Trinity 1
We start with a gospel story about the Sabbath, and with an Old Testament reference to the command. In looking at the detail, it is easy to avoid the bigger picture, and the context of the laws. For when we recite the commandments, we miss the introduction.
‘I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.’ And here, in the second version of the commandments, the command about the Sabbath has a reminder of slavery. Even your SLAVE must be allowed a day of rest. It is not a command to keep yourself ritually pure by employing someone else to work for you on the Sabbath. We all need a rest, and these days a paid day of rest which is enshrined in law, is being eroded away by unscrupulous employers, by no hours contracts, by Uber, which refuses to give employment rights, delivery firms which contract workers rather than employing them and so on. The command says you don’t exploit people to get the job done more cheaply. The employer has a responsibility towards everyone in the organisation – don’t contract it out and forget your responsibilities, which even John Lewis and parts of the NHS and local councils do. If even your slave has a day of rest in 1500 BC, it is a disgrace that many employers won’t do the same for everyone today.
The bigger picture, the summary of the law, is vital. ‘The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might, and love your neighbour as yourself.’ Don’t exploit people – remember you were slaves in Egypt, as the psalm and the commandment remind us.
Now, to the gospel. The reason the disciples are picking grain and eating it is because they are hungry. It’s the Sabbath. No-one is going to feed them because that would be work, so they will all just have to go hungry. Excuse me, if you’re going to be that nit picking about it, why do you pick up a fork and shovel food into your own mouth?
In the story which follows, the restoring of a withered hand actually becomes secondary to a bigger story about the abuse of power. The lesson is made very prominent, as the trap is set. ‘They watched Jesus to see whether he would cure him on the sabbath, so that they might accuse him.’ So before doing anything, Jesus puts the question. What is the law? Is it about loving God and your neighbour or is it about enslaving people in regulations? It’s the current government crisis in the wake of the Irish vote on abortion. It puts the spotlight on the DUP, and on the entire Conservative government here which relies on their vote in order to survive. It’s about power. They are now seen as hanging on to power by refusing compassion to women in Northern Ireland. Power says the law must be upheld at all costs. ‘The Pharisees went out and immediately conspired with the Herodians against Jesus, how to destroy him.’
Anyone who challenges authority must be eliminated. People in power silence their victims. It’s happened in the Church, it’s happened in Hollywood. Putin does it. The Israeli government does it. Even aid workers have been doing it and a report on 2002 was hushed up until this year.
The power of the state, in Jesus’ day as today, is used to silence the voice of truth, of compassion, of justice, and ultimately the voice of God. It is the voice of God which cries out for his enslaved people, whether in Egypt thousands of years ago, or in the world today. Jesus is angered and saddened by such hardness of heart.
When St. John tells the story of the man born blind, whilst the theme is the same about the murderous intentions of those in power, he adds so much more. Challenged about healing on the Sabbath, Jesus replies ‘My Father is still working, and I also am working.’ Put this with the opening of St. John’s gospel, that all creation is through the Word of God and you have an understanding of all creation which is totally at odds with the myth of a six day wonder. ‘My Father is still working, and I also am working.’ Trust a geologist to pick on this, you might say. Of course. Jesus the Son of God, knows that he is engaged in continuing his work in creation which has never ceased since the dawn of time 14 billion years ago. This entire work is sustained by his love and has been sustained every day. God does not say, I’ve done enough loving, I’ll have a day off. This is the power of love.
Maybe you’ve heard someone preach recently at a wedding about the power of love. I heard Michael Currie preach at a national conference is Chicago, and 18 years on I still thrill to recall the awesome power of his oratory. As Michael Curry reminded us, love is not something insignificant and puny and soppy. Love is a fire.
And, starting with Teilhard de Chardin, he noted that the harnessing of fire was the ultimate point in the evolution of humanity. Fire enabled the human race to survive the ice ages, but, more than that, the harnessing of fire allowed food to be cooked, and become more richly nourishing that anything which had ever gone before. The final stages of the evolution of the human brain required a rich diet of cooked food, from the harnessing of fire.
Love is a fire. Not something weak, wishy washy and sentimental, but with a transforming power to change the world. Love’s fire is the engine of all creation. Michael Curry again, referred in his sermon to the harnessing of fire, especially in the industrial revolution. Nothing to me epitomises and illustrates the beauty and the power of fire than a steam locomotive in all its glory, where you actually see the fire, and see the work it does in driving 500 tons of a laden train at up to 100 miles an hour. And all this, from one sweating fireman, feeding the coal into the firebox. The drama of such an engine is palpable. We see the release of a creative energy to do work. Love is such a creative energy at work. And the whole story of creation is of the harnessing of such an energy. ‘In the beginning was the Word, and the word was with God and the word was God.’ Or, as the psalmist put it, ‘I heard a voice.’ God said: ‘I eased their shoulder from the burden; their hands were set free from bearing the load.’ The voice of the Lord frees the slaves.
Jesus restores the man’s withered hand because he, the creator, can harness all the love with which he has made and sustained the world. With a love so intense it is like the heat of the sun, a love so intense it had a force like a steam engine, a love so intense it could harness all the energy of creation, to heal the sick, to restore the broken, raise up the fallen, cleanse the leper and raise the dead. In Jesus we see that God’s love is actualised in his sharing our life, showing us how to live as our creator intended, a life to be given away in a life of loving that we might share in the love which never comes to an end. But in that act of love, he signs his death warrant at the hands of those who wield earthly power. Paul shares in this ‘We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies.’ Love, God’s love, will triumph. Paul says, ‘The God who said “Let light shine our of darkness” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.’