Sabbath: 85% Neighbor 15% God

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 to 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 being done by him.

When Sabbath became a Commandment, it was placed between first few Commandments about how to relate to God, and the remaining Commandments which are about how to relate to our neighbors.  That was no accident.  It was put in that spot intentionally to tell us that yes, Sabbath is indeed about humanity’s need to unplug from the world AND plug into the Divine one day out of seven… about 15% of the time.  But it was put in THAT particular spot to show us this Commandment IS JUST AS MUCH about humanity’s need to plug into compassion and care for our neighbors the other 85% of the time!  The Commandment about Sabbath was put in that particular spot because it is about BOTH… God AND Neighbor.  

Forgetting the “neighbor” part is what both Isaiah and Jesus address today.  Both would agree, we humans really do SO MUCH BETTER when we unplug from the world and plug into the Divine 15% of the time.  But that part wasn’t the problem either was confronting.  The problem for both Isaiah and Jesus was that folks had FORGOTTEN the part of “Remembering the Sabbath and keeping it Holy” that calls us to plug into the needs of our NEIGHBORS the other 85% of the time!   

In Isaiah’s day that forgetting led to economic injustice.  A “yoke” of unjust economic practices filled with selfishness, greed, indifference and exploitation had been piled on the most vulnerable in the country.  Isaiah told the people that until they removed that yoke from the people, the 15% of their time they were plugging into the Divine would do them absolutely no good.  Loving God for one day each week was not a permission slip to exploit your neighbors the other six!  These two dimensions of Sabbath are inextricably bound together.  When we live in a way that creates a community built on economic justice… a community that both sees and cares for it’s neighbors generously… for about 85% of the time… It is in living that way that we are opened up to receive the “Delight of the Sabbath” when we plug into the Divine the other 15% of our time.

The people in Isaiah’s day forgot that.  The leader in the synagogue who chastised Jesus forgot that.  SO many people who claim the title “Christian” in our government today have forgotten that.  They ALL focus exclusively on the Sabbath’s demand on us for that 15% of our time while completely abandoning the Sabbath’s equal demand on us for the remaining 85% of our lives!  In Isaiah’s day that led the leadership to forget the suffering of the least, the lost and the last.  In Jesus day that led them to let a woman continue to suffer for 18 years.  In our day it has led to legislation that abandons the poor and the homeless, the hungry and the sick, the elderly and the stranger all while our leaders make a continuous show filled with God-talk, kneeling in prayer on the legislature’s floor, and posting the Commandments in public.

Isaiah makes it clear.  THAT kind of performance doesn’t “Remember the Sabbath… it TRAMPLES on the Sabbath!  None of THAT will connect anyone with God.  ONLY the radical care of your neighbor will do that.  ONLY food for the hungry will do that.  Only satisfying the needs of the afflicted will do that.  Jesus too makes it just as clear.  The time you spend dramatically and publicly defending the sanctity of the part of the Sabbath that calls for 15% of your time to be plugged into God, will get you nothing, if you ignore the call of the Sabbath on the other 85% of your life!

God has never been fooled by that sort of religious performance and Isaiah told the people just that.  Jesus was never fooled by that sort of self righteous religious show and he told the leader of the synagogue just that.  And neither are we fooled by those who kneel on the floor of the legislature or have the Commandments posted in schools.  God knows.  Isaiah knows.  Jesus knows.  You and I know.  The only way ANYONE receives ANY benefit from following this Commandment to connect to the Divine for 15% of our lives, is by following the same Commandment when it calls us to love our neighbors and create a neighbor-loving, justice-practicing, hungry-feeding, foreigner-welcoming, crippled-healing, elderly-caring community in the other 85% of our lives!  

No one is fooled.  The way we FULLY remember the Sabbath and GENUINELY keep it Holy, is to live our lives in community… doing justice and loving kindness 85% of the time and having done that…  only then, unplugging ourselves from the world and plugging into the Divine for the other 15% of the time we are given.  It is in living by those percentages that we will have a life “riding on the heights of the earth”.  It is in that way of living that we will find we are sharing the in the “Delights the LORD”.  It is in that way of living that we will find that we have life, and it is in that way of living that we will have it… abundantly.  Amen.