“Right or Righteous”
Luke 13:10-17
Saturday, August 25, 2007

Well, let’s start out this morning with some help from our congregation so I am going to call Millie to come up here.  Before you left home to come to church today you noticed your little puppy had gotten totally wrapped around the tree and was crying piteously.  Your mom said that you’d better be in the car by 1O:30 or you would make the whole family late for church.  If you untangle the puppy, you’re in trouble with Mom.  What would you do?

“I’d take the wrath of mom for the sake of the puppy.”

May I speak to your sister Frances?  Frances, what would you do in this situation where mom said, “Don’t make us late no matter what”?

“Oh, I always do what mom says.  After all a rule is a rule.  Laws are not made to be broken.”

All right, all right, thank you Frances.

The dilemma here?  Right or righteous.  It’s not a new puzzle to wrestle with.  We all know about it.  Do we go with what the law says?  Or do we go with what mercy asks from us?

How do we find our way through the decisions that come up daily for us that place us in the same quandary as Jesus in the synagogue—who is presented with a woman who has been stooped over in this position for eighteen years?

Think of it.  Stand up.  Frozen in position where her vision is only slightly to either side…one the ground…nothing up here…or over here.  Would an upright posture be a priority for you?  Several commentators on this story make the point that all of us are cripples—all of us are bent over in our sin and need the healing touch of Christ physically and spiritually to help us to straighten up and enjoy the wider world around us.  In bondage to Satan.  Yow!

And healing was a good thing.  Healing was a priority of the law.  Acts of compassion and healing were encouraged by the law anytime—except on the Sabbath when it had to be a life threatening emergency in order to qualify.

The leader of the synagogue was on solid ground with the law in his stand-off with Jesus. Here is that tension again between rightness and righteousness.  There is a constant tension in the faith community and in the whole community of humankind between justice and mercy, between law and grace.  We tend to honor an either/ or divide.  We honor righteous or rightness.  We choose sides.

For example, in our reformed community we are inclined to see the Old Testament as a book of law and the New Testament as a book of grace.  The truth of the matter is that Grace and mercy are presuppositions of the law in the OT. God’s desire for fellowship with us does not change between the Old Testament and the New.  Israel saw the Ten Commandments as positive affirmations as to the way we should live with God—not as harsh prohibitions that were to be etched in marble over state capitols and used as moral bludgeons.

The ruler of the synagogue who is having such a problem with Jesus healing on the Sabbath knows the rabbinic tradition.  According to this tradition, God said to himself at creation, “If I create the world by mercy alone, sin will abound.  If I create it by justice alone, how can the world endure?  Therefore I will create it by both.”

The ruler is angry that Jesus breaks the law in regards to Sabbath observance and that he heals on the Sabbath.  The ruler is a good Jewish rabbi, but I think that he is also a closet Presbyterian.  He stands up for the right, for doing things decently and in order.  Don’t we pride ourselves on doing things by the book?  Is it possible that our beloved Book of Order sometimes gets in the way of the book of Scriptures?  It’s almost as big now. The problem is that the agony of the woman gets lost in the demand to obey the letter of the law—if not its spirit.  But the officer of the synagogue places the needs of the institution before the needs of the individual.

There are countless places where this happens today that range from the needs of elderly persons on fixed incomes needing medical attention and insurance plans that are in English, to the children of immigrants legal or illegal who need education and health care, to the prisoners of the United States being held in violation of the Geneva conventions and international jurisprudence.  The list is long where the institution's demands are placed before the needs of the individual.

The president of the synagogue doesn’t really talk to Jesus here.  He appeals to the crowd using the law.  It backfires, because Jesus turns around and does the same thing using the law.

The synagogue ruler says, “Are there not six days in the week when this work can be done?  Come on one of those days to be healed and don’t profane the Sabbath.”

That’s when Jesus calls on little Millie with her puppy.  He appeals to the congregation.   “Folks, if you had a cow or a donkey that was thirsty on the Sabbath, would you not give that dumb animal something to drink and satisfy the requirements of the law for mercy?”  “Yes, yes, of course”, say the people “and it would be perfectly legal  to do that.”  Then Jesus skillfully argues from the lesser to the greater.  He says, ”Well, do you remember what it was like to stare at the floor for twenty seconds all bent over in paralysis?”

 “O, yes, yes, don’t make us stand up in church like that again after we’ve gotten all comfortable and settled in for the sermon.”

“Well, can you imagine being crippled like that for eighteen years?”

“O, terrible, terrible!”  If the law is clear that it is right to be merciful even to the helpless animals on the Sabbath, then do you not think it is right to free this woman from her prison right here in the synagogue on the Sabbath?

And, scripture says, “And the crowd rejoiced.”

Right or righteous?

The people rejoice, but not the establishment that would eventually crucify Jesus.  Who does he think he is?  Is he above the law?  Is he setting himself up to be the new judge of what is good?

Jesus counters with, “People were not made for the good of the Sabbath.  The Sabbath was made for the good of the people.  So, the Son of Man is Lord over the Sabbath.”  Jesus never says “I don’t care what the law says.”  He does say, “You have heard it said, but I say unto you.”  And, we are never counseled in Scripture to ignore the law or its demands.  We are never told to forget the law.

Good judges are known for their ability to mix compassion with the requirements of the law and to make their decisions with that wisdom.  Good parents are the same.

Jesus deftly steers a course today that balances law and grace.  Healing comes to this poor woman, but he further mobilizes the anger of an unbending establishment that takes God’s good law and makes it into a straightjacket of dry morality.

Let us pray to follow the way of our Lord, giving deference to the law and its purposes in our lives, while celebrating the Spirit’s freedom to fill the law to overflowing with grace and compassion in our bent over suffering in the world.  Amen.