“Now he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the sabbath. And just then there appeared a woman with a spirit that had crippled her for eighteen years. She was bent over and was quite unable to stand up straight. When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, “Woman, you are set free from your ailment.” When he laid his hands on her, immediately she stood up straight and began praising God. But the leader of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had cured on the sabbath, kept saying to the crowd, “There are six days on which work ought to be done; come on those days and be cured, and not on the sabbath day.” But the Lord answered him and said, “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? And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen long years, be set free from this bondage on the sabbath day?” When he said this, all his opponents were put to shame; and the entire crowd was rejoicing at all the wonderful things that he was doing.” Luke 13:10-17

I have Sirius XM satellite radio in both of my cars and I have wondered if it is worth the money.  Sure it’s great on a road trip, and no matter what genre you like you can find it on XM radio (and plenty that you don’t like by the way).  But I am not in the car that much and I do like listening to local radio, especially during football season, so I have thought about saving that 20 bucks a month.  But recently I have found a channel, number 121, called “Insight” that really helps me get in touch with my inner nerd.  OK, no comments about my nerd not being so inner.  I am definitely not a nerd.  I am actually a geek, because I am science and technology oriented.  Thus the Insight channel comes into play.  SiriusXM description of the channel is as follows: “Insight is an exclusive, groundbreaking news, information, and entertainment radio channel offering listeners inspiring ideas and intelligent conversation with an edge.  Designed to reach fans that enjoy the eclectic subject matter of public radio, SiriusXM Insight will feature an array of fresh, diverse voices addressing a new era of issues in a lively, smart, and sometimes humorous approach.”  And I love this station. On my drive home every day at 4PM, there is a show called “Star Talk”, with Neil deGrasse Tyson, the popular astrophysicist who is the Director of the Hayden Planetarium at the Museum of Natural History in New York City.  He is something of a media celebrity, kind of the new Carl Sagan. The show is good, and pretty funny, he has a great sense of humor.  The play on words is Star Talk, because it is not just about the stars above, but he features stars in the world of entertainment, politics and more.  He has had Bill Clinton on his show, and it was a good one.

This past week I heard a show with Penn & Teller, the Las Vegas magicians, and one with a physicist from Princeton who spoke on the multiverse theory, and boy, that was a tough one. But last Thursday, his show was on science and religion and featured an interview with Richard Dawkins of Oxford University, probably the world’s most famous atheist. To balance that, he had a Jesuit Priest, James Martin, to talk about science and religion and he did a pretty good job. Tyson was not rough on Martin, and fact it was a civil, stimulating conversation.  It was balanced and fair, as all parties had an open sense of inquiry about them. Tyson said he intentionally defies labels, so you really don’t know where he stands, but let’s just say he is not a deacon anywhere and has never been to Vacation Bible School.  Dawkin’s big thing is evolution, so he really against any religion that denies evolution as scientific fact.  So having a Catholic theologian on the show was perfect, because they generally accept the theory of evolution, and don’t think it is in conflict with a creator, it is just how God created.  After the Catholic church was brutal in dealing with Galileo, a man of devout faith by the way, they learned their lesson and were easy on Darwin.  Or maybe they learned the value of science. Catholics embrace science very well—the Vatican has an official Astronomer, and he is a good one, we heard him speak at Lyon College when Emily was there.

Tyson and Dawkins seemed open to a concept of the divine, acknowledging that the universe is a big mysterious place, even in the physics world, but getting from possibly a divine “First Cause” to highly developed religious systems of polity and practice makes no sense to them whatsoever.  Even if there might be a divine creator, it is a quantum Leap to get to the pillars of any organized religion from there.  So if there is a God whose evidence can somehow be proven through scientific inquiry it is a long way with a lot of illogical steps to the deity that religions espouse. This is scientific nonsense they say, because such a deity is not provable they say.  It is a quantum leap to suggest that there is a divine design in creation and jump to things like Jesus and the virgin birth.  It is even a longer jump to the rules, norms and mores of highly developed theologies where guilt and fear are tools of compliance of a fickle and caprcious God who seems more human like than God like.  They rightly say that you can’t scientifically prove any of that stuff.  Whatever astronomical mysteries that are out there that one might argue as the fingerprints of God doesn’t lead to anything at all, and certainly not a modern religion that your future depends on.

