Proper 16, Year C | Luke 13:10-17 | Isaiah 58:9b-14
St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church
August 21, 2022
the Rev. Jonathan Hanneman
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“Sabbath” isn’t something we talk about much in church anymore. Even though the Bible references it frequently, most of us probably think of it as a weekly rest day for our Jewish neighbors. It officially falls on Saturdays. From very early in the life of the Church, Christians appropriated some of its practices to our Sunday observances. But if you try to get much deeper than that, a lot of us are quickly lost.
The most commonly cited explanations of sabbath tradition come from passages in the Torah, the first five books of the Bible. At the end of the initial Creation story, we read, “on the seventh day God finished the work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all the work that he had done in creation.”[1] The 10 Commandments adopt that theme to expand upon the 4th Commandment: “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.”[2]
One difficulty that’s plagued the sabbath almost from the beginning is that, although violating the 4th Commandment was a capital offense in ancient Israel, the Bible offers very little definition of what’s considered “work” or “rest.” Gathering for worship was allowed, and there are explicit instructions about not doing active labor like loading donkeys or treading grapes. It’s also clear that selling or buying food was forbidden.[3] Jeremiah warns against carrying a burden out of your house,[4] and Moses specifically says not to light a fire.[5] When the Hebrew people were still wandering the wilderness during the Exodus, they weren’t even supposed to gather food on the sabbath.[6]
But soon people wanted to know the difference between what’s simply moving something versus what counts as carrying a burden. Over time, many traditions rose around what is or isn’t work and, therefore, what was acceptable to do on the sabbath. For some communities, those included limiting the number of steps you could take, or not riding an animal, or using a pen—some went as far as to forbid picking a flower.
So Jesus doing something like healing on the sabbath was always bound to invoke controversy. There was no argument about saving someone’s life. That was essential any day of the week, no matter what kind of work might be involved. Apart from those life-threatening events, though, many people felt that non-essential healing activity on the sabbath did violate the 4th Commandment.
However, by his response to the synagogue leader in today’s Gospel, we see that Jesus understood the sabbath according to a slightly more expansive Biblical tradition. Looking beyond the common explanation found in Genesis and Exodus, he turns to Moses’ restatement of the 4th Commandment in the book of Deuteronomy: “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…so that your male and female slave may rest as well as you. 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.”[7]
That last sentence is where Jesus draws his authority for healing on the sabbath. He wasn’t proposing that the sabbath shouldn’t be a day of rest, but he recognized that the sabbath is bigger than just avoiding certain activities: it’s a celebration of liberation. Because of that, anything one can do to deliver someone from bondage, worry, or oppression is an appropriate way to observe the sabbath.
Our reading from Isaiah emphasizes that same interpretation. Earlier in the chapter, the people had been complaining that no matter what they do, God just won’t listen to them—heaven refuses to respond even when they follow their traditions perfectly. They’re observing all the ceremonies to the best of their abilities, avoiding work, and constantly offering up prayers. There’s literally nothing else they can do to follow sabbath guidelines, yet God refuses to respond to them. Isaiah address their problem for an unexpected angle: the focus on rites and rules and traditions has led them to forget about or ignore the actual purpose behind even having a sabbath: “to bring good news to the poor….to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”[8] Until all of the people can rest, none of them can truly rest.
Although we might like applying extra directions and boundaries to better define God’s commands, according to the tradition Jesus observed, keeping the sabbath doesn’t necessarily have a whole lot to do with striking matches or walking too far or making sure you don’t pick up a bucket of water. He really just wants us to practice what the Bible actually is explicit about concerning God’s desire for the sabbath, calling us “to loose the bonds of injustice…undo the thongs of the yoke…let the oppressed go free, and…break every yoke….to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked…to cover them, and not…hide yourself from your own kin.”[9]
Having and keeping the rules and traditions is perfectly fine, but there’s no real purpose to them if we don’t first “remove the yoke from among [us], the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil, if [we] offer [our] food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted.”[10] Proper observance of the sabbath is indeed about providing rest, but it’s rest for everyone, not just ourselves. Until that happens, there’s no way we can avoid “trampling the sabbath…pursuing [our] own interests on [God’s] holy day.”[11] We simply aren’t able to “call the sabbath a delight [or any] holy day of the Lord honorable.”[12] We can’t truly “honor it, not going [our] own ways, serving [our] own interests, or pursuing [our] own affairs.”[13] Without that basic activity of liberation, observing the sabbath is simply impossible.
That’s because the purpose of the sabbath is not the self. It isn’t about taking a break or maintaining your own boundaries. It does indeed direct us to look toward others, but not so we can force them to avoid or participate in certain activities. Sabbath calls us to ensure their comfort, freedom, elevation, and support. It requires that everyone be allowed to enjoy the benefits and blessings of the Kingdom of Heaven.
Sabbath isn’t just one day a week—the day is a reminder of a pattern to build throughout our lifetimes. Sabbath is the hard work of preventing or undoing any mistreatment around and among us, of seeing that everyone receives adequate sustenance and protection, of bringing equality and full justice to more than one particular race or class or group of people. Realizing and ensuring genuine rest for all is the continuing work of Jesus Christ through the Church. To celebrate sabbath is to level mountains and fill valleys, to prepare and realize the Way of the Lord in our own day.
[1] Genesis 2:2-3 | All Bible quotations are from the NRSV unless otherwise noted.
[2] Exodus 20:8-11
[3] Nehemiah 10:31; 13:15-16
[4] Jeremiah 17:22
[5] Exodus 35:3
[6] Exodus 16:22-28
[7] Deuteronomy 5:12-15
[8] Luke 4:18-19
[9] Isaiah 58:6-7
[10] Isaiah 58:9b-10
[11] Isaiah 58:13a
[12] Isaiah 58:13b
[13] Isaiah 58:13c