Healing on the Sabbath
Luke 6:1-16

Have you been in any heated disagreements lately? In the current social and political climate, it is easy to get embroiled in a dispute about the issues of the day. There are a multitude of hot button topics: illegal immigration, border security, climate change, the denial of climate change, the Green New Deal, fossil fuel energy independence, the Keystone Pipeline and union jobs, white supremacy groups, Black Lives Matter, Antifa, identity politics, white privilege, freedom of speech, socialism, and capitalism, to name just a few. The list could go on and on. Just the mention of these topics is probably making your blood pressure go up a little bit.

Although the temperature of disagreement is certainly elevated now, our nation has had similar periods of division and animosity. Just think of the issues of slavery and states' rights, the women’s suffrage movement, the cultural revolution of the 1960s, the Vietnam War protests, the struggle for civil rights, the abortion controversy, and the gay rights/gay marriage movement.

Although people want peace, prosperity, and being left alone most of the time, there is a part of us that is itching for a fight. A part of us is attracted to struggle, controversy, and conflict. Human beings are a strange mixture of polarities.

This morning’s reading from Luke’s gospel records such an instance of conflict, not in the areas of politics or ethics, but in the realm of religion. Jesus and the Pharisees get into it with each other over the issue of Sabbath observance.

One Sabbath Jesus and his disciples were traveling, and they were hungry. They plucked some heads of grain from a field, rubbed them in their hands, and ate them. This was allowed by the law of Moses. Deuteronomy 23:25 says, “If you go into your neighbor’s standing grain, you may pluck ears with your hand, but you shall not put a sickle to your neighbor’s standing grain.” It was all right to eat some grain but not to harvest it. The issue was not that Jesus and his followers were stealing. When the Pharisees ask, “Why are you doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath?” they have in mind the fourth commandment. “Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD God, you shall not do any work” (Deut. 20:8-10a). From the perspective of the Pharisees, Jesus and his disciples were working on the Sabbath when they picked grain, rubbed it in their hands, and ate it.

Jesus answers them by reminding them of a story about what David and his men did in 1 Samuel 21:1-6. They were fleeing from Saul and were hungry. “Have you not read what David did, he and those who were with him: how he entered the house of God and took and ate the bread of the Presence, which is not lawful for any but the priests to eat, and also gave to those with him?” (vs. 3b-4).

On another Sabbath Jesus was observing the day by attending synagogue. There was a man with a withered hand in attendance too. The Pharisees were keeping a close eye on Jesus to see whether he would break the Sabbath by healing the man, an act they considered to be work. Jesus knew what the Pharisees were thinking, but he was not intimidated. He invited the man to stand front and center. Then Jesus asked the man to stretch out his hand, and when the man obeyed, the hand was completely restored. Luke records that the Pharisees were filled with madness by this blatant violation of their understanding of keeping the Sabbath.

The dispute between Jesus and the Pharisees remained unresolved. For their part, the Pharisees began to discuss with one another what they might do to Jesus. Eventually these discussions terminated in the plot to arrest Jesus and charge him with blasphemy and treason to Rome.

The issue of keeping the Sabbath has remained a thorny problem in the church for millennia. The Westminster Confession of Faith teaches the following about Sabbath observance. “This Sabbath is then kept holy unto the Lord, when men, after duly preparing their hearts, and orderings of their common affairs beforehand, do not only observe an holy rest, all the day, from their own works, words, and thoughts about their worldly employment and recreation; but also, are taken up, the whole time in public and private exercises of His worship, and in the duties of necessity and mercy” (Chapter 21:8).

My mother’s father was a Presbyterian minister. She recalled that they strictly observed the Sabbath according to the Westminster standards. They prepared their food on Saturday and got their church clothes all laid out the night before. After breakfast, they went to Sunday School followed by worship. Then they returned home and ate Sunday dinner. After lunch, Grandfather Clark would lie down for an hour and rest. She and her sister were allowed to play quietly with paper dolls. Then they went to call on the sick and homebound. Afterwards, the girls would go to Christian Endeavor (which was like Youth Group) in the afternoon, and the day concluded with an evening service followed by a light supper. These were good traditions that were intended to help Christians keep the Sabbath.

Christian people took the injunction not to work on the Sabbath very seriously. We might think of the true story depicted in the 1981 movie “Chariots of Fire.” Eric Liddell was a devout Scottish Christian who would not compete on the Sabbath during the 1924 Paris Olympics. Another example from the period comes from Denmark. A pastor had two churches. In the wintertime he would skate on the frozen rivers between the two congregations to get from one service to the other. Some members of the congregations objected to this practice and complained to the pastor’s superiors. He was brought up before the council to give an account of his behavior. After careful deliberation it was decided that the pastor could continue to skate from one church to the other so long as he did not enjoy it! It was not until the latter part of the twentieth century that Sabbath observance began to wane.

Luke’s record of the Sabbath controversy gives us as Christians sound guidance on Sabbath observance and more broadly on how to approach matters of controversy in our time. Jesus says unequivocally, “The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.” “The Son of Man” is not a generic human being, a son of Adam, although sometimes the phrase is used in that sense in scripture. Jesus is not saying, “Human beings are Lord of the Sabbath.” They can do what they think is right. “The Son of Man” was Jesus’ preferred title for himself in the gospels. The Son of Man is Jesus, who will appear at the end of history with the glory of his Father and the holy angels. The Son of Man is the Son of God. He is Lord of all, including the Sabbath.

And what is the will of the Son of Man? Jesus reveals his will in the question he poses to the Pharisees. “I ask you, is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the Sabbath, to save life or to destroy it?” (vs. 9). The will of the Son of Man is to do good and to save life. His will is to feed the hungry and heal the sick.

Whenever we consider matters of religious practice or social, political, moral, or economic questions, our basic criteria should be, “Will this observance, this social decision, this political action, this moral choice, this economic plan do good and save life or will it do harm and destroy life?”

What is needed most of all is for society to bend the corporate knee of fealty to the Son of Man and commit to his good and life-giving way. Admittedly, this will not happen universally until Christ comes again, but until that day arrives, we must become experts in the way of the Son of Man. We need to learn the Bible like the back of our hands, for it reveals God’s way in Jesus Christ. We need to pray and worship and study and fellowship together. We need to serve our hungry and sickly neighbors too.

Like the apostles, we have been chosen by Jesus Christ to be his ambassadors in this world of struggle, controversy, and conflict. We are to be salt, light, and kingdom leaven in this hurting world until Christ comes again.

So next time you find yourself engaged in a heated disagreement or embroiled in a dispute, whether it be religious, social, political, moral, or economic, take a moment to ask yourself, “What would the Son of Man do? What would Jesus say?” Do not forget that you are ambassadors for Christ. God wants you to be salt, light, and the leaven of the kingdom of heaven in this world of struggle, controversy, and conflict. So, let us strive to embody the way of the Son of Man as we walk our pilgrim way through this vale of tears, all through the grace and power of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.