How Rejects are Accepted

Have you ever just wanted our Creator to cut-to-the-chase, and give us the “bottom line”? What does it take to be “accepted” by Him. Let’s be honest, it is Jesus, His death, burial, and resurrection that makes any sort of relationship with our Creator possible. But still…

Our behavior matters to our Savior. There are plenty of passages, statements of Jesus, writings of Paul, that clearly indicate that our Creator cares how we behave. So, what is it He wants from us? Can we sum it up? For the Jews of Jesus’ day, it was Sabbath-keeping and circumcision. That was pretty much it. Sounds weird huh? And yet…

This is what the LORD says,
“Promote justice! Do what is right!
For I am ready to deliver you;
I am ready to vindicate you openly.
The people who do this will be blessed,
the people who commit themselves to obedience,
who observe the Sabbath and do not defile it,
who refrain from doing anything that is wrong.
(Isaiah 56:1-2 NET)

Sounds pretty simple, promote justice and do what is “right”. Commit ourselves to obedience and guard the Sabbath. Wait, what? The Sabbath? I know, right? What’s up with this Sabbath-keeping business? Is it really important? Well…yes.

No foreigner who becomes a follower of the LORD should say,
‘The LORD will certainly exclude me from his people.’
The eunuch should not say,
‘Look, I am like a dried-up tree.’”
For this is what the LORD says:
“For the eunuchs who observe my Sabbaths
and choose what pleases me
and are faithful to my covenant,
I will set up within my temple and my walls a monument
that will be better than sons and daughters.
I will set up a permanent monument for them that will remain.
(Isaiah 56:3-5 NET)

Foreigners and eunuchs were excluded from worship, from the temple (Deuteronomy 23:1-8). And yet, here we have them included, if they observe the Sabbath, choose what pleases their Creator, and are faithful to His covenant. If eunuchs do that, their Creator will setup a monument better than sons and daughters…Seriously? But what about “foreigners”?

No foreigner who becomes a follower of the LORD should say,
‘The LORD will certainly exclude me from his people.’
The eunuch should not say,
‘Look, I am like a dried-up tree.’”

As for foreigners who become followers of the LORD and serve him,
who love the name of the LORD and want to be his servants—
all who observe the Sabbath and do not defile it,
and who are faithful to my covenant—
I will bring them to my holy mountain;
I will make them happy in the temple where people pray to me.
Their burnt offerings and sacrifices will be accepted on my altar,
for my temple will be known as a temple where all nations may pray.”
The Sovereign LORD says this,
the one who gathers the dispersed of Israel:
“I will still gather them up.”
(Isaiah 56:3, 6-8 NET)

Oy with the Sabbath-keeping! If foreigners keep the covenant and the Sabbath, their Creator will bring them to His holy mountain, to His temple, to His place of prayer, their sacrifices will be accepted. His temple will be known as a house of prayer. Sound familiar? Maybe something Jesus said when He “cleansed” the temple?

Notice this doesn’t replace exiled Israel, they will still be gathered up, but along with these previously excluded groups. And what is the sign of their obedience? What is the activity by which they will be known to their Savior? Sabbath-keeping. How weird is that?

Here’s a real simple take away: Attend church. Go, participate, worship. And don’t stop once the scheduled service is over. Dedicate the day, live out the message you heard, make real the songs you sang. Set your week by the day starting it off. Dedicate yourself to your Savior and your time for the whole day to His purpose.

Honestly, I don’t. Yesterday, I rearranged my home-office to make it more functional (it’s different anyway). But I think this passage may be pushing me to rethink my Sunday’s. Not that I should only worship or serve my Savior on Sunday, but that this one day should His, not mine.

He made the Sabbath for us, not us for the Sabbath, but He still made it. And it seems He wants us to take it seriously. What will that look like? I don’t know, honestly. I think it may look different for you than for me. All I know that He wants me to honor Him with it.

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Resting

This is a post I wrote for a devotional blog at my company (not a “ministry” company). So, it sounds a little different:

The sheer volume of possible puns and clever titles dealing with the Sabbath is overwhelming. It seemed good to go with simple. When it gets right down to it, Sabbath is really about rest anyway. There is a very good chance that, even from Genesis 2, the Sabbath has been a metaphor.

