"Why We Can't Wait"
Luke 13:10-17
The story we just heard goes straight to the heart of Jesus’ mission as proclaimed in Luke’s gospel. Earlier in the gospel, in chapter 4, Jesus was also in a synagogue on the Sabbath when he first announced his mission, describing it in terms of human liberation and justice and abundance: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” (Luke 4:18-19).
In
today’s reading, the theme of liberation resonates strongly. When Jesus sees
the woman, he calls to her and says, “Woman, you are set free from your ailment.”
Later, when Jesus debates the leader of the synagogue and asks, “Should not
this woman be set free from her bondage on the sabbath day?” he is drawing directly from Deuteronomy 5,
the version of the commandment that connects Sabbath rest to Israel’s liberation
from slavery in Egypt.
The
synagogue leader was indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, and
said, “There are six days for work. So, come and be healed on those days—not on the Sabbath.” But Jesus remembers that the Sabbath law
commemorates Israel’s liberation, so he interprets it to be a day for enacting
liberation in the present. To those who
want the woman to wait, he says, “You
hypocrites! Doesn’t each of you on the Sabbath untie your ox or donkey from the
stall and lead it out to give it water?
Should not this woman, a daughter of Abraham…be set free on the Sabbath
day from what has bound her?”
In his 1964 book, Why We Can’t Wait, Dr. Martin Luther
King Jr writes about 1963 as a pivotal year in the American Civil Rights
movement. He includes his famous “Letter
from Birmingham Jail,” which is a call for urgency.
Dr. King wrote the letter
as a response to eight local white clergymen who had criticized his
activities in Birmingham and appealed for a more patient and restrained
approach to advocating for civil rights. The "Letter" expresses
King's deep disappointment with "the white moderate," who
"paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's
freedom."
The
gospel story we heard today is not just a healing story. Luke doesn’t really
include details about the healing itself. I agree with one of my colleagues
that, at its core, it's a story about what God intends. It's about the urgency
of seeing God's intentions brought to pass without delay.[1]
The
primary argument of Dr. King’s “Letter” still speaks to us today, which is why
in 2018 the 223rd General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) began
a process toward amending
the Book of Confessions to potentially include the letter.
The
synagogue leader in today’s gospel story objects to healing this woman on the Sabbath. Her condition isn’t life-threatening. She’s
learned to live with it over almost two decades. So he doesn’t see why she
couldn’t just wait a little while longer. The synagogue leader has misunderstood the
basic intention of observing the Sabbath.
But Jesus reveals a deep logic for why the woman should
be restored now. According to
Deuteronomy, the Sabbath offers a weekly reminder of how much God values freedom and detests injustice:
“Observe the Sabbath day and keep it
holy, as the Lord your God commanded you. Six days you shall labor and do all
your work. But the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not
do any work -- you, or your son or your daughter, or your male or female slave,
or your ox or your donkey, or any of your livestock, or the resident alien in
your towns, so that your male and female slave may rest as well as you. Remember that you were a slave in the land of
Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and
an outstretched arm; therefore, the Lord your God commanded you to keep the
sabbath day.”[2]
The
original intention of the Sabbath, according to Deuteronomy, is to
provide relief, even if only temporary, from any system that would deny a
person -- or any part of creation -- a share of rest, peace, wholeness,
dignity, and justice. So, when the synagogue official says,
"Wait just one more day." Jesus answers, "No. The Sabbath is a good day for setting people free. In
fact, the purpose behind the Sabbath -- the value God places on wholeness – makes
it necessary that I do this now.
We can't wait."
In
Luke 13, Jesus reaffirms what his scriptures have taught him. As Matt Skinner puts it, “to perpetuate
injustice is to defile the holiness of the weekly Sabbath day that
God ordained. To deny freedom is to offend the God of the Exodus. It's because of who God is that
Jesus can't wait.”
Now, the white religious leaders whom Dr. King addressed
in his “Letter from Birmingham Jail” reflected the views of a majority of
American society at the time. One survey from 1964 found that 63% of Americans
agreed that “civil rights leaders are trying to push too fast” and 58% agreed
that the actions of people of color have, “on the whole, hurt their cause.”[3]
Dr. King
criticized white faith leaders and churches that perpetuate injustice by hiding
behind theologies that expect God’s blessings to come only in the future. What’s the old saying, “There’ll be pie in the
sky, in the sweet by and by, after you die:
So, why
do some people have a sense of urgency
about working for justice, while others just don’t? Why
are some people ready to confess and repent of what the Rev. Jim Wallis calls
“America’s original sin,”[4] while
others refuse to acknowledge any ways they may benefit from privilege? Why do
some react with defensiveness, silence, or argumentativeness when the
conversation makes them feel uncomfortable?
I think
much of the resistance comes from fear. In the church, whether it’s local
congregations or presbyteries or denominations, some are afraid of causing conflict…or alienating people,
who may leave the church or withhold financial support. Some are afraid of change and becoming a different kind of
church that they can’t yet imagine.
