United Under the Law and the Prophets

Proper 16C, 2019

Readings, here

When a code is called in the hospital, everyone stops.

They stop, the glance down at their pagers, and they run.

They drop everything and run. Cafeteria tray abandoned, conversations halted right in the middle of the story.

In the face of human need, nothing else mattered.

Besides the common goal of saving a human life.

My first call as a priest was as the chaplain of a children’s hospital. This is where I learned about the fragility of life and about what really matters…

What really matters.

And, in a world in which we are so often divided. Where factions cannot seem to agree on even the simplest of things. We have to consider what really matters.

When a life is at stake, when the earth is at stake, when children are at stake, when we—all of us—are at stake. We have to stop everything and consider what it is that really matters.

In the hospital, it was easy. Our pagers would alert us and our roles were clear—we were there to support the lives of people in desperate need. So, we were united. The gay priest and the Hassidic Jews. The Conservative Evangelical Christians and the atheists. The new age humanists and the old school Catholics. The doctors and the nurses. We were united in a fundamental place of life and death, hope and healing—and, at bedside, we were forced to set aside anything but that which had become essential.

In the day to day of our lives, it becomes easy to forget that we share a common goal. When we aren’t standing on the brink of life and death and called to service in the midst of crisis, we can forget what really matters.

We can forget what it means to share a common goal grounded in love. Distracted by the onslaught of opinions and media, factionalizing and fiction, we forget.

But, today’s scripture reminds us. It reminds us what it looks like when we unite in response to the affliction of another. It reminds us of God’s intention of goodness for all of creation. When we rejoice at the healing of the bent over woman, we are reminded of our shared humanity and mutual concern.

And, we are reminded that there is need all around us and that responding to that need takes precedence over our own plans and agendas. The work of healing, the healing of the earth and its people, takes center stage as everything else fades into the background.

This is an ideal. This is the love that transcends. This is the will of God. The will of God, that moves us beyond our tendency to define people as either good or bad, evil or righteous, right or wrong. Which is where I want to pick up the Gospel for today.

The Gospel on its face, seems to set the Pharisees and Sadducees up as villains and Jesus and Jesus’ followers as the good guys. But what happens if we look at how these two groups might be united in a common cause? What happens if we take the time to look beyond the factions and towards the faith they shared?

What happens if we assume good intentions and try to understand the Pharisees and Sadducees motivation?

The religious authorities, in their service to the people, relied on the law and the prophets to make sense of a broken and chaotic world. In trying to maintain religious life and community, they had to look at the big picture of what was best for the Jewish people as opposed to what might be best of a single individual. One of the basic tenants they would have worked to uphold was adherence to the Ten Commandments. One of which is that of Sabbath rest.

Nowadays, people don’t seem to give much credit to the Sabbath. Our culture celebrates work at the expense of the Sabbath—and has made constant business the norm. We have forgotten, or have chosen to ignore, the fact that Sabbath rest, alongside the command to not commit murder, is a fundamental tenant of our faith—a tenant established at creation.

After God’s creation of the world, when it was all good and bathed in the perfection of the unbroken vision of God, God rested. 

And when we rest, we are called to observe and honor the holy work that has been done.  Work that we have done in mission and ministry those other six days.  Sabbath becomes a creative act and affirmation all at once and completes the circle of the creative energies of the divine.  Sabbath completes creation. 

So, the mandate to observe the Sabbath isn’t just some arbitrary law...it was a commandment founded in the very origin of creation and fundamental to the structuring of a Jewish life in an occupied territory.

So, when Jesus healed the woman broken and bent--the religious authorities saw a tenuous balance upset. Like a guest preacher who preaches a sermon that offends the congregation and upends a hard-won stability—Jesus shows up in somebody else’s worship space and upsets the system that has been put in place.

And as a Rector, I can tell you no matter how fabulous or true a guest preacher’s sermon might be, the priest who has to do the clean-up work isn’t likely to be delighted at the imposition…

So, here we are with the Pharisees and Sadducees and a guest preacher who has ignored the community norms and has left them with a big mess to clean up later.

Awesome. 

[assume laughter]

We laugh. We laugh, in part, because this scenario is a familiar one. A familiar one to anyone who has been faced with an inconvenient truth expressed at an impolite time—think about it, no one really wants to call out “Uncle Buddy” for a racist comment at Thanksgiving dinner while “Grandma” looks on. But, upending the status quo that has grown comfortable with oppression is a holy calling.

A holy calling. A holy calling to upend the plans, derail the liturgy, and offend your grandmother to boot.

But, grandma’s disapproval (poor grandma), comes out of a context in which our concern for the rules of polite society or liturgical order have kept us from remembering our principal calling to the work of healing. 

The Pharisees and Sadducees were responsible for ensuring the wholeness of the community and the continuation of the faith. They were charged with the rituals that restored the ill, infirm and those considered impure to the community following acts of healing. They, fundamentally, shared in Jesus’ mission of redemption--making the broken whole and offering worship and praise to God.

But, in clinging to the law, they had lost sight of the reasons for the law. Because, I would argue that fundamentally, the biblical laws were developed and maintained for the integrity of community and creation. The law is for mercy. The law is for justice. The law is for love.

And, this is where we find our common values. This is where we find an urgency to our shared calling. To enact a way of life that is the way of Jesus. The way of Jesus which is the way of mercy, justice, and love that liberates us and all of creation.

Let me proclaim once again the words from Isaiah that we heard today,

If you remove the yoke from among you,
the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil, 

if you offer your food to the hungry
and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, 

then your light shall rise in the darkness
and your gloom be like the noonday.

We are called to liberate ourselves and each other. We are reminded that blame does not bring healing. We are called to nourish the hungry and respond to the needs of those who are suffering.

And, in this calling we will be united. The gay priest and the Hassidic Jews. The Conservative Evangelical Christians and the atheists. The new age humanists and the old school Catholics. The right, the left, and the fair to middling. You and me, united. United in that fundamental place of life and death, hope and healing—where what is essential is the love of God. The love that leads to liberation.

Amen.