josephholubsermons
June 6, 2010
Pentecost 2
Luke 6:6-11
The Spirituality of Jesus and Christian Religion
So much friction and tension exists within this gospel passage that it’s a
wonder the page it’s printed on doesn’t vaporize
before our very eyes.
One
of the things I remember learning in high school Chemistry was all about the
various types of chemical
reactions. Of
course, the fun part was to experiment.
I remember a favorite experiment called
“Water, Wine, Milk, Beer.”
A glass containing what looks like water is poured into a
second glass of another liquid, where it "magically" turns into what
looks like red wine. When the “wine” is poured into a third glass of
another liquid, it changes into what looks like milk, and when the
“milk” is poured into a fourth glass of liquid, it changes into what
looks like “beer” with a foaming head and everything.
However, our teacher forbade us to sample since the fourth liquid was
hydrochloric acid!
Something very much like that
is going on in today’s gospel.
All the ingredients were present for a potentially volatile
reaction. So what are the
explosive ingredients present in this passage?
I have grouped them into
three sets of ingredients.
First, Luke begins this passage with the words,
“On another Sabbath…”
That’s a tip-off to the reader that a potentially
explosive situation is brewing.
There were few things, if anything, more sacred for Judaism of Jesus’
time than the Sabbath. Over a
period of centuries in excess of six hundred Sabbath laws had been
developed. The laws were
comprehensive, specifying what activities were
permitted on the
Sabbath and what activities were
forbidden on the Sabbath.
The scribes and Pharisees were the keepers of the sacred religious
law. So, sacred Sabbath law,
synagogue worship and the presence of scribes and Pharisees composed the
first set of ingredients.
The second set of ingredients
is that, even at this early stage of his ministry, Luke tells us Jesus had
established a reputation as a healer, having performed acts of healing on
several occasions before this.
Also, not long before this on a previous Sabbath, Jesus’ disciples while
going through a grain field were plucking heads of grain – actually they
were gleaning – a provision found in Mosaic law as a means to feed the
hungry. However, manual labor
of that nature was strictly forbidden on the Sabbath and the
Pharisees took exception to the
disciples activity and questioned Jesus about it.
So, the second set of ingredients
included that Jesus had established himself as a healer and also had
demonstrated a certain disregard for sacred Sabbath law.
The third set of ingredients
is when Luke says, “There was a
man in the synagogue whose right hand was withered.”
Sabbath law strictly forbade
any kind of healing on the Sabbath.
Luke continues, “The
scribes and Pharisees watched him to see whether he would cure on the
Sabbath so they might find accusation against him.”
The third and final set of ingredients were in place: the man with a
withered hand and the scribes and Pharisees all crouched like stalking cats
waiting to pounce on Jesus their prey if he did even the slightest thing
that violated Sabbath law. It
was a hyper-charged situation.
The ingredients were in place ready to be mixed together.
Jesus was not naïve. He knew he
had stepped into the lair of his adversaries, yet he did not hold
back. In a dramatic,
tension-filled moment Jesus mixed the volatile ingredients when he called
the man over, asked him to stretch out his hand, and the man’s hand was
restored.
Ka-boom!
The ingredients interacted.
The scribes and Pharisees ignited with fury and began an
ongoing discussion among themselves about what they were going to do about
this non-conformist, this dissident teacher who had departed and even
blasphemed their sacred law and traditions.
So what is this story about?
For Luke’s faith community and also
for us, this story
is about the contrast and
sometimes conflict that exists between what I call the
spirituality of Jesus
and
established religion.
The established religion of Jesus’ day, the religion from which he
came, had many restrictive laws and rigid rules that marginalized and
dehumanized legions people including: women, children, lepers, the sick of
all kinds, the crippled, Gentiles, Samaritans and many others.
A consistent repeating theme in the gospels is that where
religion drew lines and marginalized people, Jesus freed himself from
the constraints of religion and allowed love and grace to empower him to
embrace those religion had quarantined.
When the man, at the invitation of Jesus, extended his withered hand
it was not slapped away by religious prohibitions as was expected -
but was restored.
What is this story all about?
Another way to put it is that Jesus redrew/repainted the canvass of
spiritual life. Jesus threw the
religious rulebook away in exchange for a
new way of living by grace and
compassion. Jesus’
invitation to “follow” is a call into a
spirituality of radical love and
grace that, tragically, generations of his subsequent followers have
far too often turned into a
religion that scarcely resembles him, but more closely resembles
the rigid, hierarchical religion of
his day that he regularly challenged and with which he was often at odds.
