Epiphany 4 :: Jan 27, 2013 :: Luke 6:1-16

In the name of Jesus. Amen.

So let’s begin with a bold statement for you this morning: the church is falling apart because we do not know what it means to take Sabbath rest.

Let’s face it, we live in a world where the ONLY measure of success is if we work harder and have more. Without us even knowing it, this plague is wiping out both the church and our very lives. If this sounds like too strong of a statement for you, you’d better look around.

The people sitting in the pews next to you are part of a steadily shrinking population, now less than 50% of Americans, who gather together to worship the Lord of the Sabbath. But let’s not get confused about what Sabbath is. Sabbath is not sitting in church on Sunday morning for an hour. Sabbath is a way of life; Sabbath is setting aside time for God to work on your heart. Sabbath is time for you to rest and play, knowing that God is working, even when you are not. Sabbath is time for us to remember that God is God and we are not.

The insidious thought that we can do better, be better, live better if we just work harder and harder and harder, is killing us. And the answer to it all is staring us right in the face: the answer is God. Letting God be God, not playing the hero, not playing the savior, letting a Sabbath way of life have its way with us, is the only answer to our own self-destruction.

Our constant work is actually counterproductive to having a life that is full. A full life includes intentional time for God’s Word, time for rest, and time for play.

Most of us know the third commandment: “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, your son or your daughter, or your male or female slave, or your ox or your donkey, or any of your livestock, to 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.”

But Sabbath goes so much deeper than this commandment. Built into the DNA of God’s beautiful and good creation is keeping Sabbath. In the beginning, God created all that exists and on the seventh day, even GOD rested! Ordained since the beginning, keeping Sabbath is a way of life for all of creation. Time to rest, time to play, time to bask in the goodness of God’s good creation.

Until the Jewish laws came along that tried to protect the Sabbath from being broken, Sabbath was built into creation itself.

With all of this in the back of your mind, think about the lesson from this morning again. Jesus was walking in the fields, plucking grain and eating it. This was a Sabbath law meant to keep God’s people from harvesting on the Sabbath. And then there is Jesus in the synagogue, healing on the Sabbath. This was a Sabbath law meant to keep doctors and other healers from working on the Sabbath.

Here is God’s only Son, breaking Sabbath law, right before our eyes. Our first thought is to say that Jesus is just like us, breaking Sabbath laws and instead of resting! But, as Jesus reminds us, “The Son of Man is lord of the sabbath.”

Jesus reminds the Pharisees and the congregation that Sabbath is about what gives life, “I ask you,” Jesus says,”is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the Sabbath, to save life or to destroy it?”

Sabbath is about life, what gives life, what leads to life. Eating and healing are Sabbath ways of life. And so are the other things of life, things like rest and play and relaxation. Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath, we are not. We must not think that life only happens if we work hard enough. God is the giver of life, he is Lord, he has it all in his hands.

Today, remember to rest. Remember to play. Remember to relax in the word of God and let him care for you. You belong to God and God is caring for your even when you are at rest.

In the name of Jesus. Amen.