Twenty
years ago, when I was fairly new to the presbytery, I was part of the
Presbytery’s Anti-Racism Team, which was commissioned and went through a lot of
intensive training, to try to deal with structural racism in the presbytery, in
response to some events of the time. Over the years, there was pushback, and
eventually we no longer had a Presbytery Anti-Racism Team. Our Presbytery is struggling again…still with racism. It’s time to do the work that leads to
liberation and healing. We can’t wait.
This
past week, The New York Times
published “The 1619 Project” to re-examine the legacy of slavery in the United
States and timed for the 400th anniversary of the arrival in America
of the first enslaved people from West Africa.[5] The project’s essays trace links from
America’s slave-owning history through the Jim Crow era and into persistent
racial inequalities today. The project is an attempt to correct America’s
historical ignorance about the causes of contemporary injustice, to place
“the consequences of slavery and the contributions of black Americans at the
very center of the story Americans tell ourselves about who we are.”[6]
Predictably,
there has been a backlash from some people who hold onto a particular vision of
patriotism that centers on the ideal of white innocence, who are angry and
uncomfortable with the reporting and insist that structural racism is a myth.[7]
Look
around our region and our nation. Just this
week a candidate for City Council in Marysville, Michigan made national
headlines with her statements about her conviction that their city needed to
remain a mostly white city, and that interracial couples are breaking God’s
law. Does she think she’s a racist?
Our
national government has policies and practices that dehumanize immigrants and
those who seek asylum. We have elected officials who promote hatred and
division for political gain.
Young
people and others around our nation tell us they’re afraid because of gun
violence…and they want to feel safe. The list could go on and on…
Talking about injustice and racism are hard,
but necessary. We can’t wait.
We need to learn how to talk respectfully and
constructively with one another. We need
to learn to listen to one another to build true understanding and empathy.
A lot of white people don’t like to think
that we’ve benefitted from white privilege, or that we do or say racist things
without even being conscious of it. And yet, some of us have committed
ourselves to gather to discuss books like Waking
Up White[8]
or White Fragility[9]
and have felt challenged and encouraged to continue to grow as anti-racists. We
have a number of other excellent resources available that could be the basis of
these conversations, like Ibram Kendi’s Stamped
from the Beginning and Ijeomo Oluo’s So
You Want to Talk about Race.
We need to learn how to be together, to be
honest and respectful and kind with one another, and find ways for the healing
we need to begin, so we can all be set free from whatever has bound us. We need to work together and live further
into Beloved Community together.
We live in such a broken, hurting world. We
look around our cities and the world, and it can feel overwhelming. But we follow Jesus, in his Way of love and
justice. We are called to carry out his mission of healing and liberation.
Part of the good news is that we are not
alone. We have been baptized into God’s
family and are blessed to be part of congregations where we can be nurtured and
encouraged and challenged to grow in love and faith. And we have resources in
the presbytery. For those who are seeking learning opportunities, you might
check out Table Setters groups in our presbytery or the group that’s forming
under the Rev. Kevin Johnson’s leadership.
As a
diverse, multicultural congregation, Westminster Church has some unique
opportunities to practice living into Beloved Community and to embody God’s
love and justice in and for the world.
We can’t
wait. In the words of our Presbyterian “Brief
Statement of Faith,” the good news is that, “in
a broken and fearful world, the Spirit gives us courage to pray without
ceasing, to witness among all peoples to Christ as Lord and Savior, to unmask
idolatries in Church and culture, to hear the voices of peoples long silenced,
and to work with others for justice, freedom, and peace.…
“With believers in every time and place, we can rejoice that nothing in
life or in death can separate us from the love of God in Christ
Jesus our Lord.”[10]
Praise be to God!
Amen!
Rev. Fran Hayes, Guest Preacher
Westminster Presbyterian Church, Detroit
August 25, 2019
[1]
Matthew L. Skinner, “Why We Can’t Wait,” from ON Scripture. http://day1.org/7456-on_scripture_why_we_cant_wait_luke_131017_by_matthew_l_skinner
[2]
Deuteronomy 5:12-15
[4]
Jim Wallis, America’s Original Sin:
Racism, White Privilege, and the Bridge to a New America. Brazos Press,
2016.
[6] https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/8/20/20813842/1619-project-new-york-times-conservatives-slavery
[7] https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2019/8/25/1879981/-The-1619-Project-The-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly-racist-responses
[8]
Debby Irving, Waking Up White. Elephant
Room Press, 2014. This book was commended to the Presbyterian Church (USA) by
our previous Co-Moderators of the General Assembly.
[9]
Robin DiAngelo, White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk
About Racism. Beacon Press, 2018. For a
20-minute introduction to DiAngelo’s work, you can watch the video of her work
with a Methodist Church group: http://www.gcorr.org/video/vital-conversations-racism-dr-robin-diangelo/
[10]
Presbyterian Church (USA), “Brief Statement of Faith” (1990), in Presbyterian Book of Confessions.
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