Sabbath Rest

A Sermon preached at St. Mark's Episcopal Church on the Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost, August 24, 2025.

This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.

I speak to you in the name of One God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

What good is a day, what good is this day, if you are weighed down by burdens that you cannot escape? What good is a day of rest if the weight on your shoulders bends you to the ground, or if the worries of your life keep you from standing upright in body or in spirit?

That’s the question that we have before us in today’s Gospel. We see a woman who has been crippled for eighteen years. Eighteen years is a long time. Eighteen years of pain. Eighteen years of being looked at as less than, dismissed, pitied, not being able to be the full person she was meant to be.

And then Jesus sees her.

And notice how this story unfolds. This woman doesn’t ask for anything, she doesn’t cry out or reach out or beg. She doesn’t even approach Jesus. She’s just there. Probably in the synagogue to worship, trying to keep her faith.

But Jesus does see her. And he calls to her, not waiting for her to walk over, not asking for her to prove her faith. He sees that she is in need of healing. He calls her, he heals her.

What a thing to be seen. For someone to see a need and to step in.

This woman who was bent over and unable to stand, now stands upright and begins to praise God.

Ultimately, this is what the Sabbath is about. It’s not just simply about stopping work, it’s not just about following the rules, but truly living into what the Sabbath is for - restoration. After all, if you can’t rest on the Sabbath, in mind or in body, then what good is it for? If we can’t rest, we can’t praise God. Praising God comes because of rest.

Of course, the synagogue leaders are not happy about any of this. They know the rules. The Sabbath is strictly for rest, you have to wait for healing until tomorrow, because healing is work.

But Jesus refuses to let the Sabbath be twisted into a burden. Again, what good is a law about rest if it ignores suffering, if it doesn’t free God’s people from the things that burden them?

I think the way Jesus rebukes the synagogue leaders is important. He reminds them that they care for their animals on the Sabbath, untying and leading donkeys and oxen to water, because it is necessary for their survival and health. Jesus points out that they love animals more than people. And this woman, who Jesus calls a “daughter of Abraham,” is a daughter of the same covenant that the leaders are part of, a member of God’s own people, so surely, she deserves at least as much mercy as an animal.

The law about the Sabbath, of keeping it holy, of not doing work, is not about bondage, it’s about life. It isn’t about controlling everything that we do so that we can only praise God, it is about being restored so that we can praise God with our whole bodies and minds. So, Jesus knows the purpose of God’s law, not just the letter of it. Jesus gives a new understanding of what the Sabbath is for.

We see this as well in Isaiah, where God says through the prophet:

“If you remove the yoke from among you, the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil, if you offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your light shall rise in the darkness…If you refrain from trampling the sabbath, from pursuing your own interests on my holy day; if you call the sabbath a delight…then you shall take delight in the Lord.”

Jesus is giving an example of what Isaiah is saying. This full picture of the Sabbath is not about keeping empty rules, but about release, restoration, healing, being a light in the darkness. It’s about being freed from bondage.

For the woman in the Gospel, being freed from bondage meant being able to stand up straight for the first time in nearly two decades. For you and me, it might look different.

How many of us are bent over with burdens? Crippled with worry about the future, with grief for those we have lost, with anger we hold on to from the past, with shame that we just can’t let go of? Some of us might stand tall on the outside, but inside, there are those among us that are bent nearly in half.

The good news is that Jesus sees each of us and calls to us and lifts us up.

And if we hear the words of Isaiah, about helping those in need, and live that out as we have been called by Christ, then we may be able to help one another on the Sabbath. We may be able to see our day of rest as one of restoration.

And it is difficult to talk about things we do and things we ought to do, and get caught up in this discussion about the law. It’s clearly evident in this passage, where the laws about not doing anything on the Sabbath are taken so far that they end up contradicting the purpose of the day of rest in the first place.

We have a funny relationship with the law, don’t we? The rule of law is there to help us, and guide us, to keep us doing the right thing. And then when we don’t keep the law, well, then there’s punishment.

