We had accomplished something truly amazing. Having crossed the $2 Billion point in our efforts, our leadership was taking a day to celebrate our accomplishments. Bigwigs flew out from the main office. They took photos of us holding a giant $2 Billion check. We were being touted in the news.
It should have been a perfect day. And yet, detractors in our own office had dubbed our accomplishment “the billion dollar giveaway.” Sniping from the wings, it seemed to me. It wasn’t their accomplishment, so they intended to ruin it for the rest of us. I mean ... come on ... there were cookies and cake in the break room!
I was in a state. No telling what I was saying out loud. It was at this point my boss gently guided me into his office and closed the door. He told me to calm down. He then shocked me by putting a name to my behavior.
Aesthetic outrage.
Yep, that’s right. He was telling me that the whisper campaign of our fifth-column naysayers, while possibly a violation of decorum, had no impact on the substance of our gathering. We had, in fact, accomplished the very thing we were celebrating. In other words, my outrage had no real substance. I had no real reason to be offended.
Wait. What? But ... But they ... Oh.
Slowly it began to sink in. He was correct. My response was to some superficial matter and had completely ignored the substance of the event. I was offended at their violation of what I perceived as the rules of proper conduct. Until he made me see it, I had lost track of what was truly important.
Jesus ran into a similar mindset in this week’s scripture from Luke. He healed a woman while at church! To our modern sensibilities, this may seem absolutely the right place and time, but not so to the leader of the Synagogue. He was offended. How dare Jesus ... or anyone ... say or do anything to breach the decorum of the Sabbath! — There are rules, people! — In his view, all that healing should take place on one of the other six days.
But Jesus came back with inescapable logic. Not a person there would leave their farm animals bound on a Sabbath, unable to have access to water. How does that stack up against providing much needed relief to a human on the same day?
What we make room for in our spiritual space is, not surprisingly, personal. And also no surprise, we give ourselves some latitude. The downside of this is that, sometimes (often?), we don’t allow the same leeway in the spiritual space of others ... particularly if what they do breeches our definition of decorum.
You may find that some people prefer the traditional pieces of worship to the actual work of worship. Nothing Jesus said that day was new, and it wasn’t news to His audience. For centuries, the Prophets had been telling God’s people that the work of worship — attending to the needs of the poor, the widowed, the orphaned, the imprisoned ...and the ill — was more important to God than the sacrifices and festivals ... even though God had instructed them to do those things, too.
The acts of worship have meaning and purpose. They are not, however, satisfactory on their own. Like Jesus, we must become attuned to the needs of those near us — our neighbors, if you will — and act on that knowledge in a timely manner: do the actual work of worship.
Even if it causes a bit of aesthetic outrage along the way.
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Photo: “Leading An Ox to Water” by Steve Orr
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READINGS FOR THE COMING WEEK
Proper 16 (21) (August 25, 2019)
https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu//texts.php?id=276
Jeremiah 1:4-10
Psalm 71:1-6
Isaiah 58:9b-14
Psalm 103:1-8
Hebrews 12:18-29
Luke 13:10-17
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Join us Friday morning at Our Breakfast Place (formerly The Egg and I) for DaySpring’s Lectionary Breakfast. An hour of food, scripture, and discussion starts at 8:00am. It’s a wonderful way to launch the weekend.
Blessings,
Steve
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