By the time Jesus walked the very ground He created, the Sabbath had become anything but restful. In those days, due to the violent oppressive history of the Jewish people, they had gradually turned a day of rest into one of the most stressful practices of any religion.

The sheer volume of rules surrounding the practice of the Sabbath was so overwhelming, it is difficult to imagine how anyone kept track of all of them. For instance, there seems to be a prohibition to pick heads of grain and eat them on the Sabbath:

Jesus was going through the grain fields on a Sabbath, and his disciples began to pick some heads of wheat as they made their way. So the Pharisees said to him, “Look, why are they doing what is against the law on the Sabbath?”

Mark 2:23-24 NET

So, there’s this law, among the Ten Commandments, that says: “Remember the Sabbath day to set it apart as holy.” (Deuteronomy 20:8 NET). Notice the total absence of picking heads of grain and eating them. “Oh”, but you say, “There’s more!” Which is true. Here’s the “more”:

For six days you may labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God; on it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, or your male servant, or your female servant, or your cattle, or the resident foreigner who is in your gates. For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth and the sea and all that is in them, and he rested on the seventh day; therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and set it apart as holy.

Exodus 20:9-11 NET

So, do your occupation for six days (not five, by the way), and on the sixth, rest from it. I still don’t see anything about picking heads of grain to eat as you pass through a field. The Sabbath is for everyone, even servants, but the rationale given by our Creator is creation. He rested after making everything. So, He created the Sabbath too.

The religious leadership had tried to define the term “occupation” so tightly they might not unintentionally miss keeping the Sabbath. They over did it to protect from not doing it at all. But it started by asking, “what does it mean to ‘not do any work’?” When we start looking for “loopholes”, the answer isn’t a tighter net.

Jesus brings up another view to show the Pharisees the problem of their own. Notice that the Pharisees were right there with Jesus, close enough to see what His disciples did. They saw the activity of the disciples, but they were missing their own problem of perspective.

He said to them, “Have you never read what David did when he was in need and he and his companions were hungry— how he entered the house of God when Abiathar was high priest and ate the sacred bread, which is against the law for any but the priests to eat, and also gave it to his companions?” Then he said to them, “The Sabbath was made for people, not people for the Sabbath. For this reason the Son of Man is lord even of the Sabbath.”

Mark 2:25-28 NET

The event being described here is probably from 1 Samuel 21:1-6, and it is not exactly how it is written there. Even so, the point remains, David ate what was devoted to God, and reserved for the priests to eat. Jesus’ take away from this event is that “…the Sabbath was made for people, not people for the Sabbath.”

What sort of “holy rules” have you, or those with whom you worship, instituted over time? Is there a ritual of music, of preaching, of lighting, or seating? One of the most amazing surprises of 2020 was how resilient even small churches were, adapting to “distance worship”, learning to do live webcasts with little or no warning.

The damage done to congregations has yet to be calculated, but the stories of impressive surprising adaptation are easy to find. The story of your congregation is probably your favorite (or should be). And what this taught us is that the “Sabbath” or “holy day of worship” need not be defined as we have always done it.

Our worship, practiced by congregations of called out ones gathered to declare the worthiness of our Savior corporately, is actually a rather flexible concept. Who knew? But it is also a gift from our Savior to us. We were not created for the Sabbath, but, rather, the Sabbath was created for us. And one day, disciples of Jesus will enter into an eternal Sabbath.

So, let’s work our butts off, and then, enjoy the rest of our Savior. Cue the massive pipe organ and the “four-creature” quartet! Holy Holy Holy is Yahweh Elohim El-Shaddai! All the earth is filled with His glory! I’m almost too excited to rest, but it sure beats working!  

The Silent Majority

And Jesus answered and spoke to the lawyers and Pharisees, saying, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath, or not?”  But they kept silent. And He took hold of him and healed him, and sent him away.  And He said to them, “Which one of you will have a son or an ox fall into a well, and will not immediately pull him out on a Sabbath day?”  And they could make no reply to this.  (Luke 14:3-6 NASB)

I have been reminded by my wife many times that when I prepare, my sermons are shorter.  I don’t preach any more, but the reminder has always stuck with me.  Now, when I do get the very rare opportunity to preach, my preparation is very different, and my sermon is often long.  So, I received the advice or reminder, but I didn’t necessarily heed it.  The thing is, preachers love to preach.  Getting us to keep our mouths shut isn’t easy.  So why were these dinner guests so quiet?

