August 22, 2004

Mindekirken, Aug 22, 2004
Pastor Jens Arne Dale

It’s not really Sunday, unless we have been to church. These words were printed in the Communicator in January this year, in an interview with Lillian Nilsen. One of the good experiences of coming as a Norwegian pastor to the U.S. is to see how many are accustomed to attending worship services. In Norway, 3% of church members attend weekly services. Here in the U.S. 30% or more do.

It’s nice to have a pattern of life where Sunday is both a holy day and a day of rest. We need to relax; a day a week which is different, less occupied with stress and hassle, a day for each other, a day with more time for God. What we don’t need is a thousand rules for what is allowed and what isn’t, on Sunday. Some of us might have grown up in a tradition where people almost guarded each other in order to maintain a decent Sunday moral.

The meaning of Sunday is not that it’s forbidden to sew, knit or do manual hard work. Sunday shouldn’t be a straitjacket. Luther says in his Small catechism in the explanation of the third commandment: We should love and fear God, so we don’t miss the gathering around the word of God, but keep the Word holy, eagerly hearing and learning it. It’s not the negative, but the positive aspect of Sundays that Luther underlines. Rest, joy, renewal and worship are words, which tell us about the meaning of Sunday.

We know that Jesus used to attend the synagogue service every Sabbath. That was on Saturday. After the resurrection, Sunday became the holy day. The liturgy that we have is to a large extent built upon the service at the synagogue, and it’s not out of the way to say that Jesus went to church every Sunday.

But today’s text is the last time we hear that Jesus went to the synagogue. He might have given up. He didn’t manage to do it any more. His place was left empty. He got so disillusioned that he quit going there. At this time of his public career, Jesus was guarded carefully by the religious leaders for every step he took. They tried to trap him and we knew they wanted finally to kill him for blasphemy.

Here in the pulpit of Mindekirken, I can see the stained glass window featuring Hans Nielsen Hauge. Hauge was the farmer of Østfold who met God in an overwhelming experience on a spring day in 1796. He began to preach the word of God, and for four intense years he traveled from place to place in Norway. Everywhere people were converted. They became better people morally. The farmers got more self-esteem, and a lot of new businesses got started.

But the pastors didn’t like the fact that Hauge preached like he did. The law claimed that no one could preach without permission from the pastors, and Hauge rarely had that. Because of that, he was put in jail several places, finally for a long time. Hauge’s health was damaged, and even if he got restoration from the parliament, he never gained his former strength.

Even so, Hauge never encouraged his friends to leave the state church. A lot of the Christian life in Norway today and also among Norwegian Americans, benefit from the legacy of Hauge. The Christian organizations for inner and outer mission, social work and institutions like Menighetsfakultetet (the seminary) are dependent on the heritage of Hauge.

The story of Hauge is to some extent parallel to what happened with Jesus himself. Jesus delivered a message, which set people free, and changed them. But the religious authorities didn’t like what they saw. They felt their positions of power were threatened. And they knew how to act against it. In the synagogue, on the day which we read about in today’s text, the leader of the synagogue reacted strongly when he saw Jesus curing the woman who had been sick for 18 years. He’s too cowardly to address Jesus directly. Instead he said to the crowd: There are six days on which work ought to be done; come on those days to be cured, and not on the Sabbath day.

You have to have quite some imagination or be extremely petty when it comes to rules, in order to call this healing work. Poor man. He felt no joy for the woman who was cured. He was sour because it happened on the wrong day. His argument reminds me of the one they used in Germany when it was discussed to have a speed limit on the freeways: No, because then the prosthesis factories would have less to do.

Jesus met opposition, but he wouldn’t let his opponents win. You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger, and lead it away to give it water? Of course they all did. Even the law allowed them to do so.

The leader of the synagogue seemed to treat the woman worse than the animals. And ought not this daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen long years, be set free from this bondage on the Sabbath day? It was almost as Jesus said that the synagogue leader did the errand of Satan by denying this woman the freedom on the Sabbath.

Everyone who listened to the debate in the synagogue was amazed by the arguments of Jesus. The opponents lost. They were put to shame. But the crowd enjoyed what Jesus had done. Even so, we know that this is the last time we hear that Jesus visited the synagogue. After this, he preached in open air and at other places. Despite that, opposition increased, and we who have read the whole book, know that Jesus in the end was sentenced to death for blasphemy and crucified. The guards of the religion seemed to get the last word, at least until the day of resurrection.

What lesson can we learn from this story? The leader of the synagogue represents the ones for whom rules are more important than people. We might all have met this type, the ones to whom a small detail is more important than the main issue, people who set the system above the individual. The leader of the synagogue was a man of power; he was narrow-minded and sour. In his world there was no room for generosity, no happiness on behalf of people who were set free. He felt his position threatened, and his religion insulted by what really was the nucleus of the very same religion: The love that sets people free.

In modern society it might be difficult to find the balance between the individual and the fellowship. In times of war, we know that individuals are made invisible. Soldiers are counted in numbers and put together in strong units. The life of a single human might be sacrificed to obtain a greater goal. But it’s hardly right to build a society based on the thought that fellowship is more important than the individual. In communism, Nazism and other totalitarian systems of government, the state is above the individual. Civil rights don’t count that much.

The suppression of individuals is accepted, if it serves a higher goal… It shouldn’t be that way. Christianity doesn’t represent a particular political ideology. But it’s a biblical thought that the individual comes ahead of the system. Man wasn’t made for the sake of the state, but the state should serve the citizens. We’re all created in the image of God. Every single human being has his value.

Therefore, human rights are important in Christian ethics. People should not be suppressed: neither by totalitarian regimes nor by economic exploitation.

Jesus showed us that caring for the individual was important. He cured. We are called to proclaim the gospel in a freeing way. We are called to meet people in a way that makes them feel valued, loved and safe. We need rules and order, but there are cases where love has the right of way.

Glory be to God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, one true God, now and forever. Amen.

The Norwegian Lutheran Memorial Church ·  924 E. 21st St, Minneapolis, MN 55404-2952 ·  (612)874-0716