Proper 16 August 22, 2004.

Isaiah 58:9b-14

Psalm 103:1-8

Hebrews 12:18-29

Luke 13:10-17

Isaiah seems to be setting forth two commands in this passage: Do justice and Keep sabbath. Each command has negative and positive aspects, and each is described with concrete actions to be taken. Regarding justice, the negative aspects require that the people "remove the yoke from among you" (uproot oppression), and stop "the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil" (v. 9). The positive requirements for justice command the people to feed the hungry and satisfy the needs of those who suffer. Sabbath keeping calls the people to stop "pursuing your own interests on my holy day" (v. 13) and instead "take delight" (v. 14).

That YHWH reiterates three times the conditional "if" regarding sabbath shows that this command is important! Such commands that the people should not do whatever they like may not sit well with those of us who find the sabbath the perfect day to hit the mall or team up on the soccer field or sleep late. Yet, there it is. Sabbath is rightly connected here with the public circumstances of the poor and the hungry, because the sabbath rest that YHWH commands us to observe this day (Exod 20:8-11) intends for sabbath to foster a society in which people do not simply (and mindlessly) identify themselves as "producers" or, more pointedly, as "consumers." Instead, those to whom YHWH speaks are the precious descendants of Jacob, and of Rachel and Leah, for whom the Lord wants strength and growth.

Anyone who longs to meditate on the meaning of the Third Commandment would be well served by Abraham Joshua Heschel's fine book The Sabbath (NY: Noonday, 1951). "The meaning of the Sabbath is to celebrate time rather than space. Six days a week we live under the tyranny of things of space; on the Sabbath we try to become attuned to holiness in time" (p. 10). The emphasis on economic inequities here is in keeping with Isaiah's explicitly naming the oppression of workers in 58:3. The beginning of doing justice is the removal of what binds the people as if they are like cattle yoked to labor overseen by a self-serving owner.

Rather than blaming the victim or finding other ways to excuse themselves from complicity with injustice, the people must critique themselves. Pointing fingers at others is the opposite of looking into our own faults, and YHWH does not take kindly to those who fail to honestly assess their situation. In order to face what is needed to build and sustain a just society, the people must name and work to eliminate the structures that cause hunger and poverty. There is no question here that economic and social perfection is possible. But that is beside the point, for, as we shall see, YHWH is intent on the people's having "delight in the Lord," not delight in their own accomplishments.

As the roots of injustice are being eradicated, positive actions on behalf of those in need are enacted to make an even larger front against suffering. The word of the Lord calls the people to "offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted" (vv. 9b-10). Those who have the least will have the best chance to flourish in an environment free from daily assault by employers and occupying forces, neighbors and those who speak evil of them.

If the people are going to find themselves blessed by the gifts of YHWH who desires to continually guide them, satisfy their needs, and make them strong, and if they want to "be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to live in" (v. 12), then the people must attend to the social and economic conditions around them.

These two ifs--doing justice and keeping sabbath--are juxtaposed in Isaiah as commands. In the story of Jesus' encounter with the bent-over woman, Jesus brings these two aspects of righteousness together by answering the needs of this long-suffering woman. Jesus heals her on the Sabbath. The leader of the synagogue attempts to arouse the crowd by shouting out that Jesus has disobeyed the law against curing the sick on the sabbath.

We could extend some sympathy to the synagogue leader and argue that he is simply taking seriously the strictures laid out in Isaiah's call "to refrain from trampling the sabbath" (v. 13). Jesus' answer reveals the hypocrisy of the religious leader's definition of work. How can it be work if Jesus relieves the suffering of a human being but not be deemed work if the religious leader cares for an animal on the same holy day? Jesus takes the leader's own use of the word work, dissects its definition, and makes plain the inappropriate application of fault to what he (Jesus) has done.

It is so easy to make rules and so hard to understand when they should be broken. In both church and society, our world has seen numerous and thoughtful moments when people of faith (whether secular or religious) have expressed their opposition to unjust laws by doing just what Jesus did: publicly breaking them. Jesus' life contains many stories of such violations: eating with unapproved persons, touching the unclean, gleaning grain from the fields on the sabbath, turning over the tables of the temple moneychangers, and in other ways, through stories and parables, repeatedly challenging the legal order that had been so carefully constructed.

The preacher might struggle with the meaning of the Hebrews community's having "come ... to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering" (v. 22) or the image of God as "a consuming fire" (v. 29), for it is in Hebrews that the commands in Isaiah and Luke acquire an eschatological edge and, indeed, point to the eschatological mission of the church. The writer of Hebrews compares the Mosaic vision with that of the vision of the Risen One. In a paraphrase, we might hear it as 'you have not come to Mount Sinai [vv. 18-21] but you have come to Mount Zion [vv. 22-24].' Remember, this is the chapter in Hebrews that begins, "Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us" (12:1). In other words, doing justice and keeping sabbath are not only laws to be obeyed but gospel promises into which we are to live.

This might be the day to talk about the meaning of the Sunday liturgy: how it comes out of the Word of God, how the Word feeds us, how it enacts justice by bringing all people equally to the font and the table, how Christ Jesus is present, how we are reminded of our ancestors, how the symbols of our narratives come together in our assemblies and force us to contend with their contradictions, driving us always deeper into the mystery of our faith. This might be the day to sing "Joy to the World" in the heat of summer.