Do as I Say, Not as I Do
(Luke 13: 10-17)
Smith County, Texas, was known as the “wettest dry county in Texas” which came as quite a surprise to me when I moved there in November of 2002 to start work as an Assistant District Attorney. It’s not that I’m a big drinker, in fact I’ve started drinking non-alcoholic beer, but when I moved to Tyler ahead of Teresa, I went in search of an adult beverage to enjoy in my temporary living quarters. After coming up empty-handed at a couple of convenience stores, I finally had to ask a grocery store clerk what the deal was and learned that if I wanted something alcoholic, I’d have to drive to any of the adjacent counties where it could be sold legally. Like a teenage kid trying to buy his first illegal six pack of beer I had to drive to the next county to this huge beer, wine, and liquor store called Fat Dogs just across the county line which had a very large parking lot and employees who would carry your purchases out to your car so you wouldn’t have to make more than one trip. Tyler was thought by many to be the buckle of the Bible Belt, and the religious community played a big part in keeping the Devil’s brew under control. Things had eased up a bit as not long before I got there you could purchase a beverage with your meal at a restaurant, but you still had the problem of being seen drinking in public. Ironically, the two places where alcohol flowed freely for me were the parties thrown by the elected District Attorney and my First Baptist Sunday School Class. How do you like your hypocrisy? Shaken or stirred?
And it’s the hypocrisy of the Pharisees that Jesus is addressing in our scripture reading out of Luke’s Gospel this morning. If you remember my sermon from last week, Truth or Consequences, you’ll remember Jesus challenging those in the crowd who were waging a whisper campaign against his ministry as they saw his preachings and teachings as a threat to their comfortable status quo. I talked about how Jesus was sent by God to be a disrupter, to shake up the current order of the way things were being done that were hurting the most vulnerable of God’s children. Jesus told them to their faces that he came to cause divisions, to speak truth to power, in order to reorder the way things were currently being done so that God’s creation could be restored as was always intended. The temerity of this guy, a lowly country rabbi from Nazareth. Who is he to tell us how to conduct our business?
So, Luke tells us that Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath when he noticed a woman who was all bent over and couldn’t stand up straight, being disabled by a spirit for 18 years. When he saw her, he stopped what he was doing and called her over and said: Woman, you are set free from your sickness. He placed his hands on her and she straightened up at once and praised God. Luke tells us that the synagogue leader was incensed that Jesus had healed on the Sabbath and responded: There are six days during which work is permitted. Come and be healed on those days, not on the Sabbath days. The leader of the synagogue is referring to what God said to Moses as recorded in the Book of Exodus regarding the Sabbath which says: Remember the Sabbath day and treat it as holy. Six days you may work and do all your tasks, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. Do not do any work on it—not you, your sons or daughters, your male or female servants, your animals, or the immigrant who is living with you. The religious leaders saw healing as part of a doctor’s profession, and practicing one’s profession on the Sabbath was prohibited, no exceptions. Those who had been watching Jesus closely now thought they had him right where they wanted, blatantly violating one of God’s ten commandments. However, Jesus understood that sometimes even people’s sincere religious convictions can lead them astray, but this was not the case. He responded to the chastisement of the synagogue leader by saying: Hypocrites! Don’t each of you on the Sabbath untie your ox or donkey from its stall and lead it out to get a drink? Then isn’t it necessary that this woman, a daughter of Abraham, bound by Satan for eighteen long years, be set free from her bondage on the Sabbath day? Luke tells us that when Jesus said these things, all his opponents were put to shame, but all those in the crowd rejoiced at all the extraordinary things he was doing. That had to sting.
Jesus understood and supported adherence to the Ten Commandments, but he knew that many devout Jews of the time, no doubt in sincerity, carried this prohibition to an extreme. So, in order to expose that extremism, he performs an act of deliberate provocation by healing a woman on the Sabbath. Yeah, they both could have waited another day, but he chooses to heal her on the Sabbath in order to make some onlookers incensed and they played right into his hands. His point was simple and impossible to argue against: compassion should come before all else. His healing a bent over woman actually serves to illustrate the hard hearts of the religious leaders. They are put to shame before a large crowd by Jesus’ claim that they would treat an ox or a donkey better than this daughter of Abraham. This goes right back to what Jesus said previously that he had come to bring division, again, to shake things up.
