Scripture: Luke 13:10-17 Series: 2022
Launching the ‘In the World’ series, this sermon reads Jesus’ Sabbath healing of the bent-over woman (Luke 13:10-17) as a challenge to religious privilege. Using examples like country-club membership, greenwashing, and his coined ‘cross-washing’ and ‘Sabbath-washing,’ the pastor argues that faith is never an excuse to get out of loving people. Christians are called not to entitlement but to humility, self-sacrifice, and inconvenient love of even their least lovable neighbors, echoing Dorothy Day’s line that we love God only as much as the person we love the least.
Illustrations: membership-body-not-club, revoked-visitor-card, global-poverty-juxtaposition, greenwashing, cross-washing, sabbath-washing, cool-kids-and-band-geeks, dorothy-day-love-the-least
August 21
Privilege
“Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath. A woman was there who had been disabled by a spirit for eighteen years. She was bent over and couldn’t stand up straight. When he saw her, Jesus called her to him and said, “Woman, you are set free from your sickness.” He placed his hands on her and she straightened up at once and praised God. The synagogue leader, incensed that Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, responded, “There are six days during which work is permitted. Come and be healed on those days, not on the Sabbath day.” The Lord replied, “Hypocrites! Don’t each of you on the Sabbath untie your ox or donkey from its stall and lead it out to get a drink? Then isn’t it necessary that this woman, a daughter of Abraham, bound by Satan for eighteen long years, be set free from her bondage on the Sabbath day?” When he said these things, all his opponents were put to shame, but all those in the crowd rejoiced at all the extraordinary things he was doing.” Luke 13:10-17 CEB
I always get super excited when we are able to baptize people: babies, children, grownups, anybody. I get super excited when people are able to join the church. And usually before joining Bee Creek, I like to have a conversation with folks beforehand to make sure they have some idea what they are getting into: If they can make it to a new member lunch, it’s like with a group of people then if not, it’s kind of one-on-one and that’s, that’s fine too. And I like to talk about what membership means. And for me, it’s a membership like you’re a member of a body, not a member of a club: like you’re a hand, a foot, an ear. Most of the time, when we think of members, we think of members of a club like a country club. You have certain privileges as a member of, you know, Barton Creek Lakeside or the Hills of Stonehouse Vineyard, you know you can get a round of golf. You can go to member only events. There are other privileges involved. There are some responsibilities, but there are privileges that you get.
With the church, when you become a member, you get mostly responsibilities. During the membership conversations I say, “now your visitor card has been revoked. You really need to start welcoming people.” One time, a person asked, “What are the perks of membership in the church?” I said there weren’t any, because there aren’t any as the world sees it. From a worldly perspective, church membership seems like a burden. We ask you to show up on Sundays and worship God. We ask you to serve outside of that during the month. We ask you to tithe. All these are burdens according to the world but they are perks according to God. Generosity is a perk. It really is. It’s a joy to be generous towards God. Giving to the church is not a membership fee but a response to God’s amazing love. A lot of people don’t see it that way. It is hard to see it that way unless you go through that journey of faith.
Talking about privileges, though, is a very tricky thing. Nowadays, it is a very politically charged topic with a lot of opinions on a lot of sides. However, when we read the gospels, Jesus doesn’t avoid politically charged topics. To be in the world for Jesus is not to avoid controversy, but to live a life of love.
My friends, we’re starting a new sermon series called In the World, looking at how we can live in the world but not be of the world. That’s it, it’s very focused. This is a topic central to the life of Jesus; central to the message of the good news of Jesus Christ, to the message of the gospels. We’re talking about privilege through the lens of this passage from Luke 13.
Jesus breaks the Sabbath according to the understanding of the day. The Sabbath is in the 10 commandments. Jesus disagrees with prior teachings on the Sabbath. Jesus helps us to see and understand the true meaning of Sabbath and challenges our privilege in the midst of it. I want us to focus on this. And so I want you to let go of the way that privilege is used in the world. Let go of the way it’s used in country clubs or business clubs or frequent flyer clubs and just hone in right here on this story.
Jesus heals a woman in the temple on the Sabbath and a lot of people are offended. That is work and it should be done. In another passage, Jesus quotes Scripture about David’s soldiers working on the sabbath during war. Here, though, Jesus relates healing a woman sick for years to untying a donkey. He is not comparing her to an animal. He is comparing his action of healing with their action of untying an animal to lead it to water. He is freeing her for new life.