Many of you know that I spent a few years on the Highway Patrol, so I know a few things about keeping laws. But there was a time in my life, before I was in the business of enforcing the law. I remember very vividly the first speeding ticket that I ever got. It wasn’t anything too crazy - 85 in a 55. But this was in Atlanta, so maybe that was to be expected. Still, speeding is against the law. It’s fun. But it’s against the law. And I got caught.

Now, as with most tickets, there was a court date attached. But I was in college at the time, several states away, and of course I couldn’t miss class, so I just…didn’t go. I’m not sure what I thought. Maybe I thought ignoring this burden of having the law enforced would just go away.

Fast forward to a few months later and I was going to go home. My parents were still living overseas on the naval base in Cuba. And they called and said they weren’t able to get a plane ticket for me. It’s because of that court date that went along with the speeding ticket that I had ignored. Since I didn’t pay it, my license was suspended. And since I didn’t appear at court, the judge had issued a bench warrant. Which means no plane ticket.

(These are the kinds of stories you don’t tell the search committee; you just wait till they come up in sermons.)

I had no idea what I was supposed to do. Sure, we think that at 18 or 19 you’re supposed to be able to handle things, but I had no idea how to fix it. So, I called my parents and said, help!

If you’re ever in trouble, it helps when your father is a Marine Corps Gunnery Sergeant. They know how to make things happen. I’m not sure what he said, or what my parents did, but somehow, they fixed it. The trouble was gone. My license restored. My debt paid.

What a sense of relief. A weight lifted. A burden removed.

Maybe you have experienced a similar feeling. A moment when someone does for you what you cannot do yourself. A moment when someone lifts a burden that you could not carry. A moment when through no effort of your own, you are restored, despite the things that are working against you, even despite the things that you did wrong.

That is what Jesus does. He sets us free from the things that we cannot escape.

Remember again how the leaders of the synagogue treated this. They can’t stand it. They see Jesus heal the woman and say, “There are six days for healing! Come on those days!” Notice that they don’t rebuke Jesus directly, they scold the crowd instead. It’s cowardly.

They know they are wrong. They know that compassion is always greater than the rules. But rather than admit it, they hide behind legalism and scold the faithful, the people who are there praying and hoping for healing and rest.

We too can often hide behind legalism. Whether out in the world or in how we look at faith. How often do we try to use scripture as a means of control? Turning these same stories of resurrection, and restoration, and hope in God’s grace into tools forcing others into conformity, when we seek the same compassion and mercy that Jesus gives so freely here to this woman.

A woman who even we, when we read this story, might define her by the ailment that she suffers. But think again about what Jesus calls her, a “Daughter of Abraham.” That phrase is unique. It is only found in this story. It is only used once in all of scripture.

And it reminds us that this woman is not defined by her illness, she is not defined by her burden, or her limitations. Jesus reminds us that she is defined by her place within this covenant community.

She belongs, she matters, she is a child of God, deserving of mercy and compassion.

And so are you. Whatever it is that binds you, or burdens you, or weighs you down. Even if it feels like you are, you are not defined by it. You are a child of God.

So we return to this initial question, what good is a day of rest when you are bound up in burdens?

I think Jesus shows us. He shows us that the Sabbath is not a pause button for the world’s pain. It’s not a rule that makes us wait “one more day.” The day of rest is the very place where healing belongs. It is where God restores creation. Rest, healing, and praising God all belong together.

Could this woman have waited one more day? After eighteen years, what’s one more, she probably could have made it. But that’s not the point. Compassion cannot wait. Grace cannot wait.

In this Gospel, Christ enables all of us to stand up straight.

He reminds us that we are not defined or ruled by the burdens of this life, even if they make life difficult at times. At all times, we can lift our heads and see the face of Christ as he calls our name.

And we too can help others. We can help lift burdens, we can refuse to let rules or customs get in the way of compassion. We can choose mercy over legalism, grace over judgment, freedom over bondage.

The Sabbath is not about waiting until tomorrow. It is about God’s restoration today. May you hear Christ calling your name, and feel your burdens lifted, and may you stand upright as God’s beloved and rejoice.

Amen.