Sermon manuscript:
“The Pharisees went out and
immediately held counsel with the Herodians against Jesus, how to destroy him.”
Perhaps you’ve noticed before that there are some people who
like laws and rules, and there are others who don’t. Those who like laws and
rules usually also like organization. They like to have their things in their
proper places. They like to be on-time. Those are nice things that can be said
about them. There are also negative things that can generally be said about
them. They can be unimaginative and boring. They can be judgmental and rude.
Those who don’t like laws and rules as much can be somewhat the opposite. They
are often more flexible. They can be more fun. But they might not be as good at
organization or getting tasks done.
Between the two, I think those people are more highly valued
who like laws and rules. They often make better employees. They do as they’re
told. And if the meaning of life is to have a job or to make money, then these
folks are better. They’re more productive.
Among many of the Jews at Jesus’s time the purpose of life
was to follow the laws of Moses. That can be hard for us to imagine in our
money-soaked culture, but so it was. There were Jews whose stated ambition was
to follow God’s Law carefully and zealously. That doesn’t sound like it should
ever be a bad thing, but as we heard in our Gospel reading, these people became
Jesus’s enemies. They hated him and wanted to destroy him. Why? Because he
didn’t follow their rules.
The rules that were especially at issue in our reading had
to do with the third commandment: “Remember the Sabbath
day by keeping it holy.” God commanded the Israelites not to work on the
seventh day of the week. The Jews were extremely careful about keeping this
commandment. They came up with well-organized lists of things that ought not be
done because such things would be “work.” No work was to be done on the
Sabbath.
You heard in our reading how the disciples were walking
through the grainfields on the Sabbath. What were they doing? Work—according to
the Pharisees. They were plucking heads of grain, rubbing off the chaff, and
popping them into their mouths. They were harvesting and threshing.
And you might think that this is no big deal. It was just a
few kernels. But you’d be wrong. Anyone who knows anything about rules knows
that if you let them take an inch they’ll take a mile. These disciples were
just harvesting a few kernels, but what if somebody else started to take
handfuls? What’s to stop someone from getting out the sickle? Before you know
it, the whole field has been harvested on the Sabbath! No! Nip it in the bud.
Not even a single kernel is to be harvested on the Sabbath.
Then, in the second half of the reading, Jesus came into a
synagogue on the Sabbath. There was a man whose hand was withered. They
wondered whether Jesus might do the work of healing on the Sabbath. Lo and
behold, he did! Just as they suspected. Jesus was a Sabbath-breaker.
We might understandably be critical of these Pharisees and
immediately come to Jesus’s defense, but I think we can learn some important
things if we look at the situation from their perspective. They were fully
convinced that they were right. They were doing what they’d always been doing, and
what they’d always been doing was to be extremely serious about the Sabbath.
They liked to get things just right. They had read many books about it. They’d
built up a vast knowledge of what was allowable, what was forbidden, and what
might be in the middle. According to this vast knowledge they knew that Jesus
was dead wrong.
This left them in a predicament—although it wasn’t really a
predicament. Either they could forsake all their learning and all their
practices and follow Jesus, or they could reject Jesus. It wasn’t a hard
decision. Who was this Jesus anyway? Somebody from the sticks. Everybody knows
that nothing good ever comes from Nazareth.
So the Pharisees were not troubled by their decision, but in
point of fact they had made a terrible mistake. They believed that the world
needed them and their organization. The world needed their books with all of
their wisdom. They were wrong. The simplest Christian knows what the world
needs. The world needs Jesus. Truth and goodness will only come through faith
in him.
Jesus tried to help the Pharisees. He tried to show them that
he was the Messiah, the Christ, the King. Jesus mentioned King David. King
David and his disciples ate the showbread from the tabernacle that was supposed
to be eaten only by the priests. The Jews had been waiting for someone like
David, and here he was! Jesus and his disciples could take the liberty of
plucking heads of grain just as David had taken liberty with the showbread.
