Sermon Tone Analysis
Overall tone of the sermon
This automated analysis scores the text on the likely presence of emotional, language, and social tones. There are no right or wrong scores; this is just an indication of tones readers or listeners may pick up from the text.
A score of 0.5 or higher indicates the tone is likely present.
Emotion Tone
Anger
0.17UNLIKELY
Disgust
0.58LIKELY
Fear
0.12UNLIKELY
Joy
0.47UNLIKELY
Sadness
0.53LIKELY
Language Tone
Analytical
0.58LIKELY
Confident
0UNLIKELY
Tentative
0.69LIKELY
Social Tone
Openness
0.84LIKELY
Conscientiousness
0.58LIKELY
Extraversion
0.26UNLIKELY
Agreeableness
0.6LIKELY
Emotional Range
0.64LIKELY
Tone of specific sentences
Tones
Emotion
Language
Social Tendencies
Anger
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9
TITLE: How to REALLY Honor God SCRIPTURE: Luke 13:10-17
You won't be surprised to learn that there are some rather odd laws on the books.
I Googled the Internet for "odd laws" and came up with some very odd ones:
-- In Baltimore, Maryland, it is illegal to take a lion to the movies.
-- An Illinois state law requires that a man's female companion shall call him "master" while out on a date.
The law does not apply to married couples.
-- In Ottumwa, Iowa, it is illegal for any man, within the corporate city limits, to wink at any female with whom he is "unacquainted."
-- In Zion, Illinois, it is illegal for anyone to give cats, dogs, or other domesticated animals a lighted cigar.
-- In Oklahoma, dogs must have a permit signed by the mayor to congregate in groups of three or more on private property.
-- In California, it is a misdemeanor to shoot at any kind of game from a moving vehicle, unless the target is a whale.
-- In Florida, a special law prohibits unmarried women from parachuting on Sunday or ''she shall risk arrest, fine, and~/or jailing.''
Apparently the prohibition doesn't apply if the woman is married.
(From http:~/~/tjshome.com~/dumblaws.php.)
I don't know if those really are laws, but the Internet says that they are.
The sad fact is that I can imagine that the Internet is right.
People do make some dumb laws.
And then there is Catch-22, a book written by Joseph Heller some years ago.
Heller was a bombardier in the Mediterranean during World War II, and the book is modeled, tongue-in-cheek, on his experiences in the Army Air Corps.
In that book, Captain Yossarian is a bombardier on a B-25 in the Med.
He wants to be excused from combat flight duty, because it is so dangerous.
The only way he can be excused is to be diagnosed as insane by the flight surgeon.
However, it is clear that no sane person would want to fly combat missions.
By trying to get excused, Yossarian demonstrates that he is, in fact, sane and therefore fit to fly.
Heller called this dilemma Catch-22 --a situation where the rules just won't let you win.
Catch-22 was so popular because we have all felt like we have been there and done that.
Life sometimes presents us with odd situations or odd laws that leave us nowhere to turn.
In our Gospel lesson today, Jesus has run into one of those odd laws.
He heals a woman on the Sabbath, and is immediately taken to task by the leader of the synagogue, who instructs 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." (v.
14).
Our quick response is to wonder how anyone could be so stupid.
This woman has been stooped over -- unable to stand up straight -- for eighteen years.
For most of her adult life, she has been bent over -- unable to look people in the eye.
Her posture prevented her from breathing properly.
It stopped her from getting the exercise that she needed.
It would almost certainly doom her to an early death.
But having encountered Jesus for just for a moment, this woman was suddenly freed from her infirmity.
Suddenly she could stand straight -- look Jesus in the eye -- breathe properly -- walk and run.
Hallelujah!!! Everything that had been wrong for eighteen years was finally right.
It was like being freed from prison.
And you can be sure that the village was overjoyed to see what had happened.
They knew what it was like to endure hardship, and they were thrilled to see this woman freed from the prison of her infirmity.
But the synagogue leader -- a religious man who presumably cared about people -- had only this to say:
There are six days on which work ought to be done;
come on those days and be cured,
and not on the Sabbath day." (v.
14).
When Jesus cured this woman and she stood up straight for the first time in eighteen years, she was delighted -- and she found exactly the right way to express her delight.
Luke says that "she stood up and began praising God" (v.
13).
How could anyone find fault with that?
But the synagogue leader could say only:
There are six days on which work ought to be done;
come on those days and be cured,
and not on the Sabbath day." (v.
14).
Talk about a stick-in-the-mud -- a real Killjoy!
If there were ever someone who failed to "get it," it was this synagogue leader.
The woman was thrilled at her newfound freedom.
The crowd shared her joy.
But this synagogue leader could say only:
There are six days on which work ought to be done;
come on those days and be cured,
and not on the Sabbath day." (v.
14).
But I am going to confess something that you might find hard to understand -- and that is that I have a certain amount of sympathy for the synagogue leader.
I say that knowing that the synagogue leader is the "bad guy" in the story, and anyone who admits sympathy for him is likely to end up on your "bad guy" list too.
I don't want to be on your "bad guy" list, but the synagogue leader deserves a hearing.
If I don't help him, who will?
The first thing in the synagogue leader's favor is that the Fourth Commandment prohibits work on the Sabbath.
It says:
Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy.
Six days you shall labor and do all your work.
But the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God;
you shall not do any work --
you, your son or your daughter,
your male or female slave,
your livestock,
or the alien resident in your towns.
For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth,
the sea, and all that is in them,
but rested the seventh day;
therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day
and consecrated it (Exodus 20:8-11).
That's clear enough, isn't it!
Second, there wasn't any reason why Jesus couldn't heal this woman the next day.
Sabbath regulations meant that he couldn't travel, so he would still be in town.
The woman wasn't going anywhere.
She had put up with her infirmity for eighteen years.
There was no reason why she couldn't tough it out for one more day.
Third, the synagogue leader was responsible for making sure that people in his town observed the law.
He had a job to do, and he was trying to do it.
And fourth, to observe the law was to honor God.
As nearly as the synagogue leader could tell, Jesus was deliberately violating the law -- and quite unnecessarily at that -- and was therefore guilty of dishonoring the Sabbath -- and dishonoring God.
Maybe the synagogue leader was right and maybe he was wrong, but that was how he saw it.
I admire his courage for challenging Jesus when he knew Jesus to be a formidable opponent.
But then, even though a part of me admires the synagogue leader, the rest of me has to admit that he was wrong.
Jesus made that abundantly clear.
Jesus 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?
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9