"When You Fly With God" - Sermon for 11 Pentecost 8-24-25

On the first leg of my flight home, the police were summoned to nab a passenger. The man wasn’t dangerous or violent, but he was disruptive much of the time; and as the plane landed, he wouldn’t sit down and shut up.

On the final leg home, my seatmate kept her tray table down during take-off. She had her smart-phone resting on it, playing a movie. The flight attendants didn’t notice, but I sure did; though I wasn’t about to say anything and risk an irritated neighbor at my elbow.

Which rules to do you obey? And which rules do you break? Which rules do you hold others to? And which rules do you let slide by, broken?

It is probably not an exaggeration to say that everybody does it, because I suppose everybody does. To be sure, most of these fissures are small-time and hairline, but a few of them are fractures compound and complex; they summon the authorities and make the papers. And all of them – our own and others, major and minor – we adjudicate in the chambers of our hearts. We can’t help ourselves, can we?

The rule that Jesus broke most often was Sabbath observance. No, Jesus didn’t sleep in or run errands or go to brunch instead of to the synagogue; he went, faithfully. But on that sacred seventh day, he sometimes healed people – an infraction easily noticed and readily condemned by those in charge.

There are six days to work; leave the seventh alone, said the indignant man in charge. And he had a point. He wouldn’t break a major rule, so why should Jesus?

But, of course, the leader regularly did break that rule. Each of you on the Sabbath tends to the needs of your animals, Jesus countered. How come it is okay for you to untie ox or donkey but not for me to attend to the needs of this woman, bound by Satan for so long?

The leader shrank, the crowd rejoiced, and hearts turned. Jesus didn’t trample the Sabbath; he restored it.

What is Sabbath-keeping for the Christian? The seventh day no longer quite applies. Our sacred day is the eighth: Sunday, which both begins and ends the week. Alpha- and Omega-like, Sunday gets counted twice. It’s mystical math – the day derived from the first Word spoken at creation; and from that same Word, lately made flesh, risen anew from the tomb Easter morning.

The Church tells us how we are to keep and honor this Eighth Day. The Book of Common Prayer authoritatively states that our duty is the corporate worship of God, week by week (p. 856). We pledge, with God’s help, to continue in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of the bread, and in the prayers (p. 304). And the principal way we do this is at Mass on Sunday, the Lord’s Day (p. 13).

And yet … and yet so often we go our own ways, we serve our own interests, we pursue our own affairs. To be sure, some of our ways, our interests, and our affairs are important. Each of you has an ox to untie, or a donkey to water, or a family to set free, even on Sunday. Don’t you wish you had an eight-day week, just to get done the things that people ask of you and that you demand of yourself? None of you wants to trample our Holy Day. What might it take for you to restore it, so that you can delight in it and rejoice in it? And don’t think that my question applies only to the infrequent among you. Among you frequent ones: is your Holy Day always a delight? Or sometimes is it one, more. thing. demanded of you?

Who is this God whom you worship? Do you hear a rebuke in Jesus’s words to the synagogue leader? Or an invitation? Was this son of Abraham freed from his bondage, as was Abraham’s daughter?  And how about you? Are you free?

God is neither the police, looking to nab you when you deplane; nor at your elbow, judging you silently while your tray table is down. Rather, God promises you, week by week, the Sacrament of God’s Very Self, delighting in you when you show up, and ever-waiting for you whenever your next time is to fly.

Father Daniel S.J. Scheid, SCP

11^th after Pent. C: Proper 16 – August 24, 2025

All Saints’ Episcopal Church, San Francisco

“When You Fly With God”