Admittedly, that demonstration is a little subtle, but the
other things Jesus said and did were not subtle at all. They were very direct.
Jesus flat out said that he is the Son of Man—a messianic title. “The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath,” he said,
referring to himself. And Jesus showed his power by healing the man’s withered
hand. He produced a miracle to validate what he had been saying.
But the Pharisees were blind. They weren’t literally blind,
but what they should have seen they didn’t see. They should have seen that
Jesus is the Christ, but they saw an enemy instead. They didn’t see a miracle;
they saw a Sabbath-breaker. It’s like they were bewitched. Here Jesus was with
all his grace and power, but all they care about are their stupid little rules.
Their stupid little rules have never saved anyone, nor will they save anyone. There
is only one Savior—Jesus of Nazareth. Everything else can and must be cast
aside for this pearl of great price. There is no organization, no institution, no
proud history that can stand in the way of the One whom God has sent. They were
wrong.
Let’s now consider how this might apply to us. We can learn
important things from these Pharisees who rejected Jesus. Imagine if Jesus
would have taken a different tack with the Pharisees. Imagine if he come up to them
and spoken their language, so to speak. What if he would have talked about how they,
as the most fastidious Jews, were the real Jews. The other Jews were Jews-in-name-only.
Those ignorant people didn’t even know what Rabbi Hillel had said about this or
that... If Jesus would have talked with them like that, then Jesus would have
been part of their club. They would have loved him as one of their own.
So it is with us. Imagine if Jesus were to sidle up to us
and say, “I’ve been paying attention, and guess what? You’re the best. Yep. I
love everything that you’ve been doing. Those other people—they just don’t get
it. But you? You know what’s what. Keep up the good work!”
I think we might respond: “Well thanks Jesus! I always did
think you were a pretty swell guy. I like how you think.”
Ridiculous! Jesus is God, not us. Jesus leads, Jesus
teaches, and we follow; not the other way around. If we were to reverse this
order it would be blindness and stupidity. If we were to reverse this order,
then we would only agree with Jesus insofar as he already agrees with us. That
is exactly what was going on with the Pharisees. They had no problem with Jesus
except when he disagreed with them. When Jesus did disagree with them, they
didn’t repent and change their minds. They went stubbornly ahead with their own
thoughts and actions because they believed that they were right.
In our sad and decaying times the one thing that everybody
has in common is that everybody believes they are right. The people on the
right are completely convinced that they are right. The people on the left are
completely convinced that they are right. The people in the middle are
completely convinced that they are right. Everybody is completely right.
That isn’t surprising if you will think about yours. Nurturing
the belief that we are so right and others are so wrong feels so good! We like
that feeling. The Pharisees liked that feeling. It felt good to harrumph that
Jesus was nothing but a lousy Sabbath-breaker. They enjoyed labeling Jesus as
an evildoer. They enjoyed their hardness of heart.
Nobody has to force us into being blind and stupid,
especially when it comes to the belief that we are right. We do that quite
naturally. What is so unnatural that it requires a miracle of the Holy Spirit
is for us to turn away from ourselves and the celebration of our own rightness,
and to glorify, not ourselves, but the Son of God instead. That can be quite
painful. These Pharisees would have needed to toss aside all those commentaries
that they loved so much. They would have had to toss aside what made them most proud
about themselves.
What beloved parts of your identity that you pride yourself
upon need to be tossed aside?
Paul said that he regarded the best parts of himself to be a
loss—the best parts of himself were garbage. These were not shameful things.
They were things that others would admire, but Paul says they are garbage. Why?
Why was Paul so hard on himself? Because knowing Jesus reveals that all that
other stuff is garbage. Perhaps the things that we love best about
ourselves are the exact things that we should most deeply repent. We aren’t
prone to worship ourselves for the things we don’t like about ourselves. We are
prone to worship the stuff we like. That makes us blind.
Open your eyes. The celebration of yourself will end badly.
Glorify Jesus instead.
Jesus Christ is Lord! Amen.
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