I’ll begin my remarks on today’s Gospel lesson with one of the first things I teach our confirmation kids each year: Jesus was Jewish. In helping this woman on the sabbath he did what many Jews of his (or any) era would have done: help a person in need on the Sabbath.
I say that because, as the years went on and Christianity broke away from Judaism, these Gospels began to make it sound as if Jewish people would never help an ailing woman on their day of rest. That’s a caricature and it’s simply not true.
Many here know it’s been the case in my years in Scarsdale that a Jewish friend might drop by unannounced to take in a service. That (by the way) as a Christian preacher is a great possibility to have hanging over you every time you preach--you don’t just let things slide the way Christians often do, and you definitely don’t veer to the anti-semitic interpretation of readings that our tradition has gotten so used to we sometimes don’t even notice it.
I don’t see any such visitors out there in the congregation today, but there’s always an invisible Jew, or Muslim, or Buddhist, out there in my head.
OK! So now that that’s out of the way, let’s talk about what this passage is really teaching us. It’s a hard lesson: there is never a break in our week or in our life from our obligation to help another person.
I was reminded of that three weeks ago. My family and I were pulling into a gas station at a picturesque town in the Adirondacks on our way back from a happy week up there with close friends. The sun was shining, I couldn’t have been more relaxed, I had a full week ahead of me at home, off from work, so at that moment not a care in the world. Then a text came through from Mo. Howard (who lives here on campus and will be filling in for me this fall): Mother Kim’s daughter, Soo, a 20 year-old former member of our youth group (they both live here on our campus as well) had been detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement at the federal courthouse in Manhattan. Along with her, also detained, was Ketty de los Santos from St. Bart’s in White Plains.
The diocese had done so much already. My first thought was to tell Michelle I’m on vacation, I can’t do anything about this. And indeed there wasn’t much I could do, plus the diocese had mobilized and What was one more person. But that didn’t feel like the right response. In the end, I didn’t add much--just a little interfacing with the community in Scarsdale and all of you--but I felt worlds better for having stepped out of my sabbath in some small way for something that was laid at my feet. And you know what I noticed that I’ve never seen before: many clergy who were out helping had also emerged from time away, including Bishop Matt.
We live right now in a time when stepping up is so vital, that we have to be prepared to do it whenever and wherever we’re called. Food insecurity is a vital concern for millions across our country. People are being unlawfully detained and are scared. Basic healthcare is becoming more and more out of reach. It turned out OK (for now) for Soo, but other kids are being separated from their parents, with no warning and sometimes no access to legal help. Take a global view and I could go on: the famine in Gaza, the bombings in Ukraine … I’m sorry this isn’t a relaxing summer sermon. That in itself is an illustration of the larger point. There is no break from our Christian calling to be alert and responsive to the needs of the world.
To be clear, this isn’t about politics, or party affiliation. There’s a lot in our country and our world right now that’s not working. Suspicion and ill will are running high and very often people are a casualty, caught up between indecision, infighting, a swinging pendulum of policies, or simply, fatigue.
We Christians must be more constant than ever. We must help those in need, speak up against injustice, even when it costs us a little of our own comfort.
There’s one more point to be made about this reading: religious sabbath, which is a focus of our Gospel passage, isn’t merely about personal rest and relaxation. It’s when we set aside time to focus on what matters. It’s when we remove ourselves from day-to-day distractions that keep us from seeing what God wants us to see.
It seems to me that sitting there in the synagogue as Jesus was doing that day would be exactly when he would notice and jump to help an ailing woman who walks through the door. Ideally, we’re never as aware in a week of our need to help the poor and the vulnerable as when we’re sitting right here, in church.
Then, if we were like our observant Jewish neighbors (or like some Christians still today) we would leave church and that wouldn’t be the end of our sabbath observation. We’d go home and rather than jump back on our phones or whatever we use to distract ourselves, we’d reflect on the service, the Gospel, what small difference it might possibly make in your life. We’d take a prayerful walk outside. We’d examine our lives and priorities, consider what we’re really doing to (in the famous words of the prophet Isaiah in today’s reading) “repair the breach.”
There is little that matters more in any religious tradition than helping a fellow human being. We all share that in common. We also all share in common sacred space and time apart. Sabbath, Sunday in our tradition, heightens our sense of urgency for what matters, gives us strength to focus on those things, and helps shift our priorities for the other days of the week, too.
Think today about the woman in our Gospel lesson who walked into that synagogue 2000 years ago, and let her be the face of all that we are called to address. This was one woman. It’s not like Jesus cured world hunger or a whole host of problems that morning. He simply stopped--by the way, he was preaching when this happened, a detail not lost on me!--he stopped preaching, took care of a single person, that’s all. Nothing we can’t also do. And in doing this, he did his part in that moment, on that morning, to repair the breach. May we do ours, as well. Amen.