The explicit reason why the experts say they are offended is because Jesus doesn’t follow the Sabbath: he heals on the sabbath: he works on the sabbath. The true reason, the implicit reason why they’re offended is because Jesus’s actions put their own life of faith into question. They thought they were in the privileged position of being able to pick and choose when they should love and who they should love. Jesus challenges both of these notions. The Sabbath is not an excuse to get out of loving people. Faith is not an excuse to get out of loving people. The privilege of faith is not that you get to imagine you are a good person no matter what you do or don’t do. Christianity, however it’s presented in the world, is not an excuse to get out of loving people. When we use it as an excuse, we are in fact denying that we have any faith at all.
One of the clearest ways that we can see this is by looking at our lives as compared to people around the world. For instance, in different measures of global poverty, of malnutrition, of child poverty around the world, the challenges people face around the world, when we compare our own lives and existence, this juxtaposition can give us an understanding of the blessings and benefits of our own position here and now. The way that there are Christians around the world who are persecuted for their faith, they don’t have a chance to use Christianity as an excuse to get out of loving people, because the very name of Jesus puts them in danger.
There’s a way that corporations can act environmental without actually changing any of their policies. It’s called greenwashing. There is a way that Christians can act in public: I call this cross-washing. I’m going to put the cross on things. I’m gonna wear Christian shirts, listen to Christian radio. I’m going to go through the motions. And this would get me out of actually having to confront my own heart and my own sin. This gets me out of loving my neighbor. If I do the things society expects Christians to do, then I’m good. I get the benefit of faith. I get the privileges of faith, but I don’t actually have to love people who annoy me. I don’t have to walk an extra mile in another person’s shoes. I can go ahead and judge them. In the time of Jesus, there were folks following the law that I would call Sabbath washing. “I may not be super faithful, but I keep this habit. This thing I do and you don’t. You may be the prophet of God. You may be the mechiach, the anointed one of God, but you are not keeping Sabbath. You may heal people from the dead. You may heal people born blind. You may heal lepers, but I’ll follow sabbath, So therefore I am superior to you. Cross-washing can also lead to a posture of arrogance and entitlement in the church. Why aren’t people coming? What’s the big deal? Why aren’t people coming back to church? Why aren’t my kids going to church? Why aren’t my neighbors going to church? What’s going on? What’s their problem. Jesus didn’t really have a posture of entitlement. He didn’t assume that things were going to work out for him. He went and sought people where they were. He said, “I did not come to save the righteous, but the lost of the tribe of Israel.” His ministry was not to people who thought they had figured it out, but to the people who were desperate enough to be willing to turn their lives around. And if we are not desperate for Jesus, if we’re not desperate for the Lord, there’s going to be a barrier built up between ourselves and God. Jesus does not come and preach a posture of entitlement or privilege, but humility and self-sacrifice. God is calling us to take a step of faith to love at a time when it is inconvenient. Our encouragement this day, as well, should be that no matter who you are or what you have done, you are worthy of love. You are loved by God. Whether you are a student in the cool kids group or the weirdos and band geeks, you are worthy of love. God sees you and includes you. We can’t rest with acceptance forever. But especially on hard and lonely days, we can rest in God’s love. We can remember that God loves us when we don’t deserve it so we can love others when they don’t deserve it.
My brothers and sisters, I think that this is our call this day: to love in inconvenient ways and in inconvenient times, because the love of Christ, the true love of Christ is a challenge in this world. If we’re not challenged in the ways that we love people, we are not stretching ourselves and pushing ourselves. We’re building a bubble. We’re cross-washing ourselves in order to claim that we have it all figured out. And in so doing, to keep ourselves from grace, to keep ourselves from Christ’s incredible mercy. We are using God’s law to get out of following God’s command to love our neighbors. This is what the pharisees did with Sabbath, and Jesus cut right through that. And so this day, my brothers and sisters, may you go into the world like Jesus, may you go into the world, willing to love in an inconvenient time, willing to be called out for it. Dorothy Day said, “I only love God as much as I love the person I love the least.” It would be easier if I could love God without loving my neighbors, but that would be a different religion all together. And God doesn’t call us to love our neighbors on our terms, but on theirs. If we only love on our terms and we think that is enough, we are not following Jesus. And not just out neighbors, God calls us to love our least lovable neighbors.
Are we willing to let go of worldly privilege and entitlement and assumptions about who you should love. The greatest privilege is found in receiving grace and living the life God created you to live. A life of love. A life of nothing but love. I want to repeat Dorothy Day’s words one more time: “I only love God as much as I love the person I love the least.”
Are you willing to let God speak to you in a new way and call you to do something brave.
Let us pray.
Heavenly father, we thank you for this day. We thank you for meeting us where we are finding us in the world and sending us back into the world and your spirit come, holy spirit, come into this place. Remember us, fill us, forgive us, empower us and send us. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.