Sermon 6-2-24
Almighty and Holy God, You call us out of our dark places, offering us Your grace of new life. When we only see hopelessness, You surprise us with the breath of Your spirit. Please call us out of our complacency and our dead ended routines. Please set us free from our self-imposed bonds, and fill us with Your spirit of life, compassion, and peace. In the name of Jesus, we pray these and all prayers. Amen.
The Bible describes perfect worship as being around the throne of God– a place where there is no pain, or sadness; A place where there is light and warmth; A place where there is no distinction made among people. All are equal before the throne of God.
But we aren’t around the Throne of God yet. We are here in this world where worship is sometimes problematic. Oftentimes, we believe that we “have to” go to church to please God. Sometimes we think that worship is about us measuring up. Sometimes we think that worship will impress God to give us what we want. worship is about much more than these.
How can we worship God in a real and authentic way? In today’s Gospel it says: One Sabbath day– a day of worship Jesus was going through the grainfields. As the disciples walked along, they began to pick the heads of grain. The Pharisees asked him, “Look! Why are Your disciples doing something that is not permitted on the day of worship—the day of rest?”
Jesus’ disciples were engaged in activity that wasn’t permitted by the religious rules and regulations of the time. They were picking grain because they were hungry. Now the Pharisees criticized Jesus because of what the disciples were doing because worship had become a series of do’s and don’ts. The Sabbath was a day when certain activities were permitted and others weren’t. Pleasing God had been reduced to a formula. God will be happy if you walk no more than 30 paces but He will be displeased if you walk 31.
God will honor your worship if you give your tithe but He will be angry if all you can bring only a widow’s penny. Honoring God had been reduced to rules and regulations.
The Lord says in Isaiah 29: “These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is made up only of rules taught by men.” Somehow, we think we can make up the rules and requirements for God. When worship is reduced to rules and laws that have to be obeyed, it’s easy to take our eyes off God – the One to Whom we are worshiping.
I think it’s important for us to understand who God is and who we are. We know that our God is almighty and all knowing. He is the Creator through whose Word everything came to be. He needs nothing from us and yet the creation depends entirely on Him.
Worship is not only a time to praise our God–worship is also about what God does for us and that’s the key to Jesus’ response to the religious leaders who criticized Him. Jesus said to them: “Haven’t you ever read what David did when he and his men were in need and were hungry? How he went into the house of God and ate the bread of the presence? He had no right to eat those loaves. Only the priests have that right. Haven’t you ever read how he also gave some of it to his men? Then he added, “The day of worship was made for people, not people for the day of worship.”
The true worship of God begins in the heart. David, king of Israel was a man after God’s own heart and learned it the hard way. He had strayed. He had done repulsive things and was trying to cover it all up. But when God called him on his hypocrisy, David said in Ps. 51: “you do not delight in sacrifice or burnt offerings. The true sacrifice is a broken and contrite heart, O God, which you will not despise.”
Worship is about recognizing our great need before God. It is about approaching our Creator with a heart that is fully aware that our life depends wholly on God’s grace and mercy. It is about coming in humility before the One that is able to restore and heal and forgive.
We can recover the true sense of the sabbath as a gift when we remember that Jesus is Lord of everyday and commands us to remember the Sabbath day. We can also use the sabbath as a day for doing good. Jesus asked the rhetorical question, “Is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the sabbath, to save life or to kill?” The answer is obvious – the sabbath is a day to do good and to save life.
So a day of rest is not necessarily a day to do nothing. Visiting with others, helping out a neighbor, going to see someone in the hospital—some Christians observe the sabbath as a day free from electronic devices, are all good ways of keeping the sabbath holy.
The sabbath day is a gift from God. It was given as a blessing for us, that brings refreshment, rest, and reconnection with God and the people we love. It’s a day to worship, to put God at the center of our lives, no matter where we might be. It’s a day to follow Jesus in living lives of love for others and doing what we can to bless to them.
The gift of sabbath might just be one of the best things Jews and Christians have to offer. But it has to start with living it ourselves.
The central thought for us to remember is that the will of Jesus—the authoritative Son of God, is that of compassion and love are to be the hallmark of the Christian life. Amen
