Luke 13:10-17    26th August 2007

When I was a child, in that bygone era, The Lord's Day Observance Society seemed to be
continually in the news. Not that shops were open, or indeed many people work, but they were,
I suppose, like the synagogue ruler, on the look out for anything that may happen.

As I expect you have heard me say before my grandparents were highlanders and 'Wee Frees',
a church which believed that even posting a letter on the Sabbath was a sin, and certainly fifty years
ago you could be excommunicated for that. I remember some years ago talking to a highlander
who told me that he had never set foot in a church since a day a young man in his village was
excommunicated from the Kirk for taking someone from his village in his car to the nearest
 hospital on the Sabbath. Isn't that just what Christ was criticising in today's Gospel.

But how should we view the Sabbath?  Which strictly speaking is yesterday and not today.
Should the church be more determined to promote the keeping of Sunday as a day set aside for rest,
worship, and religious teaching?

In today's gospel lesson, Jesus argues with those who criticize him for healing on a Sabbath.
He answers that in healing the woman, he is actually setting her free from Satan, not language we would
use but we would say that she was being freed from illness free to live a healthy life. And I don't
think anyone would disagree with that? Surely showing compassion and love for any human being is
appropriate on every day of the week.  We wouldn't expect Jesus to have said or done anything
different and we certainly wouldn't expect our hospitals to close on a Sunday.

But have we totally lost the meaning of Sunday? We are glad we are not bound by narrow Old
Testament interpretation of the Sabbath, but have we also lost the meaning of a day of rest, a day when
we truly turn to God and encourage encourage others in worship and prayer. Did Jesus free us from
the old rules so that society can function in the same way each day, this 24/7 society we
now live in. Are we free simply to participate every day in our consumer culture, every day making purchases,
acquiring, accumulating? Is society paying a price for never designating one day in seven, any day, as a Sabbath Day?

Because in fact its not that most people don't get the time to come to Church, its that they can't see the point.
So how do we sell the point to them.  We have 'Back to Church Sunday' at the end of September, but is
society seeking more than that from the Church.

It probably isn't, but these last few weeks really seem some of the most depressing I can ever remember,
culminating in the senseless death of 11 year old Rhys. The victims of gang warfare not only innocents being
in the wrong place at the wrong time but getting younger. I worried non stop about Samantha and her
family going to Bali during their holiday - she said there was high security but they felt very safe. They were back
three days and the road at the end of their road, a quiet road in Letchworth, was closed because there had
been a gun battle. What is happening? Where has society gone wrong, and we are all part of
society. What should the church be doing?

Let me make it perfectly clear I do not think that God allows these things to happen - no loving Father
would allow an eleven year old boy to be snatched from life in that way to pay society back.  That might
be an Old Testament view but I do not believe it is a Christian view. No, I think it is because the
Church does not show the love of God in a way people can understand. Jesus did not bully people,
he reprimanded but did not write people off, 'Judge not lest you also be judged' so what right have we
to judge.  I feel that so much of the publicity the Church gets is a real turn off.  Jesus worked in people through
love and example. Over and over again he said 'say nothing about what I have done' he spoke through actions
far more than words.  Are the actions and words of the Church always done/said in true love or can they be
seen as 'Holier than Thou'. Do we truly teach that God is always with us, day in and day out, suffering with us,
with Rhys' parents in the deep pits of life, but also rejoicing with us in the good times.  Do we make God seem alive?
Now I have to confess I'm not sure where all this gets us. Except to wonder if we need to encourage society
to move away from the belief that only Sunday is the day for worship. We say we live in a 24/7 society,
but God was the original 24/7, 365 days a year worker. God is always here for us, we must encourage people to
see that God needs worshipping each and every day, and that in return they will become more aware of God's
love for them, feel the healing strength of the Risen Lord.  Through building up a relationship with God
they will learn that God listens to them and will give the strength to deal with life.  We need to teach that God,
not the gun, is the answer to problems. God will bring comfort, strength and salvation, the gun will only
bring more suffering not just to the perpetrators but to those they love.

So I think we do need Sunday, to remind us of our dependency on God, a time when we can encourage others
to join us.  But we must move away from the image that Church is only for Sunday.  The Church is here, and more
importantly that this God, who loves them dearly, is here every day. We need to encourage people that if they can't
get to church on a Sunday they can come through the week - the worship is no less valid.

The woman cured by Jesus on that Sabbath gained her freedom.  She experienced rest from the stress of her deformity
and through this she experienced reliance on God by seeing that God alone has the power to bring healing. From this
she experienced true worship, in praise for what God had done, not what she had accomplished.

On this Sunday what is the Church doing about bringing healing to our country. Challenging the gun culture, helping
disaffected youngsters to value themselves, to feel they have more to offer society. That is what Jesus did - do we?

'Most holy God, create and keep in us always the spirit of reverence when we come to worship you. When
 reverence becomes an excuse for indifference, when we  begin to value convention above compassion,
 forgive our faults and give us the light to see that all worship must  be grounded in love'.

Amen