Sermon Preached on June
3, 2018
Proper 4B RCL
The Rev. Vicki K. Hesse
St. John’s Episcopal
Church, Clinton
Video found here.
Good
morning.
Thank you for the invitation to
be with you today.
My name
is Rev. Vicki Hesse and
I serve
the Diocese as the Director of the Whitaker Institute.
Who here
has taken a class from the Whitaker Institute?
The
Whitaker Institute is the educational arm of the Diocese.
Our overall purpose is (slowly)
to form disciples to carry on the ministry of Jesus Christ.
(that’s a big mission but we have a big God!)
We do this forming in three ways:
by educating, equipping and empowering
members of our faith community with lifelong formation.
Three programs you may know include Safe Church courses,
“Exploring Your Spiritual Journey” for anyone (lay or called to
ordination) and
“Academy for Vocational Leadership,” a local school for ordained
ministry.
These are only three of several programs.
Perhaps there will be time at coffee hour
to learn more about learning and working together
for mutual transformation.
So thank
you Rev. Susie, for your invitation to be here today.
Now, we
take a deep breath and remember
we are
always in God’s loving presence.
May the words of my mouth
and the mediation of all our hearts be
acceptable to you,
O Lord, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.
Sabbath. Our first reading offered an exposition
on this 4th
of the ten commandments,
“Observe
the sabbath day and keep in holy.”
The gospel
text, set on the Sabbath,
challenges
us with a message
of love
and compassion in the face of human need.
Sabbath. What is the Sabbath?
The
dictionary says,
“A
day of religious observance and abstinence from work,
kept
by Jews from Friday evening to Saturday evening,
and
by most Christians on Sunday.”
In his book, The Sabbath[1],
Rabbi Abraham Heschel defines Sabbath
– that portion of Torah “Law” as,
“…a Divine paradigm of understanding time.” (show book)
In the prologue, Rabbi Heschel’s daughter
describes the “anticipatory delight” of preparing for Sabbath as a
child.
She writes:
When my father raised his Kiddush cup on Friday
evenings,
closed his eyes and chanted the prayer
sanctifying the wine,
I always felt a rush of emotion.
As he chanted with an old, sacred family melody,
he blessed the wine and the Sabbath with his
prayer,
and I also felt he was blessing my life and that
of everyone at the table….
I felt transformed, emotionally and physically.
The sense of peace that came upon us
as we kindled the candle lights
was created, in part, by the hectic tension of
Fridays.
Preparation for a holy day,
my father often said, was as important as the
day itself.
When suddenly it was time, twenty minutes before
sunset,
whatever hadn’t been finished in the kitchen we
simply left behind
as we lit the candles and blessed the arrival of
the Sabbath.
My father wrote,
“The Sabbath comes like a caress, wiping away
fear, sorrow and somber memories.”[2]
Rabbi Heschel teaches about this spiritual practice of sanctifying
time.
Perhaps a book study for your next group?
In our Christian tradition, certain practices evolved from
Judaism,
such as confession, worship, and adoration
– all of which mark time as holy.
You know, of course, that in the book of Genesis,
at the end of the creation story, “God blessed the seventh day and made it holy.”
Heschel, “…for six days a
week
we live under the tyranny of space:
on the Sabbath we try to become attuned to
holiness in time.
It is day we are called to share what is eternal
–
from “the world of creation” to the “creation of
the world.”
This sacred time invites you
to hear the soft whisper of God’s voice,
“ye shall not kindle any fire.”
No fire, not in my heart, or for my needs, or with others.
For many years, my Sabbath agenda
has been rest and renewal, soft and gentle.
So there we have context
why the gospel today made me squirm:
a confrontation between holy law-keeping and holy people-saving.
The clue for me was Jesus’ anger.
The Gospel begins with the Pharisees confrontation.
They valued that law-to-keep-Sabbath over human need.
With a little exploration, it turns out that
“unlawful eating of food on the sabbath” was fake news.
Jesus didn’t break a sabbath law.
The law about which the Pharisees had a problem
was one that forbids harvesting a neighbor’s crop
(Deut 23: 24-25 if you are interested).
Jesus explains that what David did
(eating the bread of the presence when they were hungry)
was far worse than just rubbing kernels of grain together for a
snack.
