Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost; 21 August 2022; Proper 16C (RCL); Jeremiah 1:4-10; Psalm 71:1-6; Hebrews 12:18-29; Luke 13:10-17.
I cringe a little whenever we read a passage like this one from Luke’s Gospel. After Mark’s Gospel, Christian authors followed the standard trope of presenting “the Jews” (or some sect thereof, like the Scribes, and/or the Pharisees, etc.) as hypocritical rule-followers. For centuries, Christian biblical interpretation has reinforced this caricature. It behooves us to remember this rhetoric was developed in the midst of a life-and-death struggle between siblings, and we no longer share that context. Maintaining this trope has proved deadly.
So, the preacher has the task of translating this kind of rhetoric into our current situation. The Christians and “the Jews” against whom they were struggling for identity were essentially co-religionists. We can hold up every charge leveled by a writer of a Gospel against the Jews as a mirror in which we can see ourselves.
In every Gospel in the canon, the plot against Jesus involves with some breach of the Sabbath and Sabbath controversy takes a prominent place. The word “Sabbath” occurs 53 times in the Gospels, 10 times in Acts, and all of twice in the Pauline corpus, once, when Paul instructs to the Corinthians to set aside their offerings on the first day of the week (sabbath), and once in Colossians when the author encourages his readers not to let anyone trouble them over observance or non-observance of the Sabbath.
What changed between Paul’s time and the Gospels’? When the Temple was destroyed, perhaps Sabbath observance became one of the essential markers of Jewish identity in a way it had not been while the Temple stood. We know Christians, even in Paul’s time, gathered on the first day, which they saw as marking a new creation. That would certainly go some way to explaining the conflict over the Sabbath. It was a struggle for identity.
When a group perceives its identity threatened, the boundaries and rules become hugely important. I find it fascinating that certain Christian groups today perceive themselves under threat. The world is certainly changing, but it seems to me that we often tie our sense of identity to the wrong things.
I suspect that is what drives Jesus’ reaction in this passage. Luke is critiquing his co-religionists for tying their identity to the sabbath, rather than to what he sees as the purpose of the faith — the release of those held in bondage to demons. Even animals are loosed on the sabbath. If we hold this story up as a mirror, we could say that the Church is responding to the shifts taking place in the world with a bit of panic. We are holding on tightly to things that are passing away.
Jeremiah will excoriate the false prophets for holding fast to the Temple, as if the presence of the Temple would protect Jerusalem from what is happening around her. Instead, the prophets say, we should do what God requires in whatever setting we find ourselves. The author of the Letter to the Hebrews suggests that we should move in to new circumstance in hope rather than fear. We are not approaching the mountain on which God gives the law, but rather approaching a new Jerusalem, gathering for a festival. If our religion isn’t releasing those bound by demons, and inviting us to a festival, we’re doing something wrong.