And here we are two thousand years later, and the hypocrites are still telling us what to do when all they are doing is everything they can to take care of themselves and theirs, and speaking truth to their power doesn’t seem to faze or shame them in the least. Recently, I’ve been following a young Texas politician who is a member of their House of Representatives representing a district north of Austin. James Talarico is currently 36 years old and has been in the Texas Legislature since 2018. I can tell you that Texas politics is not for the faint of heart and we jokingly refer to it as: Politicks meaning “many blood-sucking parasites.” What’s different about James is that he used to be a middle school teacher who went on to get his Master of Divinity degree and is active in service at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in Austin. Like me, he was influenced by his grandfather who was a Baptist preacher who taught him that Christianity is a simple, though not easy, religion rooted in two commandments; love God and love your neighbor. He describes politics as “another word for how we treat our neighbors.” I have enjoyed watching him slice and dice other Texas representatives as they try to introduce legislation requiring prayer in public schools and the conspicuous posting of the Ten Commandments in schools. Now you would think that a pastor-politician would be all in favor of the passage of such legislation, but you’d be wrong. He has stated that making a child who happens to be Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim, Jewish, or atheist for example pray a Christian prayer in school isn’t really showing the love of neighbor that Jesus spoke of when you are dealing with people who are different from yourself. Loving your neighbor includes respecting their right to be themselves. I watched him dissect a representative who was sponsoring a bill on posting the Ten Commandments in public schools. He asked her what the fourth commandment was and, after looking down, she said “Keep the Sabbath holy.” He then asked her what day it was, and she sheepishly said: Sunday, as the Legislature was in session. Ouch! And he is an outspoken critic of Christian nationalism calling it “a cancer on our religion.” He describes it as “the worship of power-social power, economic power, political power, in the name of Christ” and has accused Christian Nationalists of turning Jesus “into a gun-toting, gay-bashing, science-denying, money-loving, fear-mongering fascist” and argued that it is “incumbent on all Christians to confront it and denounce it” which he publicly said in a 2023 guest sermon which racked up more than 1 million views after it was posted on YouTube. That’s 21st century Jesus speaking truth to power through one of his disciples for the transformation of the world. And guess what, just like the Pharisees, the Governor and Attorney General of Texas are doing all they can to silence him. That’s what the status quo does to people who call them out, who speak truth to power, who point out the hypocrisy of saying one thing and doing another. They work overtime to silence the opposition no matter who they are, including other Christians. Now that’s text book hypocrisy!
As Followers of the Way of Jesus Christ, as his disciples for the transformation of the world, that is exactly what we are called upon to do. Yes, we are called to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, give drink to the thirsty, heal the sick, visit the prisoner, and welcome the stranger, but we are also called to be disrupters of the status quo just like Jesus Christ, speaking truth to power, calling out the hypocrites when they say one thing in the name of Jesus Christ yet do the complete opposite. It is, after all, what Jesus would do and did do.
Let us pray.
Gracious and loving Lord, teach us your ways so that we may do what it is that you would have us do. Move us by your Spirit to follow the examples of Jesus as he spoke truth to power. Instill in us the desire and courage to step forward during those times when people are twisting your truth for their own personal gain, especially when they claim they are doing it in Jesus’ name. Move us to shine a light upon the hypocrisy of those who work to maintain the status quo that serves their purpose and not yours. May we be the Christians who confront and denounce what is harmful to your children. May we be the Christians who love not only you but also our neighbors, especially our neighbors. This we pray in Jesus’ name, Amen.
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Do as I Say, Not as I Do
Christianity is a simple, though not easy religion, rooted in two commandments: love God and love your neighbor.