Reflection on Mark 2:23-3:6

 

Mark 2:23—3:6

Jesus challenges the prevailing interpretation of what is lawful on the sabbath and tells his critics that the sabbath was made for humankind, not the other way around. Healing the man with the withered hand is work that cannot wait until the next day.

23One sabbath [Jesus] was going through the grainfields; and as they made their way his disciples began to pluck heads of grain. 24The Pharisees said to him, “Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the sabbath?” 25And he said to them, “Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need of food? 26He 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.” 27Then he said to them, “The sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the sabbath; 28so the Son of Man is lord even of the sabbath.”

3:1Again he entered the synagogue, and a man was there who had a withered hand. 2They watched him to see whether he would cure him on the sabbath, so that they might accuse him. 3And he said to the man who had the withered hand,  “Come forward.” 4Then 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. 5He 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. 6The Pharisees went out and immediately conspired with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him.

Reflection

There was a time when God’s people, the Israelite people, had truly lost their way.  The prophet Hosea preserved God’s indictment against them for all of us to hear.  “Hear the word of the Lord, O people of Israel; for the Lord has an indictment against the inhabitants of the land. There is no faithfulness or loyalty, and no knowledge of God in the land. Swearing, lying, and murder, and stealing and adultery break out; bloodshed follows bloodshed” (Hosea 4:1-2). Five of God’s Ten Commandments had already been laid aside by that ancient culture.  That is not even mentioning the fact that they were worshiping false gods on the high places and trying to sway the favor of those false gods by utilizing temple prostitutes as chapter four of Hosea accuses. 

Swearing, lying, murder, stealing, adultery, bloodshed, false God’s, and the misuse of women’s bodies were all causing society to crumble.  The unfortunate thing is that we still know what all of those things are about.  In fact, some of our culture’s most highly regarded individuals have dabbled in a multitude of those immoral acts.  Lying, stealing, adultery, a complete disregard for life, sexual immorality and the pursuing of the false gods of money and power are still seen in many of our leaders.  They are often tolerated, or worse, celebrated, by many in our culture.  Things have not changed.  One could say that our culture too has lost its way. 

However, those immoralities alone do not fully explain why God allowed the downfall of the Israelite people.  The people had also forgotten to enact a couple of God’s most precious traits: compassion and mercy.

They had completely abandoned God’s ways by failing to ^“do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, [and] plead for the widow” (Isaiah 1:17).  After-all, God cares about these precious people also.  God’s vision of the Eden garden of rest and wholeness includes those destitute people as well.  Psalm 82 encourages God’s people to “give justice to the weak and the orphan; maintain the right of the lowly and the destitute. Rescue the weak and the needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked” (Psalm 82:3-4).

And, because God’s people had failed to do all of the above, God disowned them and allowed their nation to fall.  “Because of the wickedness of their deeds” God said, “I will drive them out of my house. I will love them no more; all their officials are rebels” (Hosea 9:15).

But, by Jesus’ time, God’s punishment of the people was done and God’s people were working hard to reverse their ways.  A vast majority of God’s people had committed themselves to following the ways of God.  There was a movement of lay people who called themselves Pharisees who sought to be the good people their ancestors were not.  They sought to be God’s people once again.  And, they wanted everyone in the land of Israel to do the same.  They set up local synagogues, like our modern day churches, all over the country, as places where common people could study the ways of the Lord and commit themselves to being God’s holy people. 

They focused on scripture such as Psalm 37:3-5 which encourages us to, “Trust in the Lord, and do good; so you will live in the land, and enjoy security. Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him, and he will act.”

Do you want to live in God’s Eden kingdom?  Then, live as if you are already in God’s Eden kingdom by trusting in the Lord and following the Lord’s ways. 

So, we can forgive the Pharisees when their anxiety increases as they stare out the synagogue doors and see Jesus’ disciples gleaning the fields on the Sabbath by picking grains and eating.  After-all, God says, “The seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work—you, or your son or your daughter, or your male or female slave, or your ox or your donkey, or any of your livestock, or the resident alien in your towns, so that your male and female slave may rest as well as you” (Deuteronomy 5:14).  If you start allowing small infractions, where does it end?  We can forgive them as their hearts race, worried as they see with their own eyes more and more people not following God’s ways.  No one wants to go back to the times that the nation of Israel laid in waste and the people were taken away to distant lands. 

Now, when people with loose morals bring those same loose morals into the synagogue itself, the anxiety of the leaders goes through the roof.  They are in stunned silence when Jesus enters into the synagogue, bringing along with him his Sabbath rule breaking ways.  Their jaws drop as Jesus works on the Sabbath and heals a man right in the center of the holy space.  Does Jesus not know that the synagogue is supposed to promote the study and observance of Jewish law, not undercut it?

The outside world is full of immorality, after-all.  Cannot the synagogue be the one space in the world that gets to promote living the ways of God?  And, in God’s kingdom, everyone is supposed to rest from work on the Sabbath.  Even God rested from work.

I have a lot of sympathy for the Pharisees.  I too want the world to be a good one for my children and my children’s children.  I too worry about the immorality of the world.  I too want to have safe spaces where we do not have to worry about the immorality of the world encroaching.  I understand that good boundaries are a good thing.  We understand that good walls keep us from the enticements of the immoral world.  I understand that making sure that no one works on the Sabbath means that we all get to rest, just the way God intended.  And, that would be true, except...

