Mark 2:23-3:6
One sabbath Jesus was going through the grainfields; and as they made their way his disciples began to pluck heads of grain. The Pharisees said to him, “Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the sabbath?” And he said to them, “Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need of food? He entered the house of God, when Abiathar was high priest, and ate the bread of the Presence, which it is not lawful for any but the priests to eat, and he gave some to his companions.” Then he said to them, “The sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the sabbath; so the Son of Man is lord even of the sabbath.”
Again he entered the synagogue, and a man was there who had a withered hand. They watched him to see whether he would cure him on the sabbath, so that they might accuse him. And he said to the man who had the withered hand, “Come forward.” Then he said to them, “Is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the sabbath, to save life or to kill?” But they were silent. He looked around at them with anger; he was grieved at their hardness of heart and said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand was restored. The Pharisees went out and immediately conspired with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him.
The Pharisees in the Gospel lesson today really don’t seem to have understood what the Sabbath commandment is really all about. To be fair though, I’m not sure we do either. The Pharisees were focused on WHAT people either did or didn’t do on the Sabbath. Was he harvesting grain or traveling? But that’s really what we do too, isn’t it? Should we shop, go to the movies, or play sports? Even Martin Luther thought about the Sabbath that way? We should fear and love God, so that we do not despise preaching and His Word, but hold it sacred and gladly hear and learn it. In other words… go to church!
But when Jesus got to the Synagogue and saw the man with the withered hand, he chose to use that situation as an opportunity to challenge all of us to look at that commandment more deeply. He wanted them to stop with the obsession of WHAT we do on the Sabbath for just a minute, and begin to consider WHY God might have put Sabbath as third on God’s big list. The Pharisees weren’t interested in doing that and their silence left Jesus angry. They refused to even TRY to go deeper. This is the only time in the Bible we read in black and white that Jesus was angry. Even when Jesus turned over the tables at the Temple, it might have looked like Jesus was angry there, but only here does his anger make it into print.
The Pharisees were unwilling to budge, because the rules themselves had become their god. They were worshiping the letter of the Law rather than the Alpha and Omega who gave them the law! It’s understandable really… WHAT we do to honor the Sabbath is something we can wrap our minds around. WHAT we do is something we can make into a set and finite list and with that list we will know for certain if we are right or wrong. But when we begin to think about WHY we do Sabbath, that involves a conversation with the infinite and conversations with the infinite invites mistakes, it invites corrections, it acknowledges we’ll never have it all locked down on a lovely little list.
The Pharisees were stuck because of their fear of the infinite but we don’t have to stay stuck the way the Pharisees did. If we can embrace the truth that God did not make the commandments as traps to catch us, then we can be free to think about the question the Pharisees refused to even consider. So, WHY do we do Sabbath… or maybe a better question is WHY does God think Sabbath is a thing we humans should keep? “Because I say so”? We know that’s a terrible answer even when WE use it! So, WHY does God think a Sabbath is a good idea for us? Well, it’s not because the Divine’s self esteem needs a boost and its not a way for us to somehow get closer to God. God made every molecule that exists, including the ones that make up each one of us and the Holy Spirit runs in and out of us constantly as we breath, getting into our blood and touching every cell in our bodies. I don’t think “getting closer to God” is something we can do better than God is already doing in us. So then WHY Sabbath?
When Jesus said to the folks gathered in the Synagogue, “The sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the sabbath” he hit the WHY of Sabbath, right on the head. God has told us to do Sabbath… to take one seventh of our lives as off-time… time apart… down-time… battery-charging time… and God asks us to do that, because the One who designed us… the One who created us… the One who loved us into being… the One who is constantly running around inside of us keeping us alive, turns out to be the One who best knows how we tick as human beings. God didn’t just create us… God also wrote the instruction manual for us!
And this one-seventh off-time thing isn’t just meant for us humans alone. God, it turns out, has designed all of creation to work that way. Donkeys, oxen, livestock, migrant labor, men, women, boys and girls… everyone and every living thing needs one seventh of their lives spent in Sabbath time… a time of rest… a time of renewal. As the theologian Lady Gaga reminds us, “we were born this way.”
Folks often think of the ten commandments and all of God’s Law as something put in place to get in the way of us having fun. Either that or a set of random rules sent by a god who just waits for us to break them so He can zap us! But that isn’t the WHY of the ten commandments… that isn’t the WHY of the Law. The best way I have heard to think about God’s Law is that God’s Law defines the playing field for being human. Following the law keeps us on the field… it keeps us in the game… it keeps us being fully human. When we break the Law we go off the field, out of bounds, into foul territory… and when we do that, we are operating as LESS than the human being God created us to be.
Following the commandments was never about God setting traps for humans. It was always about God, the One who made us, sharing with us how our human machine runs best. God’s desire for us, and for all of creation, is for us to live an abundant, joy-filled, and purpose-filled life. The WHY of Sabbath is that Sabbath is a necessary component of experiencing that abundant life! So go and do Sabbath and live the abundant life you were created in love to live. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment