Sabbath, Jesus: Gifts of Freedom from All that Enslaves us

Brad Sullivan

Proper 4, Year B

June 3, 2018

Emmanuel, Houston

Deuteronomy 5:12-15

Psalm 81:1-10

2 Corinthians 4:5-12

Mark 2:23 - 3:6

Sabbath, Jesus:  Gifts of Freedom from All that Enslaves us

Rules are made to be broken.  That’s one of my favorite oft quoted sayings of supposed wisdom which is actually totally and completely bogus.  Rules aren’t made to be broken.  That’s just something people say when they don’t feel like following a rule, which happens pretty much of the time.  Rules weren’t made to be broken.  Then again, rules aren’t generally made to be followed either.  Don’t get me wrong, those who make rules want them to be followed, but following some arbitrary rule is not the point of making the rule.  Rules aren’t made to be followed.  Rules are made to be helpful.

The Pharisees missed that in their understanding of the rule about not working on the Sabbath.  Thinking that the rule was made to be followed, rather than to be helpful, the Pharisees had become enslaved to the rule which is particularly ironic since one of the reasons for the commandment not to work on the Sabbath is to free us from slavery.

Biblical scholar Vanessa Lovelace points this out in looking at the Sabbath commandment in Deuteronomy which we heard this morning.  See, in the Exodus telling of the commandments, keeping the Sabbath is tied to creation, for in six days God created the world, and on the seventh day God rested.  In Exodus, a day of rest is tied into the very fabric of creation.

In Deuteronomy, however, observing the Sabbath is tied to God freeing the people of Israel from their slavery in Egypt.  “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.”

God freed you from slavery, therefore you should keep the sabbath.  Rather than an arbitrary rule made to be followed, the sabbath commandment was given in part to help maintain freedom.  Not only are “you” not supposed to do any work, but neither are your children, nor anyone who works for you.  Everyone is supposed to rest so they do not become enslaved to the tyranny of work.  Enjoy creation.  Enjoy one another.  Our work has to be done, and there is always more work to be done.  The taskmaster of our work will be happy to keep us at it forever, expanding more work to fill as much time as we’re willing to give.  God knows we can become enslaved to work, so he commands us to remove the chains of our work and take time to rest.

The Sabbath commandment was not made simply to be followed, and it wasn’t made to be broken either.  The Sabbath commandment was given as a gift so that we would take time to rest, to pray, and to remember God our creator and liberator.  The Sabbath commandment was given as a gift so that we would take time to be with each other, enjoy the beauty of one another, enjoy the beauty of creation all around us, and enjoy time spend playing.

Then the well-meaning Pharisees come along.  Rather than being liberated by the Sabbath, they had become enslaved to the Sabbath.  They treated the Sabbath like a rule that must be followed, totally forgetting the freedom and play that is intended in the rest.

Have you ever seen children fighting over a toy, not because one wants what the other has, but because one of the kids is playing with the toy incorrectly?  One kid will be playing with a toy in a way other than how the toy was intended to be used, and having a marvelous time.  Then another kid will see the offending child having fun in a way which is inconsistent with the way the child thinks the toy should be played with, and that kid will be all up in arms.  “No.  You’re supposed to do it this way!”  To be fair to children, there are plenty of times when adults do the same thing to children, seeing them play with a toy in a manner inconsistent with the manufacturer’s prescribed use, again, having a marvelous time, and the adult will also stop the offending child at their joyful play.  Ok, so a quick public service announcement to kids and any adults who are with children in play:  toys are meant to bring joy and fun to their users; toys are not meant to be taskmasters which keep us following a particular way of performing an activity.

The Pharisees needed a similar PSA.  The Sabbath was intended to honor God, to give rest to creation and to us, and free us from the tyranny of work.

Jesus’ disciples plucked some grain as they walked through the grainfields.  They weren’t harvesting the grain.  They saw some food, and they were hungry and so they decided to eat it.  Then there were the Pharisees, following Jesus and his disciples around like some ancient internet troll just waiting for a chance to say “gotcha!”  My gosh did they miss the point.  “Don’t enjoy creation!  Don’t eat if you’re hungry.  It’s the Sabbath, and we’re going to make sure you observe it the way we want you to.  Freedom and joy with God be damned.”

Then, Jesus healed a man on the Sabbath.  Talk about freedom.  Jesus freed this man from his disability, his useless, withered hand, and all the Pharisees could say was, “You should have waited until nightfall.”  They got so incensed by the whole, “people enjoying life and being freed on the Sabbath” thing, that they decided the best course of action would be conspiracy to commit murder.  “You didn’t play with our toy the right way.  You’ll have to go.”

Ok, to be fair to the Pharisees, we too don’t like it when things we know and love are changed.  Thankfully we’ve never done anything like that in the church, well, except for during the reformation…and those other times.  Hey, but at least we didn’t kill anyone in the church because they were doing some churchy practice wrong.  Well, except for important things like in ancient church divisions where you could be killed for crossing yourself in the wrong way.  Or during the start of the Anglican church where you could be killed for being too Anglican…or too Catholic…or too Anglican…or too Catholic.

Then there were the times when folks were killed for reading the scriptures in languages other than Latin, times when people in the church were killed by other Christians for things like believing the wrong things about Jesus, being black, being homosexual.  We haven’t always killed each other over our differences, sometimes we’ve just quit churches, split churches, held grudges for years, and grown hatred and contempt in our hearts.  Wine vs. grape juice, bread vs. wafers, putting the wrong flowers in the wrong place or singing the wrong music at worship.  People left the Episcopal church back in 1979 when the prayer book was changed and we started having Eucharist every Sunday instead of once a month.  “No, not Jesus!  Keep him away.”  We were doing it wrong.

Contra all of our divisions and incitement sometimes even to violence because we’re chained by our way of doing things or held captive by our ways of understanding things, God doesn’t want us enslaved to anything.  When we become enslaved to desires for comfort and convenience, forsaking God’s dream for us to join in bringing about his Shalom on earth, God continues to give the gift of the Holy Spirit to set us free.

Millennia ago, God gave the Sabbath to set us free.  God lived and died as one of us to set us free.  God has given us these gifts, the gifts of Sabbath, the gift of Jesus to set us free from all of the chains that bind us.  The gift of Sabbath so that we can take time to rest, to pray, to remember God our creator and liberator, and so that we can take time to be with each other, enjoy the beauty of one another, enjoy the beauty of creation all around us, and enjoy time spent playing.  The gift of Jesus to set us free from all that binds us.

Enjoy these gifts God has given and be set free.  Enjoy the gift of Jesus and freedom he gives us all.  Freedom from anything that binds us:  our past, our resentments, our addictions, our need to follow the rules of our religion so tightly that we forget the joy and freedom that our religion is intended to give us in the first place.  Observe the sabbath day and keep it holy, as the Lord your God commanded you.  Keep this faith and these rules that God has given, not because rules are made to be broken or followed, but in order that we might be set free.