Except if you are hungry.  If you are hungry, yearning every minute of the day for a bite that can satisfy, then you cannot rest.  Hunger does not let you rest.  Your mind goes crazy, desiring a small morsel of something.  You look and search for any nourishment at all.  If you are hungry, you cannot rest.  If you are hungry, you are not participating in the restful Eden life.

But, the Pharisees are convinced that making sure that no one works on the Sabbath means that we all get to rest, just the way God intended.  And, that would be true, except…

Except if you have a physical deformity; then it is not true.  If you have a physical deformity, you have to work hard every moment of your life just to accomplish the basic tasks that are not even thought of as work by other people.  Just this Friday at the High School graduation, a student, whose physical handicap limited his ability to walk well, got up from his wheelchair and willingly struggled to walk the fifteen feet needed to get his diploma.  He got a standing ovation for his efforts, because for him it was an effort and an honor.  It was work.  Seventy-six other students walked that same stretch, but they did not get a standing ovation, because for them the walk was not work.  But for this student, it was work.  All of this is to say that the man with the withered hand was not resting as God intended.  He could not.  He needed healing in order to rest.

So, Jesus did things like allowing the disciples to pick grain on the Sabbath.  Jesus did things like healing the man with the deformed hand because in both cases he did what he needed to do so that he could give each of them the gift of rest. 

After-all, God did say, “The seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work—you, or your son or your daughter, or your male or female slave, or your ox or your donkey, or any of your livestock, or the resident alien in your towns, so that your male and female slave may rest as well as you” (Deuteronomy 5:14).  Those who are hungry and those who suffer are included in that long list of people who are allowed to rest.  Jesus gave to them the gift of rest.  Rest is good.  The Sabbath is good.  And, Jesus made sure that even more people could share in that gift from God.

Jesus points out to those of us who are concerned about the rules being followed that even the great King David ate the holy bread in the temple with his friends when they were starving and in hiding.  Their lips were not to touch that bread, according to the rules.  Only the lips of the priests could touch that bread, according to the rules.  But, David and his friends did eat because they were in desperate need, and the scripture does not accuse David of violating the rules. 

For Jesus, rules are not made for the sake of following rules.  Rules and laws are created to make a framework in life where everyone can experience the mercy and goodness of God.  We are not created so that we can show off the greatness of the rules.  “The sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the sabbath;” remarks Jesus, “so the Son of Man is lord even of the sabbath” (Mark 2:27).

To those of us who obsess over whether rules have been followed…those of us who see all rule breaking as the crumbling of the foundations of society…Jesus asks, “Is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the sabbath, to save life or to kill?” (Mark 3:4).

Jesus seems to be trying to get it through our thick sculls that rather than asking, “Are the rules being followed?” the better thing to be asking is this: “Is good or harm happening?  Are lives being helped or hurt?”  Do not ask, “Is it right to heal on the Sabbath?”  Instead, ask: “Are people experiencing goodness and life on the Sabbath, and if they aren’t can we do something about it?”

After-all, God put the rules in place because God loves us and is concerned about our well-being. 

Those religious people in Jesus’ day were striving for a very good thing.  They wanted to be better than their ancestors.  They wanted to trust God when others had not. 

What those very religious and pious people in Jesus day forgot was that the nation of Israel was not destroyed only because of obvious immoralities such as lying, stealing, and adultery, but also because of the more hidden immorality of not caring, especially not caring about the weak, poor, and hurting.  What they did not see was that their strict enforcement of the rules was causing them to care more about the rules than people. 

God cares about rules only because God cares about people.  God does not care about rules more than God cares about people.

And, because God cares about people more than caring about the rules, Jesus looks around at the religious leaders and their hard hearts, and is enraged.  His own heart breaks at their hardness of heart.  Ignoring their demands and accusations, Jesus says to the man with the withered hand, “Stretch out your hand.”  The man stretches out his withered hand, and immediately his curled fingers straighten and his hand is finally restored.  It is almost as if Jesus is the living embodiment of Psalm 82 as it urges us to, “Rescue the weak and the needy; delivering them from the hand of the wicked” (Psalm 82:3-4).

The religious leaders do not learn the lesson they are being taught, and the healing simply works to bring Jesus closer to his death on a cross.  But, that does not deter Jesus.  Jesus is convinced that other people’s lives are more important than this own.  Love is always more important.  Not only that, love always wins.  No matter how convincing the argument of those with the hard hearts, love always wins, and Jesus always chooses to restore humanity rather than condemn it.  Jesus is the Lord of the Sabbath.  He is the one who brings the gift of rest to all.

And, this is the part of the sermon where I usually tell you about a time that Jesus moved someone today to choose compassion over following the rules.  After-all, Jesus still does this.  Jesus still moves us to choose mercy and compassion over doggedly observing the rules.  Jesus still cares that those who are in need of love find it.  Jesus still cares that those who are weary find their rest. 

But, instead of telling you a story, I want you to think of a time where compassion overcame the rules and expectations.  Over the next minute of silence I want you to remember a time within your own life and your own experience where Jesus made sure that people were loved more than the rules.  Then, I hope that you allow that story to preach to you in the days to come.