In Buechner's Honor

Luke 13:10-17

Now Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues on the sabbath. And just then there appeared a woman with a spirit that had crippled her for eighteen years. She was bent over and was quite unable to stand up straight. When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, “Woman, you are set free from your ailment.” When he laid his hands on her, immediately she stood up straight and began praising God. But the leader of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had cured on the sabbath, kept saying to the crowd, “There are six days on which work ought to be done; come on those days and be cured, and not on the sabbath day.” But the Lord answered him and said, “You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger, and lead it away to give it water? And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen long years, be set free from this bondage on the sabbath day?” When he said this, all his opponents were put to shame; and the entire crowd was rejoicing at all the wonderful things that he was doing.

A cross has two parts.  There’s the… sorry for the theologically technical lingo here… the uppy-downy part and there’s the crossy-crossy part.  The thing is, without BOTH parts, it’s not a cross.  Without the uppy-downy part it’s just a board.  Without the crossy-crossy part it’s just a post.  You need BOTH to make it complete.  THAT is the essence of these lessons for today.  We need BOTH… our relationship with God (the uppy-downy part) and our relationship with our neighbors (the crossy-crossy part) to make this life we’ve been given full and complete.

Today’s first lesson has Isaiah upset with the folks at the Temple.  They all thought they could get away with faking a relationship with God by just putting in an hour at the Temple and throwing some loose change in the plate.  They believed they could just go through the motions… treat God like a vending machine.  Feed God a few coins and BOOM a blessing for the week would plop out the bottom.  Isaiah told them you can’t fake a relationship with God and have a full life.  

Isaiah also let them know that you also can’t abuse your relationships with the people around you and have a full life either.  Treating God like a vending machine one day a week and taking advantage of the poor and ignoring the needs of your neighbors the other six days of the week doesn’t care for your relationships in either the uppy-downy OR the crossy-crossy parts of our lives.  Living that way leaves a person hollow, rather than full of abundant life.

It’s the same trouble Jesus confronts in the Gospel.  Jesus is told he’s doing it WRONG by healing a woman on the Sabbath.  But Jesus insists that caring for our neighbors… being faithful to the crossy-crossy part… is JUST as important as being connected to God in the uppy-downy part of our lives every single day of the week and caring for both is not at all wrong. 

It’s a good check in for all of us, even 2000 years later.  It’s still easy today to have these two parts get out of balance.  It’s easy to fall into the thinking that church on Sunday is just for us to focus solely on our own personal uppy-downy relationship with God.  But the truth is, our coming to church… our showing up in person… is also meant to be something we do for that crossy-crossy part of our lives as well.  Each Sunday, someone just a couple of pews over needs to connect with you.  And for your life to be full, you invariably need to connect… in person, in the flesh… just as much.  These lessons remind us that it is just as important that we show up here on Sunday for the people around us as it is to show up here on Sunday for God. 

In everything we do here on Sunday, and everything we do the other six days of the week we are called to care for and build our relationships with BOTH God AND our neighbor.  This past week, theologian and author Fredrick Buechner died at the age of 96.  He said and wrote so many brilliant and beautiful things throughout his life that it’s not surprising two of my favorite Buechner quotes speak to these two dimensions of our faith.  About our relationship with God the quote I like best goes like this:  The grace of God means something like: "Here is your life. You might never have been, but you are, because the party wouldn't have been complete without you. Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid. I am with you. Nothing can ever separate us. It's for you I created the universe. I love you.”  There's only one catch. Like any other gift, the gift of grace can be yours only if you'll reach out and take it.  Maybe being able to reach out and take it is a gift too.  And, about our relationships with one another he said, Our “Vocation is the place where your deep gladness meets the world's deep need.”

May we all strive each day to take hold of the gift of God’s grace that each of us has been given.  May we take hold of that gift using the power we have been given by the Holy Spirit.  And with those gifts of power and grace, may we each find the place in our neighbor’s lives where our deep gladness meets our neighbors' deep needs.  Amen.