Do As I Say
Isaiah 58: 2-14; Luke 13: 10-17
My friend planted a garden this year in her backyard. One of her favorite things is cucumbers, so she planted several. The first one came in, and it was gorgeous, vivid green, and looked delicious. When it was ripe, she brought it in and cut it open to make a salad with it. The inside was completely rotted out and eaten by a worm that had been trapped inside. There was no salvaging any of her first cucumber to grow in the small garden. At least the flowers did well, I guess.
Our Gospel lesson for today gives us a look at what it means to have a rotten core within the context of faith. In fact, both Luke and Isaiah address a common issue in many congregations and houses of worship. The worship looks and appears right, but it is lacking in any faithful substance. Both get to a similar core problem in the lives of those who are at worship—the acts are there, but the hearts and actions are filled with hypocrisy. What Jesus is saying to us is that it’s woefully insufficient to look like the church if we do not also act like the church which follows Christ.
The scripture in Isaiah is pretty terse. It comes in many ways as an indictment of the people of Judah. The problem Isaiah notes is not the people being in worship. They come to the Temple daily. They act righteous. They fast. They act humbled in many ways. They even dress in burlap and cover themselves in ashes. Every act of worship, they follow, and they follow it correctly. But it is hollow and empty. It is ceremony without any substance. It is all the appropriate content and ritual, but without any Godly motivation.
Through the prophet, God gives them a list of what God wants them to do: free the wrongfully imprisoned, end oppression, share food, give shelter, give clothing, live a life that reflects the acts of worship to God. In essence the prophet is saying that simply keeping the ritual of the Sabbath is not holy at all. The people need to live a life that reflects righteousness over hypocrisy, and Godly acts over formalities. God’s indictment comes because they are now practicing all of the same infliction of suffering on others which they endured in exile. The cruelty they escaped is the cruelty they are now inflicting.
And God has no patience for it. In chapters 56 and 57, God tells them that the leadership is wicked and has wrongfully guided the people, and God says there is no hope for the wicked leaders who created this false righteousness. But God provides a way out for the misguided people. If they truly honor the Lord and truly honor the Sabbath, they will find forgiveness and restoration of relationship to God.
The same problem is seen in our Gospel lesson. The synagogue leader follows the rituals to the letter, but he lacks the kindness and compassion required of God’s people. Jesus does a double honor for this woman. In her day, she was little more than property, for women had no real status in life. Jesus not only healed her of her physical deformity, he called her a daughter of Abraham, giving her a strong place of significance and dignity in life. This is one of the few times Jesus lays on hands to heal. It signifies both a healing and a blessing. She was released from her suffering and from her shame and embarrassment. By calling her a daughter of Abraham, Jesus essentially gives her a much higher/equal status in the kingdom.
Jesus criticizes the synagogue leader because he chose ritual over the needs of the suffering. One commentator noted that if you don’t rejoice in the work of God’s kingdom, you will eventually have no place in it. The leader lived with hypocrisy. His acts of religion were just as bad and condemnable as those in Isaiah. In doing so, he had no value for this woman of faith nor cared about her suffering.
As followers of Christ, we cannot turn a blind eye to the suffering and struggle of others on this earth. It is a messy, difficult, and often uncomfortable undertaking. Jesus’s main criticism of the synagogue leaders is this: they take care of their own needs on the Sabbath, but they were cold and heartless to a woman who came to be helped in her suffering. Faith cannot be simply a cold and dead ritual. Following Jesus means we live with this warm and engaging desire to love others, help those in need, heal, lift up, and live as people of God in the kingdom of God in a world that is often cruel and mean. If we are not different from the world, what would draw people to this faith?
But devaluing people, and especially women, isn’t just a relic of Jesus’s day. A Christian minister from Idaho recently said in a CNN interview that, “Women are the kind of people that people come out of.” He also alluded to the idea that women are not fit to speak in church, nor should they be allowed to vote. I have a hard time reconciling that with a Jesus who called this healed woman a “Daughter of Abraham,” a title, of Abraham, being typically reserved for men. But it gets even harder when you think of Deborah as Judge, Queen Esther, Ruth, Rahab, the women at the tomb who proclaimed that they had seen the risen Lord, Lois and Eunice, Priscilla and Aquilla, noted in the scriptures who were heroic and leaders in a very, very patriarchal society.
Perhaps that is why Jesus said, “Judge not, lest you be judged.” As for me and my faith, there are many faith-filled women who have taught me in Sunday School, Zoom Bible Study, from this pulpit, and in times of fellowship together. If it were not for women, and especially my mother and the women of First Christian Church, Macon, Georgia, I don’t know where my faith would be today.
What Isaiah and Jesus are both saying is that hypocrisy is found in any faith community that loves formality over the faithful, who choose ritual over mercy, who believe in a cold and dead piety that devalues God’s people and fails to do God’s kingdom work in this world. For the people of Israel, grace was needed. They had the works down, but none of the grace. For the synagogue leader, mercy was needed. He understood all the law and commandments, but he lacked in mercy for others. Christianity is about doing the kingdom work of God here, so that people understand what living the kingdom of God really is.
When I think of someone who lived that I think of Dot Jackson. Since I was too sick to officiate the funeral, I pondered on what a true, faithful person she was. Every time you met her, you could feel the grace and love flowing from her. As a self-conscious 25 year old pastor in a church filled with people, shall we say, a few years my senior, I had questions of what I could really preach or teach this church. I confessed this to her on a home visit shortly after I started her. Her response warmed my heart. Now it was already 82 degrees in that house, but I was warmed in the spiritual way. She said to me, “Well, I always get something out of church and your sermons, so don’t worry about none of that.” It warmed my heart and gave me confidence. It was the kind of grace I needed from a Child of God, a follower of Christ, just like Jesus spoke of the value offered by a daughter of Abraham.
Friends, faith is a beautiful and amazing thing. But faith is also a daily practice of walking with Jesus, even when it’s hard, even when it seems messy. It takes both the belief in God and God’s work to make faith. If you only have belief, you end up in the hypocrisy of Isaiah’s day or the synagogue leader. If you only have the good work, you lack the hope needed to make life worthwhile, but both, together, make a faith that heals, restores, and redeems each and every soul who seeks it out.
As we live our faith on earth, remember that it is not a, “Do what I say, not what I do” endeavor. Our love of Jesus is shown in how we live as his followers here on earth. If we don’t actually follow Christ and live as he teaches, then our claim to faith is just as rotten as my friend’s cucumber. But what joy when we allow Jesus to guide us. When Jesus touched the woman and healed her, we are told, “How she praised God!” Thanks be to God.
Worship Service Video https://www.facebook.com/fccmacon/videos/676031434751653/