2nd Sunday after Pentecost
June 22, 2003
Mark 2:23-3:6

  ^2:23One Sabbath Jesus was going through the grainfields, and as his disciples walked along, they began to pick some heads of grain. ²⁴The Pharisees said to him, "Look, why are they doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath?" ²⁵He answered, "Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need? ²⁶In the days of Abiathar the high priest, he entered the house of God and ate the consecrated bread, which is lawful only for priests to eat. And he also gave some to his companions." ²⁷Then he said to them, "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath. ²⁸So the Son of Man is Lord even of the sabbath."
  ^3:1Another time he went into the synagogue, and a man with a shrivelled hand was there. ²Some of them were looking for a reason to accuse Jesus, so they watched him closely to see if he would heal him on the Sabbath. ³Jesus said to the man with the shrivelled hand, "Stand up in front of everyone." ⁴Then Jesus asked them, "Which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill?" But they remained silent. ⁵He looked around at them in anger and, deeply distressed at their stubborn hearts, said to the man, "Stretch out your hand." He stretched it out, and his hand was completely restored. ⁶Then the Pharisees went out and began to plot with the Herodians how they might kill Jesus. (NIV).

The Lord of the Sabbath Restores the Blessing of the Sabbath.

  It seems that we are especially good at two things when it comes to law be it the 10 Commandments or our own civil law. We're good at making so many laws that we're overwhelmed by them all; and we're good at exploiting laws and finding loopholes that let us do what we want. In either case, the presumably good purpose for which the laws were made is lost.

  In today's Gospel lesson, we see Jesus in a conflict with some Pharisees over the Sabbath law, the Jewish day of rest. In the conflict, we see our two extremes clearly pointed out. On the one hand, the Sabbath had become a burden to people. And on the other, it had become a tool for some people to avoid doing things they clearly ought to have done. Slavery and licentiousness. Neither is good; neither permits the Sabbath to be the blessing God intended. So God sent his Son. He, the Lord of the Sabbath restores the blessing of the Sabbath to his people.

  The question of legal activity on the Sabbath may seem trivial to us, but it was an important issue for the Jews of Jesus' day. The Sabbath had become one of the most important marks of Judaism. Many believed that God's blessing and perhaps even the coming of the Messiah depended on their keeping the Sabbath. In addition, since breaking the Sabbath carried the death penalty, those who were already taking issue with Jesus knew that if they could demonstrate that he broke the Sabbath then he was not the Messiah and could also be condemned. From Jesus' perspective, they had smothered the Sabbath under a burden of man-made laws and then hid behind those laws to avoid other duty. Therefore, these conflicts over the Sabbath were high stakes encounters, not just theological trivia.

  In the first encounter, the issue is the burden of man-made laws. God meant for the sabbath rest to be a blessing. We read from Deuteronomy, Six days you shall labour and do all your work. But 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. God said to take a day off each week! We all want that! But he knows some workaholic will want to make another dollar. He will go to work and make his employees work too. Therefore, God forbade any work on the Sabbath on pain of death. You shall keep the Sabbath, because it is holy for you; everyone who profanes it shall be put to death; whoever does any work on it shall be cut off from among the people. (NRS Ex 31:14). The question of course is what is considered work? Enter the lawyers!

  The Pharisees and later rabbis wanted to make it impossible for people to break God's law, which carried the death penalty. Good idea, but they defined work so narrowly that you could hardly breathe on the Sabbath. From their tradition, the Pharisees object to Jesus' disciples picking grain on the Sabbath. Apparently, they considered that to be harvesting, which is unlawful on the Sabbath. The Pharisees would rather they went hungry than do what might be work on the Sabbath. Some day off! It's no blessing if you can't do anything physical or go anywhere, or make any good food! You begin to resent the law and God who gave it. Yet the problem wasn't God's law, it was man's interpretation and use of it. It's this wrong use of the law that Jesus contests.

  The other conflict came up in the synagogue, probably later that same day. These men are building a case against Jesus as a Sabbath breaker. If they can catch him publicly breaking the Sabbath, their case is easy. Therefore, they're watching to see if he will heal this man. Healing is a doctor's work. This is no emergency, so it can wait. But that's not the issue Jesus sees. "Which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill?" But they remained silent. He looked around at them in anger and, deeply distressed at their stubborn hearts, said to the man, "Stretch out your hand." He stretched it out, and his hand was completely restored. The issue is that they were making their Sabbath tradition an excuse not to help their neighbour in need. Jesus was angry at their stubborn or hard hearts. Hardness of heart is a Biblical expression for those who cannot or will not perceive the truth. These men are unwilling to listen to the truth. They are not willing to consider whether they have altered, even thwarted, God's purpose in giving the Sabbath. They are unwilling to consider whether they have used their tradition as a loophole to avoid other more important duties. That of course is the case as Jesus will point out later. "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint, dill, and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. It is these you ought to have practiced without neglecting the others. You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel! (NRS Matthew 23:23).

  We have not escaped the same misunderstanding and misuse of God's law or any law for that matter. There are Christians who have made Sunday the Christian equivalent of the Sabbath and have a very narrow view of what can be done that day. We may find at times that we are chained to a tradition of our own making that we feel we need to defend, like the Pharisees! The day ought to be spent at home wearing nice clothes and doing things that require little effort. That may have been fine when we all farmed, but the best rest for an office worker might be strenuous physical exercise on Sunday afternoon. In other words, we cannot transfer the Jewish Sabbath and its restrictions to Sunday. I am personally against Sunday shopping, but I would never argue that on the basis of the Third Commandment. I would argue that we need a day off, which is what the Sabbath was all about. God's purpose is still good and necessary, but not the old covenant.

