Humility and Grace

Young at Heart Message
 
Imagine for a moment that you are sharing a Christmas Day meal with your family.
Suddenly, you start to feel your chest tightening. Your left arm starts to tingle, and you begin sweating.
Someone in your family recognizes the signs of a heart attack, so they call 911.
 
But when the line connects, there’s simply a voice message that says “we’re sorry, all of our operators are enjoying the Christmas holiday with their families. If you need an ambulance, please call the nearest ambulance service directly.”
 
Annoyed, and slightly panicked, your family member quickly googles the nearest ambulance and phones them directly. Once again, the message states that they are taking the day off to enjoy the holiday.
 
So, a family member ushers you quickly to their own vehicle and rushes you to the hospital themselves.
 
But… you guessed it. You arrive, and there’s a sign on the emergency room door saying that it’s a holiday, and no one should have to work on Christmas Day. Please come back tomorrow.
 
Obviously, if you are having a heart attack, waiting until tomorrow isn’t a great plan.
 
And, of course, this scenario isn’t realistic today.
 
But, on the other hand, if we took the Law of Moses as seriously as the man in charge of the synagogue did, this would be the expectation.
 
Today, we live in a world that has become quite lax on the “rules” around Sabbath days.
 
Christmas Day may be the only day of the year when nearly everything is closed.
 
But even then, you can still get emergency services if you need them.
 
You can still fly, or go to the movies, and some grocery stores and gas stations are still open for the essentials.
 
On any other day of the year, you can access pretty much anything you need.
 
Some people adhere pretty strictly to a Sabbath day, but most are willing and able to be flexible, and many people don’t even take a regular “Sabbath” day.
 
Nowadays, what qualifies as “work” can even be called into question.
 
Parents who work all week still have to parent on the weekends. They can’t just take Sunday off from the work of parenting.
 
Pastors don’t ever get Sundays off of work. Most of us try to take another regular day for Sabbath rest, but even then, it is harder than you might think.
 
A day “off” from work, for many people, still looks like work.
 
Instead of going to the office, though, people get all the errands and chores done that they don’t have time for during the week.
 
Even Jesus recognized that when he said “won’t any one of you untie your ox or donkey and lead it out to drink on a Sabbath?”
 
Jesus is being a bit snarky there, because he’s begging the question, “how do you define work?”
 
Most of the people he was talking with wouldn’t have considered leading the ox to water to be work.
 
It’s just something that must be done for survival.
 
Much like getting water from the well, washing dishes after using them, eating, or even, one could argue, getting out of bed.
 
Yesterday, I got up relatively early for a Saturday, made breakfast, packed a bag, and drove to Bragg Creek to hike.
 
While I enjoy that tremendously, there is still a level of work that must be done to accomplish that.
 
The point here is this: in the mind of the leader of the synagogue, the definition of Sabbath and work is very clear-cut – it’s very black and white. There is no grey area.
 
But Jesus, as we see in this passage, muddies the water by demonstrating very clearly that it is not as black and white as everyone thinks it should be.
 
The Message
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Jesus isn’t making a statement saying that Sabbath is unimportant.
 
He also isn’t saying that the rules are unimportant or should never be followed. He isn’t implying that the Law of Moses should be completely thrown out.
 
But he is making it clear that there is often grey area and room for flexibility within the rulebook.
 
And part of Jesus’ ability to understand the world in shades of grey is because of his ability to empathize with people.
 
Jesus couldn’t imagine letting this woman who had already suffered for 18 years suffer a moment longer.
 
He could have said “I’m sorry, I can see that you are in pain, but today is the Sabbath. I can heal you, but you’ll have to wait until tomorrow. Since you’ve dealt with this for 18 years already, one more day won’t kill you.”
 
In the time it would have taken to say that to her, he could have just healed her.
 
So why wouldn’t he? Because the Law of Moses says no work can be done on the Sabbath?
 
Jesus couldn’t look her in the face and deny her healing simply because it was the Sabbath.
 
The leader of the synagogue pushed back on Jesus, though. He became angry and tried to get the crowd on his side.
 
The man believed with his entire being that he was right, and Jesus was wrong.
 
That’s what he’d been taught his entire life. And, as the leader of the synagogue, it was his job – his livelihood and his life’s work – to uphold the Law of Moses.
 
How could he do his work and live his life if he was constantly questioning the Law? His faith depended on wholeheartedly believing he was right to uphold the Law.
 
