Sermon – A Day Off from the Day Off
Isaiah 58:9b-14; Luke 13:10-17
Farmville Presbyterian Church
8/24/25
Yesterday evening Anne and I were gathered with a good bit of my family, and for the first time since I was little, we had four generations in one room. This was the first time the oldest generation was my parents. Many of you have known this blessing in your own lives, but this was remarkable for my family. My younger brother’s son just had a daughter. She was sweet and tiny and created not a fuss except for among the family with people waiting in line to hold this brand-new life in our family, the first of a new generation among us. It is pretty incredible how this miracle of life works, and we can all be grateful to have generations come, even as we might mourn the generations that go.
Time is a funny invention. When we are young, we cannot wait to be older; when we are old, we would give anything to be younger. The young cannot count the days until some great hoped-for thing comes. The old cannot believe how quickly the years have passed. Miss Sophia recently celebrated her 7th birthday, and Anne Beckham is looking forward to her 98th. Yes, time is a funny thing. It is always with us, but we have such a hard time appreciating it while we are in it. It should probably be more special to us than we realize.
In fact, time is the very first thing in the Bible that is called holy. I did not realize that fact until getting ready for today. It is right there in the Genesis creation account. God created all of creation with each day’s work reckoned as good, but on the seventh day, after everything was done, God rested – God took a Sabbath, the very first one, and God blessed that day and made it holy. That is the beginning of Genesis 2. It is pretty interesting that the very first thing in the Bible to be considered holy is a time. Later, people are claimed by God to be holy, to live as holy, and even later, God creates a space for holiness in the tabernacle, but all of that is a good, long while after a time is considered so special that it is holy. This special time even makes its way into the Ten Commandments, standing in the #4 spot. Twice there in Genesis 20 the Bible calls the Sabbath day holy. This observance of time, a special time, is at the heartbeat of the Jewish people and their faith. There is tremendous importance given to this observance.
Isaiah 58 underscores this fact. There are a number of things that God needs the people to do to return to God’s heart. There is great blessing right there waiting for God’s people if they will refrain from being accusers and speaking evil. If they will help those in need, they will find amazing blessing. But only one act will provide them a future and the promise of living in the heritage of Jacob. That is keeping the Sabbath – and not just keeping it but honoring it and refraining from their own interests on it and serving themselves or going in their own ways. This prophecy sounds like if they take this one promise seriously, then they will be on top of the world. It is no wonder so many of us grew up with blue laws. In case you didn’t, a number of states in the past and some still today restrict at least some business on Sundays citing the need for rest. A small number of countries followed suit. Most of blue law action has been repealed which is why you can pretty much freely shop on Sundays, but there are still vestiges of the blue laws. Try to buy lunch at Chic-Fil-A following worship today, for example.
It makes perfect sense that the Jewish people would place proper Sabbath observance at the top of their to-do list. It became very regulated with regard to what was considered proper or work. Some people got so worked up about keeping the Sabbath in an acceptable way as Isaiah commands that they refused to allow others to do anything even resembling work. When my best friend in seminary travelled to Israel, he commented that on the Jewish Sabbath, the elevators would become automatic – moving between floors without anyone pushing a button because pushing the button would be considered work. That sounds ludicrous unless you were raised in a culture in which this time had to be holy, in its original, God-designed holiness. Do not mess with the Sabbath.
Then came Jesus. That is always the case, even today. Just when we think we have everything figured out and have all of the rules and structures and system worked out to make sense in our life, Jesus comes along and pulls the rug out. Not that God is trying to mess with us. It is always honestly done out of love. As clearly as we might have anything figured out, there is always more to know. God is always bringing us closer to the truth, closer to the person we need to be. When we become comfortable, we become complacent. That is exactly what Jesus is showing us in Luke 13. He is telling us that our understanding of God’s love is too small. Our understanding of Sabbath is also too small. We would love for it to just be a system of laws or to be out of the way. It is neither. It is about living in God’s holy time. How we hold God’s holy time needs a refresher.
If there is a gospel writer who promotes the value of forgotten people, it is Luke. Here, this women who is so crushed by a harmful spirit that she is physically bowed under the weight has come to the synagogue. Eighteen years would have been all of her adult life and then some. Just imagine how hard it would have been to get around, to try to live a normal life, and to know that no one seemed to really care about her welfare. When Jesus noticed her affliction, he healed. He did not stop to think about what day it was or whether it was appropriate. It did not matter what day, whether it was legal or lawful or not. Someone was starving for healing and justice. He healed and she was restored. The fact that this was done on the Sabbath infuriated the ones in power. There were times when Jesus made his people so angry that they tried to kill him. Eventually, they would with help. Today, the crisis seems to be whether this was work on the Sabbath. No one should be pursuing other interests, their own interests, or going their own way. This day is holy time. That means its God’s time.
Loving and caring for God’s children, especially the ones who are in crisis, is always appropriate. The crowd recognized that after Jesus replied to the synagogue leaders. They celebrated Jesus’ work on the Sabbath. To them, it was not work, at least not the kind of work that God despises. So did Jesus open the door for us all to get busy on the Sabbath?
That is the real question. The church has continued to struggle with this ever since Jesus. We even adopted this attitude as a culture which is weird because the state cannot (and rightly should not) determine what is acceptable Sabbath and what it not. For the government, it was about generic rest and not the 4th Commandment, but so many church traditions have gone after offenders of Sabbath observance. Our own history has examples of church discipline for those who do not keep the Sabbath “appropriately.” To further complicate, just because we are resting on the Sabbath does not mean we are keeping it holy. Is holding still for 24 hours really the devotion that God is looking for? On paper or according to the law, we are abiding by the regulations, but that does not mean our heart is any closer to God.
Again, leave it to Jesus. There is one detail that sings to me. He saw the woman. He called to the woman and proclaimed her healed. Then, he did something he did not have to do. He touched her. He laid his hands on her. This was someone despised by others, disregarded by society, and considered a sinner. Jesus touched her. Again, he did not have to, but he was showing her that she mattered. He loved her on the Sabbath. The Sabbath is a day of love. Honestly, our Sabbath should be the day that we love the most. When we devote ourselves to the heart of God should be our most pleasant and enjoyable time. It should be our favorite day of the week because it is when we without distraction give our spirits to God’s Spirit and embrace God’s love. You can do that with others. You can do that in activity. You can do that however works for you, but God wants us to love our holy time and to make our holy time an expression of God’s love. So many folk seem to think that going to church on the Christian Sabbath is all that is required. Of course, that is a whole lot less people than used to be, but the point is that church attendance is not a box to check to excuse ourselves to do whatever we want the rest of the day. The Sabbath is about enjoying the presence of God by our selves or with others. This is the greatest day of the week.
We do like our days off from busyness and business. This has even gotten worse as the stress of modern life has taken a toll. In the pursuit of a freer life, we have managed to pile more on. We crave time for peace. This pressure can seep into church, as well, and steal our love for the Sabbath which can be a burden and extra work. This is our opportunity for joy and anticipation. This day is holy and the greatest day for love that we might have. Our focus is being here in the Spirit and present with one another and all of God’s children as we share in better expressions of grace, love, compassion, and mercy. This is our best time to be God’s people tgoether. To God be the glory. Amen.