Ok, so the good Father said that is where faith comes in and the progressive revelation of God.  He said that Tyson would not start to indoctrinate a novice in physics with Quantum Mechanics, God does not start with religion as we know it.  We get there when we are ready for it.  Tyson said he has had spiritual experiences in scanning the universe or climbing a mountain, but those aren’t religious whatsoever.  The Father spoke of Tyson’s self-described spiritual experiences in “thin places” as God reaching out to him where he was at.

Well, at least science and religion were having a civil conversation. So often the gulf between the two is irreconcilable. I know people who wouldn’t watch the hit CBS television show “The Big Bang,” because it was “heathen”  because of its title. Arkansas is full of people who won’t vaccinate their children or get them the Flu shot for religious reasons, because they know more than proven scientific evidence. I’ve have seen people refuse to take life saving chemotherapy because their pastor said it would undermine their trust in God to heal them.  When science and religion can intelligently talk, it is a good thing.

Now you probably realize that this topic is a dangerous one for me.  I thought about buying Dawkin’s book, “The God Delusion,” but I am scared it might make too much sense for me, so I retreated to my comfort zone and screwed on my faith tighter and just listened to the show.  And while the good Father didn’t convince anyone, even me, he didn’t come off like an idiot, and that was refreshing too. But the questions the episode raised for me are good ones, especially “how did we get to here in the world of religion?” Is it merely the revelation of God to human vesels, evidently to only a few human vessels that led to church as we know it in 2016? But let’s advance the cause even further to where we live and ask, “if you accept the revelation of God in the Bible as we all mostly do, by faith, how do you get to where we are today?” Indeed.  It is a big jump, a quantum leap if you will.

Because the average religion has made plenty of quantum leaps from faith to practice. For years growing up, I was taught in church that you displeased God if skipped church, even on Sunday night.  Where did that come from? Quantum Leaps.  I was taught that you displeased God if you went dancing or were played cards.  I guess Canasta was OK, because my parents played every Saturday night with friends. You couldn’t work on Sunday at all, I kind of like that one, but we always went out to lunch after church to eat causing restaurant workers to sin I guess. And if you ever took a drink of alcohol, then you were pure evil. I was taught to be a Baptist first and a Christian second, and everyone else was wrong and we ought to pray for their souls.  We wanted them saved of course, but part of us wanted to see them burn in a great big satisfying cosmic I told you so, we were right.    I was taught salvation by grace on one hand, but what you did or didn’t do would prove whether or not it really stuck with you.  Of course that was limited to being a good Baptist.  I was taught that I was born to go to hell and be punished forever because I was a dirty, worthless worm whom God despised—unless I could recite the formula in front of others. And in an instant I became loved and treasured and would live forever with great material rewards.  The difference between eternal torment and eternal bliss was a forced compliance with the party line. Sin was clearly defined for me, we knew exactly what it was, it was just like a checklist.  And if you sinned a lot, then you probably weren’t saved to begin with—I guess you didn’t know what the hell you were doing when you walked the aisle, because these choices are inconsistent with once saved always saved.  A quantum Leap from the Bible message to practice.

Today new Christian mantra includes things like how to vote and whom to vote for, to brashly speaking for God on issues ranging from abortion to homosexuality to the role of women to faith legitimized prejudices such as xenophobia and mysogeny.   The modern church uses a religious cookie cutter to form its disciples and you are either on the same page or you are not Christian, because yes, they do judge you and your faith.  The modern Christian believes a certain set of socio-politico values as the faith has become a slickly packaged and a marketed, trademarked brand that is an all or none package deal.  Another Quantum Leap.

The trouble of course is that none of this or very little of this is in the Bible, the primary source for our faith, and that is where the leap comes in.  Where does it say God is displeased with us if we skip Sunday night?  Where does it say that playing cars leads to sin?  The Bible warns against drunkenness but actually affirms the drinking of wine.  Somehow we twist the culturally encapsulated advice or opinion passages into mortal sins endangering our very souls.  We major on the minors to put legs to our own agendas. This powerful stuff that has a stranglehold over our poorly developed spiritualities.