The spirituality of Jesus
is motivated and energized by the radical, unconditional love of God.
The spirituality of Jesus never loses sight of the real people
that established religion often minimizes and marginalizes and even counts
as expendable.
This a predominant theme
of Luke’s gospel and Luke’s Jesus. It’s a theme that Luke
magnifies so that we might
not miss it, but see it clearly!
For example, it is only
in Luke that Jesus tells the
widely known parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10).
You know the story.
A man is mugged on the road from Jericho to Jerusalem and left in a
ditch unconscious and near death.
Three men pass by on the road, two representing established
religion (priest and Levite) and one a despised outsider
(Samaritan). It’s the same
theme as today’s gospel only dressed in different clothes.
Who stopped to help and
who passed by? Those
representing established religion passed by.
It was the despised outsider who stopped and helped.
The point is magnified
to unmistakable clarity! There
was nothing in the religion of the priest and Levite that laid claim to
their hearts in such a way that they were motivated to help. There was
nothing for them that connected serving God and serving those in need as
being synonymous.
But there were numerous prohibitions and restrictions in
their religion that legitimized their indifference.
For example, touching a dead body for a religious leader was
forbidden and made them ceremonially unclean.
So they walked by with no sense of
connectedness or obligation to the man dying in the ditch.
The priest and Levite responded out of a religion of restrictions and
prohibitions; a religion that confined God’s presence to the temple and
excluded God’s presence from the dusty, dangerous, profane road from Jericho
to Jerusalem.
The spirituality of Jesus
declares that God is not external, far away and detached from the
world somewhere “up there” or “out there” carefully watching to make sure
all the rules are kept and keeping record when they are not.
The spirituality of Jesus
declares that God is a relational presence connecting with people
through inclusive love, not law and regulation.
Jesus rooted God firmly in the world and made relationships and
inclusive community the context in which God can be experienced.
The spirituality of Jesus
was heretical in the eyes of many, and religion and power did what it
usually does when it’s view of the universe is threatened.
It tried to hold him down, nail him
down, and cast him into oblivion –
but it could not!
My own personal faith journey these days, in response to Jesus’ invitation
to follow him, is an intentional journey into the
spirituality of Jesus, the
dimensions of which I can never fully reach – that is why it is a ongoing
journey that every day invites me to go deeper into grace and surprises me
at every bend in the road. On
this journey I have discovered
that:
…the spirituality of Jesus
encourages me to treat each human being equally and with dignity, to see the
face of Jesus in the last and lost and least; to even see his face in those
I don’t like, those I fear and even my adversary -
in contrast to
- religion that can often marginalize, dehumanize, categorize, and demonize
those people it has quarantined and put on the other side of some
religiously legitimized boundary.
…the spirituality of Jesus
helps me to seek and advance a communal and holistic paradigm of Christian
community, respecting all the ways we are diverse and different and to erase
the boundaries of fear that can exist between us –
in contrast to
– religion that often follows an imperialistic paradigm sacrificing the
colorful textures that exist among us in an effort to make us look and think
and believe alike.
…the spirituality of Jesus
opens me up to live every moment with a consciousness of God’s amazing love
and grace that can be transformational in terms of the way I relate to the
world and to others – in
contrast to – religion that is often held captive by its
insistence on the profession of correct beliefs and doctrines rather than
transformational living in love.
…the spirituality of Jesus
places me firmly in this life and sees “salvation” first as being
made whole in love; a love
I live out in relationship to others and the world – in contrast to
– religion that first defines “salvation” as afterlife and often minimizes
the pressing problems humanity and the earth as secondary or ignores them
altogether as insignificant.
It was not Jesus’ purpose to start a new religion,
but to challenge his own religion to reconnect with its essence and core,
the heart of God. Remember, when
asked what is the greatest commandment, he said,
“to love God with all your heart
mind, and strength… and your neighbor as yourself.”
Christian religion
as organized, established and institutionalized is being dismissed by many
these days – especially among the young.
I don’t dismiss Christian religion, but I do believe a new
reformation is in order and desperately needed – a reformation that begins
when Christian religion reconnects with its core and essence –
the spirituality of Jesus.