After the setting of this meal, we have the one-sided discourse.  The weird thing is, all the other guests are Pharisees and lawyers.  These guys make their mark in their society by arguing…and here they’re silent.  And we just glibly zip on by and don’t notice a bunch of silent professional debaters.  I think we should.  Because why they were silent may help us understand how Jesus behaves with them at this meal.  And, therefore, how He would respond to us when we practice such silliness.

First off, the obvious reason is probably the first and best reason for why they were silent: They were watching to see what Jesus would do without offering the “assistance” of their perspective.  I’m sure they thought they knew the answer without doubt, without question, without any option for another opinion.  But they were also pretty sure Jesus didn’t.  It was a trap, a snare, an opportunity for the offense of Jesus to become His downfall.  It was silly.

But I think there was something else going on here.  I believe, to some extent, they were aware they didn’t actually know and wanted to know what Jesus thought.  Think about it, these guys are smart.  Jesus goes about healing, which is a testimony that God is with Him, and even heals on the Sabbath, something they thought was a deal-breaker with God.  Jesus represents a conundrum.  How can it be that He can heal on the Sabbath and be acceptable to God?  And so  the wonder, is it real, does He actually heal on the Sabbath, could it be true that God actually accepts such behavior?  And more than that, if so why?  They have assumed that Sabbath-keeping is one of those things that separates them from Gentiles, rigorous keeping of the Sabbath would be vital to that distinction. So, how can Jesus flagrantly do what would be considered work on the Sabbath and God be okay with it?

They  want to see this for themselves.  They want to hear the explanation for themselves.  They have no idea what they’re in for, but they wander in ignorantly to the arena with Deity.  So, they set the trap and wait.  Their opponent shows up, sniffs about, and then sits down to eat the bait, licks their lips and looks around for more.  No trap.  It’s pretty underwhelming.  Jesus comes in, sees the man, asks a question of them, they don’t answer (it’s a test, no cheating), He heals the man, and sending him away asks about a basic loophole in their own Sabbath rules.  How did they not see that one coming?  I suspect they did.  I doubt Jesus was the first one to ask or challenge the group about what validly fits through the loophole.  Jesus is simply the first “Healer” to do it.

The thing I see here is that these guys were first silent to test, then silent because they were tested themselves.  They weren’t “bad guys” because they tested Jesus, they had, over the course of years and generations, argued themselves into a position that neglected the value of people, even their fellow Hebrews.  The irony is that those people were who they were trying to distinguish from the Gentiles through their interpretation of the Sabbath law. So while they succeeded in distinguishing, they failed to protect and value them.  Oh Dang!  I’m sure “Sabbath Law Discussions” kicked around the loophole of saving someone in well, or pulling an ox from a ditch, or watering the donkey, or whatever.  And clearly Jesus isn’t healing for money, the dropsy-man didn’t pay Jesus before he wandered off.  It wasn’t Jesus “occupation” as much as it was what occupied a lot of His time.  So you can understand their confusion perhaps.

I think they had nothing to say because a light bulb just lit in their head.  It was an “oh-yeah” moment.  It wasn’t revolutionary in the sense they’d never been down that particular road, it was transformational because they hadn’t noticed they had forgotten an important element, caring for and valuing the people.  And I doubt very seriously it was because they didn’t know that was important.  I suspect they got further and further away from it because a line crossed many years ago became blurred and forgotten.  They probably assumed that by distinguishing themselves as a people from Gentiles, they were taking care of and valuing their people.  I can see how it could happen.  I’ve seen people there who, if you were to point it out, would be as silent, and probably, like these people here, eventually react against being called out on it.  But I’ve also seen people change once called out on it.  I’m one.  I didn’t figure this out on my own, I’ve had to be shown where I was ignoring the people’s needs and valuing them.

Have you gotten to that point?  It’s been a while for me, and I’m now struggling against the tide in my church to point out need or encourage service.  But where are you in this struggle?  What do you learn from the silent dinner guests?  Or what do you learn from Jesus’ explanation of Sabbath law?