Sermon: Breaking the Rules

Luke 6:1-11
There is a well-known Jewish saying “two Jews, three opinions” — meaning that even among a small group of Jewish people there is likely to be a wide range of diverse perspectives on a topic, including within one’s own self. 

I love this healthy culture of debate and open discussion within Judaism. Adhering to one set of “orthodox” beliefs to which everyone must conform is not valued within Judaism the way it has been within most of Christianity. In many branches of Judaism, thinking that you could even have “The One Truth” is not considered possible or even desirable. 

Contrast that with Christians who believe “The One Truth” is possible, desirable and that they know it. And since they/we have ”The One Truth,” we must denounce and part company with those who don’t. Anabaptists have been particularly prone to this disease over the centuries — that’s why there are so many different groups and subgroups even within the relatively small group of people who call themselves Mennonites. We’re going to learn a bit more about that during our Education Hour.  

I don’t know when this culture of rigorous and passionate debate began within Judaism, but it was definitely alive during Jesus’s time. Our passage today lands us squarely in the middle of one of those debates. In this case, the debate is about the most important practice for Jews of any time period—how to observe Sabbath, or Shabbat.

You can not understand Judaism without understanding the central importance of Shabbat. After Creator God creates the heavens and earth and everything in it for six days, Creator stops and rests on the seventh day and declares this day “holy.” Sacred. It’s the first thing that’s declared sacred in the Bible! And if God, the Creator of the universe, needs to rest and the calls that day of rest holy, “how much more so do humans need a weekly opportunity to cease from all productive activities, from their creating”? (Quote from My Jewish Learning)  That’s a whole sermon in and of itself.

There’s another layer to Shabbat’s rich meaning. When God delivers the enslaved Israelites out of Egypt and makes a covenant with them, the keeping of Shabbat is at the center of that covenant. It is the day every week when the people are commanded to remember that, “You were a slave in the land of Egypt and your God freed you from there,” as it says in Deuteronomy. So Shabbat is the day for Jews to remember their forebears who were enslaved and unable to enjoy this day of rest. It’s the day for them to rejoice in their liberation and be conscious of those who are still enslaved and in need of liberation.

There’s much more to be said about Shabbat but perhaps this is enough to get a sense of how important Shabbat is to the identity and worldview of the Jews of Jesus’ time. And because it’s so important, people debate even more passionately about how to rightfully observe Shabbat

And so to our story for today: Luke 6:1—11.

The Sabbath commandment is very clear that one is not to work on the Sabbath, nor are you supposed to make others — your servants and even your animals — work. In fact, the prohibition against work actually extends to the land because every seven years, as part of the extended observance of Shabbat, Jews are supposed to let the land rest completely and not farm it. (It turns out this is good agricultural practice so you don’t deplete soil fertility.)

But to return to that the weekly Sabbath observance.  If you’re not supposed to work on the Sabbath, what constitutes work? What is the work you are not supposed to do?  That becomes the central debate question about Sabbath observance, and this debate can get pretty technical. Are there circumstances where you can walk a certain distance — perhaps to visit an ailing relative — but no further? Would walking one mile not constitute work but walking two miles might?  Is it work to rescue your donkey or sheep if it falls into a pit on the Sabbath? What if a person falls into that pit? Some groups within Judaism of this time say “no.” No lifting any creature out of the pit on the Sabbath. Other Jewish groups say that of course you would because the purpose of the Sabbath is to promote life and well-being for all creatures.

The Pharisees will show up a lot in the Gospel of Luke, so let’s get to know them a little bit here. They tend toward the slightly stricter side of the continuum. When the Gospel of Luke is being written down, about 80-110 A.D., the Pharisees are emerging as the key religious leaders within Judaism. The Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed in 70 A.D. and with its destruction, the priesthood that had presided over Temple rituals lost power. The Pharisees, when the Gospel of Luke is being written, were stepping into that leadership vacuum and are emerging as the key group guiding Judaism forward. In fact, they are still the key leaders within Judaism since the Pharisees are the precursors to rabbis, and it is rabbinic Judaism that endures from the 2nd century down to our own time.

In our stories for today, Jesus steps squarely into this debate with the Pharisees over Sabbath observance. In that first story,  he allows — perhaps even encourages — his disciples to pluck, rub and eat wheat grains since they are hungry. He knows the Pharisees are watching him and his disciples, and indeed the Pharisees quickly say,“You’re breaking the rules!” 

Knowing full well that he’s being watched, Jesus goes into the synagogue and invites a man with a withered hand to come to him. He’s obviously doing this to make a point. Without ever saying that Sabbath rules are not important, Jesus is siding with the folks within Judaism who say: Let’s not get into the weeds so much with these rules. Let’s go back to first principles, to what is core: What is the Sabbath for? Obviously, it’s for the well-being of all creation. If that’s the case, then adherence to the rules follows from that. When human well-being demands it, those rules need to be broken. If people are hungry on the Sabbath, you feed them. If someone needs rescue or healing, you rescue and heal and you don’t wait until the next day when it’s OK to do so because the Sabbath was made for the well-being of all creation, not the other way around. In other words, we break the rules to more faithfully follow the most important rule.

All of which reminds me of the story just a few chapters later in Luke where Jesus is asked which of the 619 different commandments that appear in the Torah (the first five books of the Bible) is the most important. And what does Jesus say? “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and mind and love your neighbor as yourself.” By saying this, Jesus is clearly aligning himself with the first-century Jewish teacher Hillel, who died when Jesus was a child. There is a well-known story about an argument between Hillel and Shammai, two contemporary Jewish teachers who are held opposite poles of a spectrum with Judaism at the time. Hillel was the tolerant and liberal “looser” person when it came the Law and Shammai was the exacting and inflexible one who believed in following the Law more strictly. In one famous story about them, a Gentile comes to both and, trying to provoke them, asks, to be taught the whole Torah while the teacher stands on one leg. Shammai gives the man an angry whack with a measuring rod. Hillel replies, “That which is hateful to you, do not unto another: This is the whole Torah. The rest is commentary.”

I confess I’m more of a Hillel kind of person than a Shammai gal.. A long time ago, when I first became aware of the existence of gay and lesbian people and when I was at able to come to my own opinions about things, I thought to myself: “What is the one, most important thing about God that I have been taught?”  From within me the song “Come let us all unite to sing, God is love,” came to my mind.” “Ah,” I said to myself. “Then this just sounds like more love.” 

May we have the wisdom to determine what’s core and what is commentary. May we have the wisdom to determine what that core Law or rule asks of us when it comes to loving God, our neighbor, ourselves — and may we be given the courage and strength to follow that Law of love, wherever it leads us. Amen.