And I can understand where he’s coming from, at least in part.
 
There have been times in my life when I knew, categorically, that I was right.
 
In my younger years, as is often true for many of us, I had a set of beliefs that I am sure involved me being right and everyone who didn’t agree with me being wrong.
 
There is an element of survival that comes along with this mentality.
 
Father Richard Rohr argues that there are two halves to our lives. The first half is the part that we spend building the container for our life.
 
We hold very solid, black and white beliefs during the first half of life because we must have a solid foundation to build the container.
 
And then, we spend the second half of our lives searching for the contents to fill the container. This process of searching often means we discover that things were not as black and white as we spent the first half of life believing.
 
Similarly, Cynthia Bourgeault describes the concept by saying, “the journey toward full selfhood is more than just awakening; it involves a letting go that is also a dying.”
 
In both cases, we are talking about letting go of at least some of our black and white thinking to allow for more grey areas.
 
The longer I do the work of being a pastor, the more I see how grey the world really is.
 
Unfortunately, this often involves meeting people who have very different experiences than I do before I will change my mind or expand my thinking.
 
As an example, I know multiple pastors who really struggled with the idea that we should be open in our churches to members of the LGBTQ+ community.
 
And those same pastors became more open to the idea when they were pushed by their very own children.
 
Several of those pastors ended up with children who experienced the world very differently than their parents.
 
These pastors were then faced with a choice: continue their black and white thinking and disown their children, or expand their thinking to accept grey areas and continue to love their children and grow with them into something new.
 
This, I believe, is the dying that Cynthia Bourgeault was talking about.
 
This passage today gives us insights that go far beyond the face value of the scenario Jesus encountered.
 
Jesus heals the woman who was stooped over, allowing her to both physically and metaphorically see the world in an entirely new way.
 
She can physically stand taller, but she also recognizes the grace that Jesus offered her that day.
 
At the same time, the synagogue leader is humbled by Jesus.
 
He physically and metaphorically stood tall, and Jesus humbled him enough that he was, at least metaphorically, stooped over a bit after this interaction.
 
And the reality is that we, too, are always being simultaneously stooped down and lifted up.
 
But what does it mean for us to be both uplifted in glory and stooped down in humility?
 
It may mean letting go of our deeply held convictions about the right way to worship or vote or live.
 
It may mean that we instead listen for the whisperings of the Spirit—even if that whispering comes in the voice of someone we don’t like or don’t understand.
 
It may mean changing our perspective so that the person we regarded as an enemy now looks like a child of God.
 
It may mean putting ourselves in someone else’s shoes before we are forced to because it’s someone we personally know.
 
Too often, we don’t change our minds or open ourselves to the possibility of grey areas until someone forces us to.
 
The pastors I know who weren’t truly confronted with trying to understand the LGBTQ+ community until their own children forced them to confront their biases fall into this category.
 
But Jesus is asking us to look within and question our own biases – our own ideas of how the world works and our own notions of black and white, right and wrong.
 
And, he’s suggesting we do this on an ongoing basis – before we are forced to because we directly encounter someone who calls our biases out.
 
He’s not suggesting we throw out the rule book completely. But he is suggesting that when we are confronted with a greyness that we do not fully understand, we take a step back and wonder with God about it.
 
Is there some growing we need to do? Do we need to open our mind to new possibilities?
 
Do we need to look someone in the eye and say, “I see you, even though the world tells me I should not?”
 
Jesus is pushing us a little bit with this passage, just like he was pushing the leader of the synagogue, and indeed the crowd of people watching him.
 
What if we let him push us beyond our own current understanding?
 
Perhaps, instead of holding fast to our biases, we could allow Jesus to help us recognize our biases as opportunities for growth and deeper understanding of other people and the world around us.
 
So, as we leave here today, may we allow ourselves to be simultaneously stooped down in humility and lifted up in grace.
 
May we question our black and white thinking, and be open to the beauty of the spectrum of shades of grey. Amen.
 
Let us pray:
 
Healing God, thank you for your loving kindness and your gentle nudges that encourage us to grow and lean into newness and wholeness. Thank you for sending your Son, Jesus Christ, to guide us and help us learn the lessons you wish us to better understand. We are often simultaneously stooped down in humility and lifted up in grace. Open our hearts to better humble ourselves and open us to your grace. In your loving name we pray. Amen.

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