus says, this morning, that he has yet to be baptized with the baptism for which he showed up, it matters that he’s already been to the river. And the people listening to him would have known that. He was baptized by John way back in chapter 3 of Luke’s Gospel, remember, with the water and the dove and with God’s declaration that he was the beloved Son, and all the rest.

So it’s worth noticing here, nine chapters and however many days and weeks later, that when Jesus talks about “the baptism” for which he has come and “the baptism” for which he is being made ready; and when he tells of the stress he’s under until that “baptism” is complete, he’s talking about the “baptism” of his death on the cross. He’s talking about the crucifixion he knows is coming. He’s talking about whips and thorns and blood and tears. He’s talking about abandonment and loneliness and betrayal and the dying that follows it all.

He’s pointing to the one event in all of human history that is meant to supersede, cover, mend and undo all that divides us and that pretends to separate us – from each other and that some pretend will separate us from the love of God, too. That one event is the fulfillment of his baptismal call and promise as the Son of God – his death on the cross and his resurrection to new life in spite of it.

And he’s pointing to the notion that the good news of this for those of us who follow him, is that our lives are to be influenced by the fullness of this kind of grace and mercy, so that we are moved toward a different kind of life in this world that transcends all of the divisions that otherwise threaten us and keep us apart on this side of heaven.

And I happen to believe that our unique understanding and expression of grace – as ELCA Lutherans when we get it right, anyway – sets us up to live differently in this divided world.

I once heard someone describe ours as a “Both-And” church in an “Either-Or” world. The ELCA is a “Both-And” church, in an “Either-Or” world. And I like that. Because in all the ways that make some others want to distance themselves from us – all the divisive things we do when it comes to extending grace with no strings attached like opening the communion table to anyone and everyone, like ordaining women, like loving and affirming LGBTQ+ children of God because of who they are, not in spite of it, like seeking “social justice” as the work of Jesus, not as some sort of political four-letter-word) – when we do those things, we’re really just a church relentlessly, vulnerably, humbly sharing grace in ways that make room for everyone to come together under the banner of God’s love and forgiveness; under the promise of Christ’s death and resurrection for the sake of the whole wide world – as God intends.

And my faith tells me that none of the divisions that separate us now will last forever because the Jesus we proclaim is a BOTH-AND savior for an EITHER-OR world, too. And if we can believe that, own that, and live like that’s true, it may separate us from others who don’t want to play along, but we’re promised that none of these divisions have to last forever. And, in the meantime, we can trust and hope and maybe see for ourselves that God can do amazing things through what otherwise looks like division.

I decided that maybe the division Jesus is talking about doesn’t have to be as scary as it sounds, if we consider some of what Scripture has to show us:

-In the Old Testament, rocks are split open – divided – to give up life-saving water to those wandering around thirsty in the desert…

-The Red Sea was separated – divided – so that the Israelites could escape to freedom on dry ground…

-The earth shook and was divided so that Saints could be raised from the dead…

-And, at his baptism in the river, the very heavens were divided – ripped open and torn apart – so that the Spirit of God could descend upon Jesus and declare him to be God’s beloved.

These images of division and separation show us something new and honest and holy about it all: Division can quench a thirst, with God’s help… Separation can lead to freedom, when God is involved… Tearing apart can make room for the Spirit of God… And brokenness can lead to healing and new life.

In other words, the very things that divide us too much of the time – and for very good reason – are precisely the reasons why, I think, God calls us to be together in spite of ourselves. I think the moments when we gather for communion or touch the shared waters of our baptism – or even pour coffee for, or pass a donut, or serve others, together, in spite of our differences – in those moments, God is doing for us something we might otherwise refuse or avoid doing for ourselves.

So let’s not be so afraid, let’s not deny, let’s not avoid each other or those things that divide us. And, let’s not let them be so divisive that they stand in the way of the Good News of the Gospel, either. Let’s keep doing what we do in spite of our differences, in spite of our divisions so that, in the space between us – even when we can’t – God might create room for peace, for reconciliation, for forgiveness; and we might make room, then, for the kind of grace we all need and that comes by way of the life, death and resurrection promised to us all – and for the sake of the world – in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Amen