by Peter Lockhart
As a minister I am regularly
confronted with a question or a comment which is “You don’t have to go to
church to be a Christian, do you?”
I wonder how you feel about
that question. I wonder what motivated
you to be here this morning. Was it
because you felt you had to keep the fourth commandment to honour the
Sabbath? Was it because Sunday is church
day and that’s what you always do? Was
it because you wanted to catch up with someone? Was it because you wanted to
give thanks to God? Was it because you
thought it might be good for your children to go to Sunday School? Or did you simply come with someone else
because either you were made to or because you wanted to?
Luke tells a story about how
one day Jesus was teaching in the synagogue on the Sabbath when a woman
crippled over for 18 years with what we are told is a spirit comes in. Jesus invites the woman forward and heals her
at which point pandemonium breaks loose.
The woman sings Gods praise, people are amazed and the synagogue leaders
become irate about people doing inappropriate things on the Sabbath.
This little story opens up to
us quite a few issues to do with the Sabbath and its implications of how we
relate to God and each other. I want to
pick up on just three.
The first has to do with
acceptance and healing.
The second has to do with
legalism and criticisms.
The third is to do with
freedom in thanksgiving.
Going back to Jesus time a
woman who had an affliction like being bent double would likely have found
herself ostracised in the community. The
very fact that we are told that her ailment is caused by a spirit, presumably
an unfriendly one, indicates the kind of attitude the society had towards those
who had illness or disability.
Despite the probability that
she was very much seen as an outsider this woman goes to the synagogue to
listen to the teaching. As we know on
seeing her enter Jesus invites her over and heals her. The thing that is striking here is that Jesus
notices her presence and respond to it not simply accepting her but bring her
healing.
There is something very basic
here in terms of Jesus ability to comprehend the needs of a person and to meet
those needs. Jesus does not judge her;
he does not indicate that she has great faith; there is nothing to indicate
that she sought healing – Jesus simply sees her predicament and his heart goes
out to her to give her what she needed most.
This indicates to me that Jesus and therefore God has concern for our
human situations, the challenges and difficulties we all face. Jesus sees not simply a bent over woman but
sees a person to be loved and cherished.
Now if the Church is to be a
sign of Jesus love in the world I believe this has implications for us. In the last 30 years there has been a
continually shift in the way that we have spoken as a community about people
with disabilities. The word handicapped
is not longer deemed appropriate, the word disabled has been superseded, to say
someone is physically challenged is not in vogue. I believe the current politically correct
phrase is differently abled. This all
may seem like playing with words but at its heart is the search for affirming
the humanity of people who are different.
Unfortunately the moment we
use any kind of label for a group of people there is a point of differentiation
and even segregation. It strikes me how
often in the scriptures people like the bent over woman are left nameless. In knowing a name we begin to know a person
and as we get to know a person labels become less relevant.
Yet at the same time
acknowledging the pain and difficulties that people face also seems
paramount. Jesus accepted the woman as
he invited her to come near to him but Jesus met her deepest need as he healed
her. The church should be a place of
healing and hope and whilst we cannot be Jesus I do believe it is important
that we seek to meet those basic human needs of the people who come into our
community as we are enabled to. There
may be miraculous healings, there may not, but either way as the church we are
called to show compassion and caring.
This leads me into the second
point I wanted to raise. The incident
occurs on the Sabbath and this causes quite a deal of consternation among the
leaders of the synagogue. In their view
Jesus doing the healing is akin to working on the Sabbath and so they attack
the woman for creating this situation.
At the heart of the attack by
the synagogue leaders is a rigid approach to the law and morality. The fourth commandment was to honour the
Sabbath and this including not working but Jesus had worked. To be good meant obedience to the law.
If we go back to the question
I asked at the beginning it arises out a challenge to just such an understanding
of going to church. ‘Do you have to go to church on Sunday to be a
Christian?’ A legal moral approach to
being a Christian must answer yes – it is our Sabbath keeping. Even though Sunday is not actually the
Sabbath it is the day we set aside to honour and worship God.
The question around the issue
for us then is how we approach our faith.
‘Is being a Christian about moral behaviours and obedience to the letter
of the law or is it something else?’
Jesus answer to the legalists
is to point out that the law makes provision for compassion to be shown to
animals on the Sabbath. A Jew was
allowed to feed and water animals on the Sabbath if necessary so if compassion
can be shown to an animal then why not to a person. It is a good question and does not necessarily
undermine the Sabbath law but prioritises it.
Elsewhere, when Jesus is
challenged for his behaviours on the Sabbath, Jesus points out that the Sabbath
was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.
What this simply means is that the Sabbath is a gift to humanity which
grounds them in their relationship with God.
The observance of the Sabbath is for the benefit of people it is not
meant to cripple them.
In asking the question or
making the statement that you don’t have to go to church to be a Christian I
believe that the question of our participation in the community of faith has
become conceptualised as a matter of law as opposed to a matter of faith,
whereby we accept a gift from God.
This leads me into the third
point which is about the freedom of giving thanks to God. The healed woman stands straight and praise
God. The other people in the synagogue
rejoice in what Jesus was doing, even though they personally may not have
benefited from his actions.
In recognising that in Jesus
God acts people praise God. In coming to
a point in our own lives where we want to praise God and give thanks our
reasoning around coming to be the church on Sunday changes away from the legal
imperative to observe the Sabbath.
Coming to church is about
coming to a place with the people of God where we can give thanks for the real
encounters we have had in our faith journey with Jesus healing and
acceptance. It is also in gathering
together we share each others burdens and celebrate each others faith
journeys. In other words it’s not just
about you.
I know as a minister that
people come to church for all sorts of reasons and many people argue that you
don’t have to go to church to be a Christian.
For me it is not so much a question of having to go to church, or having
to keep the Sabbath, it is a question of what gifts God has given us to assist
to know and honour God.
Jesus was not undermining the
Sabbath in his actions simply prioritising needs and honouring God in a
different way. The question of how you
and I find acceptance and healing and freely express our thanksgiving in this
day and age is just as important as it was back then. As we are drawn into community to know each
others names, to accept each other and bring healing and hope let us also
remember to come together to give thanks to God who gave to us these gifts.
I invite you to take a few
moments of silence to listen for God speaking to you on this day.
No comments:
Post a Comment