Getting it wrong !

Today’s gospel reading (Luke 10:13-17) is a marvellous example of how people can sometimes get things wrong. Jesus was teaching in a synagogue, when he saw a lady come in who was bent over and completely unable to stand up straight. She had been this way for 18 years. And as Jesus looked at her, and recognised I’m sure her faith in keeping coming back to the Synagogue, he commanded that she should be healed.

And she was… Incredibly after 18 years her suffering was over. The woman, recognising the miracle that had taken place immediately began praising God. This week I saw a courier van and written on the back was ‘Call’ and then there was a telephone number, and then underneath ‘For GOD’. It certainly drew my attention, but in smaller letters underneath the word ‘GOD’ was ‘guaranteed overnight delivery.’

In this gospel passage we notice that God can work much faster than overnight in some cases – the transformation of this woman was incredible and yet, the leader of the synagogue didn’t even comment about that. Instead, he just complained that Jesus had cured this woman on the Sabbath Day. It really does seem amazing that he could so badly miss the point – God was at work here in a powerful and wonderful way, but the synagogue leader missed it, or ignored it, because he was more concerned with some rules.

In this one passage there is actually a huge amount to think about, and to avoid the risk of you missing your lunch I’ll just think of a few small parts !

Firstly there is the woman. The 18 years of pain and suffering must have been dreadful, but she’d never given up, on herself or on God. She was out and about, involved in society, and she was still worshipping at the Synagogue. What a wonderful example she sets to us, as we struggle sometimes to motivate ourselves, either for Church or simply for getting up and doing anything useful at all !

The gift of life is an incredible gift. God never intends for life to be a trial or something to just endure, but something to be lived fully, and something to be enjoyed, treasured, and appreciated. We know very little about this woman, but we recognise those things in the small account we have of her life.

And the lesson she surely offers to us is to do the same – to appreciate the lives we have, however difficult they may sometimes be, and recognise that every moment is a gift from God to be lived with his blessing and his presence alongside us.

Secondly we think about the leader of the Synagogue. It would be easy to criticise him, but he probably had the best of intentions – how could he preserve some sort of order in the worship if people were just going to start healing others as Jesus did ?! Perhaps he’d worked hard to get to the position he was in. Maybe he knew that those in authority over him would be far from pleased to hear about this unruly behaviour on the Sabbath, and he was the one who was going to be questioned about it.

Whatever the reason, or whatever excuses we may find for his behaviour, he missed the chance to celebrate God at work right in front of him. And the lesson for us here is that we too must make sure that our lives are lived in such a way that we’re ready to recognise the unpredictable God… Because that’s what God is. And sometimes we have to adapt to where the Spirit of God is leading, and not expect him to fit in with how we like things done.

And finally there is the question of the Sabbath. Many people mourn the loss of the traditional Sunday. Many people now have to work on that day, many have sports commitments, for others perhaps that is their only day to spend with family, or to do the shopping for the week, and in view of all of these things I think that, to an extent we, as the Church, must recognise that life for many people has changed. However the importance of the Sabbath must never be under estimated too much.

One day a man challenged another to an all-day wood chopping contest. The challenger worked very hard, stopping only for a brief lunch break. The other man had a leisurely lunch and took several breaks during the day. At the end of the day, the challenger was surprised and annoyed to find that the other man had chopped substantially more wood than he had. "I don't get it," he said. "Every time I checked, you were taking a rest, yet you chopped more wood than I did." "But you didn't notice," said the winning man, "that when I sat down to rest, I was sharpening my axe."

Spending time in thought and reflection is not wasted time. It is essential. Every one of us needs occasionally to set aside such time to sharpen ourselves up a bit. And so the Sabbath must be a time for rest and reflection. It must also be a time to remember our dependency on God. Through a busy week, it’s easy to let God drop out of our thoughts, and the Sabbath day must be a time to put ourselves back on track for the coming week.

The old Sabbath day was, in Jesus’ time, and still is by Jews today, celebrated on Saturday which was traditionally the seventh day. But we celebrate on a Sunday, the first day of the week, because Jesus gave us new life on that day, and we celebrate and give thanks for that new life every Sunday. So Sunday is a new start, a day when, with our batteries recharged we begin to face the world again !

And the Sabbath is of course a day for worship. Worship is one of those words that it’s really hard to accurately define. And in many ways our whole lives must be lived as worship to God, as we thank him for his blessings, and offer our prayers and our praise to him. But even if we do that, and it’s something which I suspect none of us really completely achieves, then we must also set aside a time to just put all of our efforts and our thoughts into it. There must be a time when we immerse ourselves in worship as we celebrate God and his love for us.

And so the Sabbath still has a meaning and a purpose for us today. But we must never become like the Synagogue leader and become bowed down to rules and regulations. The power and love and will of God is more important than any rule. There’s a story with which I’d like to finish which was told by the American Preacher and Author Fred Craddock. It would be better if I could do the accent well, but as I can’t I’m not even going to try !

He told of meeting a man one day in a restaurant. "You a preacher?" the man asked. Somewhat embarrassed, Fred said, "Yes."

The man pulled a chair up to Fred's table. "Preacher, I'll tell you a story. There was once a little boy who grew up sad. Life was tough because my mama had me but she had never been married. Do you know how a small Tennessee town treats people like that? Do you know the words they used to name kids that don't have no father?

"Well, we never went to church, nobody asked us. But for some reason or other, we went to church one night when they was having a revival meeting. They had a big, tall preacher, visiting to do to the revival and he was all dressed up in black. He had a thunderous voice and shook the little church.

"We sat towards the back. Well, that preacher got to preaching, about what I don't know, stalking up and down the aisle of that little church preaching. It was something.

"After the service, we were slipping out the back door when I felt that big preacher's hand on my shoulder. I was scared. He looked way down at me, looked me in the eye and says, 'Boy, who's your Daddy?'

"I didn't have no Daddy. That's what I told him in trembling voice.

"'O yes you do,' boomed that big preacher, 'you're a child of the Kingdom, you have been bought with a price, you are a child of the King!'

"I was never the same after that… Preacher, for God's sake, preach that."

The man pulled his chair away from the table. He extended his hand and introduced himself. Craddock said the name rang a bell. He was the former governor of the state of Tennessee.

His life, like the life of the woman in the gospel, and like so many others, was changed by God working powerfully, and nothing we do must ever interfere with his work. AMEN