Trinity 17

Lately I’ve been to so many meetings; it’s part of my life on the road as a Bishop. But I was rather amused by a question that a speaker asked. He looked out at the crowd and questioned, “Can you hear me at the back?” And one brash person responded, “Yes, but I’ll gladly change places with someone who can’t.”

It’s so easy to miss the critical answer to the question. Jesus Christ in our Gospel lesson addresses one of the most often understood realities about God, particularly the nature of His laws. It comes in the form of a question. To be accurate, Jesus apparently answers a question with a question. Our Gospel passage from Luke 14 begins in a social setting around a meal, as the scenes in Luke so often do. The setting was in the house of a leading Pharisee. The text states, “Now it happened, as He [Christ] went into the house of one of the rulers of the Pharisees to eat bread on the Sabbath, that they watched him closely” (Luke 14:1). Scholars have noted that the Pharisees and most of first century Judaism viewed the table in the household as an extension of the altar of God. Household meals became sacred. Virtually all the law of the Lord was understood as summarized by the food laws. For this reason the Pharisees were quite attentive to what Jesus did at meals. And vice versa, Christ focused His teaching on the altar table of the local Jew, especially the leaders.

The unique aspect of this particular meal story in Luke has to do with one of the guests. He is described as a man with dropsy. Apparently, a question was asked of our Lord. We are not told what it was. Yet, the text describes His response as an answer: “And Jesus, answering, spoke to the lawyers and the Pharisees” (14:3). The answer of Jesus to the unknown question continues, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?” (14:3). Apparently a discussion had arisen as to what activities were allowed on the Sabbath. The Jews debated this issue all the time. Christianity in its history has wrestled with the question as well. The reason is that both Jews and Christians believe in keeping the Ten Commandments. The fourth commandment is, “Remember that you keep holy the Sabbath Day” (Exodus 20). Of course for the Christian the Sabbath Day is not the seventh day but the eighth or the first day. The New Testament calls Jesus our Sabbath Rest (Hebrews 4). The Church has therefore viewed the Christian Sabbath as the day on which Christ re-entered the world, the day He was raised from the dead, our Sunday.

The response to Jesus’ answer to a question with a question was met with silence. Then Scripture states that He “healed the man and let him go” (14:4). Evidently more Pharisaical questions were raised. One more time we are not told what they were. All that is recorded is once again that Jesus “answered” them. His answer provides an important explanation as to the nature of the law. He states, “Which of you, having a donkey or an ox that has fallen into a pit, will not immediately pull him out on the Sabbath Day?” (14:5). Christ’s point is right out of Moses. The same lawgiver through whom unchangeable laws were etched  on stone also provided that acts of mercy and necessity could be done on the Lord’s day. Christ’s brilliant interpretation of Scripture left the Pharisees again with silent mouths. The text then records that the Pharisees were left without an answer.

What is going on in this curious exchange? The Pharisees undoubtedly thought Christ had broken one of the commandments when He healed on the Sabbath Day. Indeed He had not. Rather, the Pharisees had missed or forgotten the essence of the laws of God. Scripture calls it grace. Gracious acts can be done on the Sabbath precisely because the Ten Commandments are a revelation of the grace of God.

Unfortunately just like the Pharisees, we humans often fail to perceive the grace of God’s laws. We tend to see law as oppressive and restrictive. Our entire society has a reaction to Judaeo Christian ethics precisely because of an antipathy for law. One does not have to be an art or movie critic to note how the arts portray Christian values. The problem is that the grace of the law has been lost.

In England there was a marvelous comedy series that has never made it to the United States. It’s called One Foot in the Grave. It’s about a man who seems to have everything go wrong with him. In one particular show, this man, his wife and another couple decide to research a lovely place in Spain for their vacation. They travel there by airplane. Yet, the place of their choosing is quite a distance from the airport. They rent a car and set out to find their dream. Sadly after a short time, they become totally lost. They can’t make out the map. So they decide to pull over. While standing beside the car, the local police show up. The police can’t understand English and the Brits have no knowledge of Spanish. Finally, the police make both couples get in the car. They drive them a distance to a destination with a rather long building with bars on it. They are not happy. Both couples are escorted inside to their rooms where they sit down in a state of shock. Then the leading character of our story happens to look down at the ground and sees a brochure about their vacation spot. He recognizes that the building on the front is the very place to which the police had brought them. What they had thought was a prison was indeed their anticipated place of great joy and resort. So are God’s commandments. What we think will be restrictive actually brings relief, freedom and true happiness.

This is the grace of law that the Pharisees had missed. Consequently they failed to see Christ as the fulfillment and the very means of keeping the law. Grace leads to the law. This is the law of grace. For grace enables obedience to the law. And so our collect for the day reads, “Lord, we pray that thy grace may always precede and follow us, and makes continually to be given to all good works. Amen.”