And although the Pharisees mixed up the details of their
complaint,
Jesus knew their intentions.
Then, real trouble began.
He blew their socks off with this new paradigm:
“the sabbath was made for humankind,
not humankind for the sabbath.”
Jesus’ offered a new idea: human
need knows no Law.
Mercy and compassion overruled compliance with the 4th
commandment.
Jesus turned the Law upside-down.
Then, Jesus did it again. He provoked them:
“Is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the sabbath?”
But they were silent.
Jesus then conveyed his humanity
– looking at them with anger.
Time stopped. Jesus kindled a fire in his heart!
He was grieved at their hardness of heart.
The bubble over Jesus’ head was surely written in all caps:
“HUMAN NEED KNOWS NO LAW!”
and afterwards, the man stretched out his hand, it was restored.
And… Jesus’ upside-down gospel tests us.
Sometimes, our society, our institutions, or our government,
also value the law over
human need.
See, the validity of any institution
lies outside of itself.
Just as
“the sabbath was made for humankind, not humankind for the
sabbath,”
The Church was made for humankind, not humankind for the church.
So, the church’s true and only authority lies in
its service to humankind.
The holiness of the church arises, surprisingly,
from the church’s own power
(from a faith community’s ability)
to adjust to changing times,
through ministries that respond
to the community’s human needs.
When we, in the church, ask, “Does this ministry fit into our
tradition?”
– that is when Jesus asks us to turn the question upside down
with,
“Does this ministry do good to humankind?”
Sometimes, we wonder how can we keep Sabbath
with all the need in the world?
How can we serve others
when we are aging and less able?
Jesus turns the question upside down when human needs are at
stake.
Because in human-serving ministries,
the Holy Spirit invigorates participants
and provides the will and courage
to become the beloved community.
To be concrete, a little research on “human need” in Lenawee
county
revealed that the “meal gap” is large.
The Meal Gap is the difference between
those who actually receive meal assistance
(~11% of county residents who are on SNAP, or WIC, or free lunch
at school)
and
those whose income level qualifies them to receive assistance
but they do not pursue it, for many reasons
(~75% of county
residents[3])
The human need right here is for nearly 65,000 people
who live in this Meal Gap zone.
These people can use assistance to meet their hunger.
You, the congregation of St. John’s in Clinton,
can make a difference with this potential “freezer meal ministry”
or by partnering with an organization like “Neighbors of Hope.”
Our gospel text today offers a timeless perspective:
God prioritizes human need over human law.
So what if…
What if the sanctity of keeping sabbath law in Jesus’ day
is like the sanctity of our national anthem on Memorial day? [4]
I wonder if Jesus
would take a knee while everyone else remains standing.
What if the sanctity of keeping sabbath law in Jesus’ day
is like the sanctity of our national immigration law,
which punishes people who “break the law” seek refuge at the US
border
by separating them
from their children?
I wonder if Jesus would
welcome them with hospitality and offer an abundant life.
Today’s Gospel message to prioritize human need over human law
might trigger anger to arise in us.
That anger – grounded in the yearning for God’s justice –
might fuel us to respond to the human need.
That anger – fueled by our feeling out of control
might invite us to discover how our personal power might be
threatened.
That anger – manifest in our own atrophied hands
might be just the boost we need to respond to human need.
And turn our world upside down.
The good news today is that Jesus stretches out his hands to
us.
He is with us in the holiness of this time,
empowering us to offer our whole lives
to serve human need above human law.
So today, during communion,
I invite you to come forward,
to stretch out your hand,
to be blessed and empowered in the name of Jesus
to join with him in the business of
serving human need over human law.
Stretch our your hands.
Become the beloved community
that makes God’s love real in the world.
Come, stretch out your hands
so that Jesus can meet you in eternity of Sabbath
and delight in your presence with all of God’s creation.
Come, be restored!
[1] Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Sabbath:
its meaning for modern man, (New York, Farrar Straus and Giroux, 1951)
[2]
Heschel, vii-viii
[3]
According to the 2017 Mind The Meal Gap by Feeding America, downloaded on May
28, 2018.
[4]
Facebook posting by friend and pastoral mentor, Tommy Airey author for Radical
Discipleship, following his work in the Poor People’s Campaign: A National
Call for Moral Revival in Lansing, MI on May 31, 2018.
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