Sermon - The Rule of Compassion

Preached on August 26, 2007 at The First Congregational Church of Tallmadge, Ohio UCC

Luke 13:10-17

Dedicated to Betsy, my wife, who teaches me compassion;
and always to the glory of God.

The fourth of the ten commandments, which are the basis of Biblical law, reads like this:
“Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy. 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, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and consecrated it.” (Exodus 20:8-11)

Jesus comes into conflict with his fellow Jews over and over again in the gospels when he heals on the Sabbath, and lets his disciples pick grain from a field when they are hungry. Jesus gets into arguments about the fourth commandment. But we need to remember what the argument is about. It’s not about whether to honor the Sabbath, but how to honor the Sabbath. And the larger question is this: What does it mean to be good? What are the ethics of the kingdom of God?

What we have here are two ways of understanding God’s commandments as we read them in scripture, and these two are argued by the synagogue leader and Jesus. But even as they argue, both Jesus and the synagogue leader believe that we must love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and that this love is shown in our actions and choices. Their disagreement is about what actions and what choices?

The first way of understanding God’s commandments, the way that the synagogue leader understood them, is that we honor God by obeying God’s commandments. God is the one who deserves our absolute loyalty and service. And so we honor God by obeying the rules. Don’t work on the Sabbath. The woman has been afflicted for years - one more day won’t hurt. The synagogue leader is not opposed to healing; he just wants to be good by obeying God. His view is logical and consistent. But it is not the only idea of goodness.

Contrast his view with the way Jesus understands God’s commandments, and what it means to honor God. Jesus teaches us that God’s chief concern is not being obeyed. What is most important to God is to love and care for people and for the entire creation. The commandments, rules, and principles of scripture are all ways for God’s people to love and care for one another and for the world in their lives. When someone asked Jesus which is the greatest commandment he answered “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’” And it’s important to remember what he says next: “On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” (Matthew 22:37-40).

If God is primarily concerned with love and care for people, then to heal a long-suffering woman is to honor God’s commandments. And look what happens. The woman who is healed stands upright for the first time in years, and she praises God. And the people who were there celebrated with her and praised God together. Doesn’t that sound like a way to honor the Sabbath?

When we understand that God’s commandments are not tests of obedience, but are for our care, then we remember that the Sabbath is for us, a day when we need rest and time with God. God knows we need Sabbath, or else we will suffer exhaustion and will never benefit from any of the things we work so hard to accomplish on the other six days. We should honor the Sabbath, but we should do it as a way to honor God’s love and care for us, and not simply to obey the rule.

This is advanced ethics. It’s easier to be good if there are black and white rules and loving God is just a matter of obeying the rules as written. Like when we are young and we learn that it is wrong to walk out into the street. That’s black and white, and easy to know the right thing to do, even if we don’t always do it. But then one day your little dog is off the leash and out in the road and limping. There are no cars coming, but you know the dog is in danger and needs to be moved. But you’re not supposed to go out there. Suddenly you are in advanced ethics.

There’s a movie called The Village, made by M. Night Shyamalan after his big hit with The Sixth Sense. It’s billed as a scary thriller, but at its heart it is a movie about right and wrong. The setting is a small village isolated in a vast woods, which is completely self-sustaining. The people have isolated themselves away from the corruption and dangerous influences of “the town” or any other human contact. There isn’t even a path from the town, and the rules against leaving the village are strict, so that everyone may be kept safe. But then, a councilman’s son is wounded and becomes badly infected. A few of the elders know that out in the town there is medicine that would save his life, but most are willing to accept his death as the price they pay for keeping their town safe and holy and kept apart.

But what does the rule of compassion say? Compassion does not allow us to hold ourselves apart as holy observers of the law while people are in need. The commandments of God should lead to love for our neighbors, or they have been misused. The commandment to observe the Sabbath is for giving us rest, that we may have more strength and energy to love, and that we may have time to remember how much we are loved by God, how sacred is each life, and how holy is this world. Observing the Sabbath should increase our love.

When Jesus Christ healed the crippled woman on the Sabbath, he evaluated the word of God according to the greatest commandment, and now you and I must do the same. That is what we are called to, for we are followers of Christ, we are the people of “the way” as they were first named, which is the way of Christ, and later named Christians, because we seek to be Christ-like, and being Christ-like leads us to being ruled by compassion.

The rule of compassion is the final decision maker in advanced ethics. Sometimes it is difficult to know how to be compassionate. Does it mean giving someone yet another loan we never expect to be paid back or is it helping them to find a job or get treatment? Does it mean spending more on affordable housing and programs like head start and food stamps, or does it mean cutting taxes so that the upper class to stimulate the economy with their investment in jobs and demand for services? These are difficult questions, but my hope is that all of us who face hard questions will make the compassion of Jesus our rule, and follow the direction that it leads.

God knows there are enough people who are like this woman, bent over and weighed down. God knows that sometimes that woman stands for you and for me, when we are weighed down by hurt, trapped by our circumstances, bent over in pain and loss, and we do not need to find a God who will make us obedient; we need to meet a God of love and care who will heal us and change our lives. We need our lives to be changed by love that we may love back. As Christ has loved us, may we love one another.