We have corporate compliance at the hospital, police departments have internal affairs, corporations have codes of ethics, but these things pale in comparison to the compliance department of the average local church.  I mean we either guilt or scare people into conformity.  And trust me, there is no peer pressure like religious peer pressure.  We all have an innate needed to be Ok but even stronger we have a belief that we deserve to be punished. The whole mess preys on our insecurities and our allergies to uncertainty. How did we get to there, indeed.  It is a quantum leap.

But we did and we have had 2000 years to perfect it.

Our Lectionary text today shows us that Jesus is not about any of that stuff. He puts rules in their place and reprioritizes what it means to love God and it begins and ends in loving people. It is just that simple and just that profound.  Here was a woman with a disability, the kind that never goes away, the kind that getting older only makes worse.  And she has suffered for 18 long years, and being disabled in Jesus’ day was particularly unfortunate.  She suffers physically and most assuredly emotionally too.  Heck, no one cares about her we don’t even know her name.  No one probably knew her name. Jesus didn’t know her name, but he did see her, and says in effect, for heaven’s sake woman, straighten up and the bent over woman did just that.  Wow, can you imagine? For those of us who live with chronic illness to be cured in an instant would be life changing.  But to be deformed, just wow.  If Jesus were here today and took away my diabetes and rheumatoid arthritis that I have had for 21 years and he fixed you too, and fixed everyone we prayed for this morning, we would jump up and down for joy. It would be the greatest day in our lives.  And we would take off our shoes and hit the ground in awe of the Almighty.

But wait– not this crowd.  They got hoppin’ mad, can you believe it? Yes.  That’s right they got crazy angry.  Say what? Jesus broke their religious rules and flaunted it in their faces. How dare him. It would be like going to a landmark Baptist church and passing beer around to the worshipers on a Sunday Morning.  It would make their blood boil—same thing here. Why? Because of religion.  Because of rules.  Because of a quantum leap from faith to practice.  How did we get to there, indeed.

Well, this Jesus didn’t turn the other cheek this time, he let them have it.  He was mad that their stupid rules had hijacked the revelation of God and it was leaving people behind in the process, and that’s what made his indignation righteous. He said if it were your dumb animals who were thirsty or hungry on the Sabbath you would tend to them right?  It would be the compassionate thing to do.  How much more then, should we help this woman who is in fact our sister as a daughter of Abraham.   She is one of us, she is part of our family and you would treat not just favorite pets, but dumb animals better. Look hypocrites, people are always more important that rules.  And the guilt masters walked away guilty themselves.

And lest we point our fingers at the evil Pharisees, you and I have been there as well.  We have let religion hijack the revelation of God.  What is that revelation?  It is the Kingdom of God Ethic, and it is on every single page in every single story in the gospels, and it takes a back seat to our religious constructs.   Jesus showed us clearly the Kingdom ethic, and we killed him for it.  He taught You have to love people above all else friends, it is the law of love.  You have to go the second mile when you are only expected to go one, you have to turn the other cheek; you have to do unto others as you would have them do unto you.  You have to see the greatness behind humility and your one and only only goal should be to serve others.  That is what true religion is.  It is in fact taking care of widows and orphans, really it is.  It is counter cultural to everything that we value in society, it is nothing like the rules of our world or the tenets of our churches.  It is about the Jesus of the Gospels and not the quantum leap Jesus of institutionalized religion. The kingdom is about right acting, not just right believing.  It is not about acknowledging a formula but about being the presence of Christ in the world. It is not about forcing compliance through guilt, shame, or fear but about the contagious nature of no matter who you are, where you have been or what you have done God loves you period and he want to give you a hope and a future.

So today brothers and sisters, are we going to play church or are we going to be church.  The difference is life changing.  And if we are church, then we will never make that quantum leap from the Kingdom of God to the kingdoms of this world.  And we will mediate life giving, transformative power to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  And for all of us who are bent over by life,  that is Good News! Thanks be to God.  Amen.