  In the same vein, we have often let gathering for Sunday worship become a burden. Christian Schwartz, the author of NCD, says that we need inspiring worship. Yet there is often an opposing attitude toward this quality characteristic: "Christians who go to church to fulfill their Christian duty. These people do not attend church because it is a joyous and inspiring experience, but to do the pastor or God a favour. Some even believe that their 'faithfulness' in enduring such boring and unpleasant services will be blessed by God. Those who think this way will always tend to pressure other Christians to attend church," Schwartz, NCD, p. 31. Do you ever feel that going to church is your duty? If so, we have lost the purpose of blessing that God intended. We are not here to fulfill a duty and serve God. We are here to receive his blessing and to rest from the demands of the world.

  When we make worship a duty, we may look for a loophole that will make worship optional. You've all heard and maybe said, "I don't have to go to church to be a Christian!" In an abstract, theoretical sense that may be true; but it's hardly true in practice. We are members of the body of Christ. Cut off your arm and it will die. It's not just a possibility! Separate yourself from the Church where you hear God's life giving Word and receive his sacraments, where you can participate in the mutual consolation of the saints as we say, and you will loose your faith. It's not a possibility or a probability, it's a certainty, your faith will die. God's Word which created and sustains your faith will be replaced by your own thoughts which cannot give life.

  Nor does it work to say that I have to work on Sunday, or that it's the only day I have to go camping or fishing, or play soccer or whatever. There are a million excuses. I know that some of us must work Sunday morning, medical personnel, police and fire personnel, bus drivers. But for many people it's not a necessity, it's a choice. When it's a necessity, we need to find solutions for worship. For hobbies and recreation, I don't mean vacation time. We need vacations. I mean all summer, all year. What is your God? Recreation and hobbies can become your god. We can get ourselves so busy that, not only do we not have time for Sunday worship, but like the Pharisees, we have no time, energy and resources left to help those in need. Worship is a vital need; opting out is deadly! Rather than excuse ourselves from Sunday morning, or any holy time, it would be better to establish alternate worship times. And we can do so! We are not bound to a Sunday morning law!

  How then does Jesus deal with this issue? He takes us back to God's original purpose of blessing. He says three things. First, he says, "Have you not read what David did?" Later when the Sadducees pose their silly question about the resurrection, Jesus will take them too back to Scripture. Is not this the reason you are wrong, that you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God? Then he refers to Exodus. Scripture is the Word and will of God, not the Pharisees' tradition. The Pharisees may have had good intentions, but they erred in making their tradition equal to the Scriptures. Anytime man adds to or subtracts from God's Word, he makes trouble.

  The solution to our formalism, boredom, legalism, hardness of heart, unbelief or whatever, is to get back to the Scriptures. There we learn the will and truth of God rather than the musings of men. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the LORD. ⁹For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. ¹⁰For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return there until they have watered the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, ¹¹so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and succeed in the thing for which I sent it. (NRS Isaiah 55:8-11).

  Second, Jesus says that The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath! God's law was not given to hinder us, but to bless us. Jesus appeals to David as a test case. The law was that the priests ate the bread kept in the temple. But that didn't mean that David couldn't eat it when he was in need. The law was not meant to keep one person from helping another in need. The law was given for man, not man for the law. God didn't first create the law and then man to keep it. He didn't give the law to Moses and then send him to free the people. He freed the people from slavery and then gave them the law so that they could live in God's presence. The law was given as a blessing to man, a help, not as a set of shackles.

  Jesus insists that God established the Sabbath for man because man had a need. He did not create man so that someone could observe the Sabbath as if the Sabbath had a need! In the same way, we have clothing and houses and cars and a million other things because we need or want them. We do not exist for them, they exist for us! The Sabbath was God's gift to us, a blessing not a burden. In the same way, our Christian worship is a gift to us, a blessing rather than a burden. We may have made it boring or replaced it with something else. But that may be because we come looking for the wrong thing, entertainment rather than an encounter with God. We may have lost all sense of blessing.

  Third and most important, Jesus said that he, the Son of Man, is Lord of the Sabbath. The Pharisees could not have understood this at the time, but we can. As Lord of the Sabbath, Jesus owns it. The Old Testament connected the Sabbath to God. It was his Sabbath. Thus, Jesus' claim to be Lord of the Sabbath is amazing claim of authority, yet a claim he substantiated by healing the man with the withered hand. This authority is what Mark is so interested in bring to our attention so we will trust and follow Jesus.

  Having this authority, Jesus is the one who can interpret the Sabbath for us. He speaks for God. Jesus rightly rejects the laws that men added to the Sabbath which made it such a burden. That's not what he, Jesus, intended for us. He came to set us free from our self-made burden, the inevitable consequence of the fact that we have been separated from God by sin. Not only did he die to pay for our sin, but he enlightens us by opening our minds to the meaning and intent of the Scriptures.

  The Scriptures of course complete the circle by bringing us back to Christ. He is the fulfillment and the goal of the Scriptures, the one who makes sense of everything. Even the Sabbath is a shadow of something to come, a permanent rest with God in heaven free from the problems of this life in which we are subject to sin and death. In the Sabbath rest that remains, we will suffer no more from any legal burden, nor will we have to find loopholes to avoid other duty. All things will be restored to perfection. Therefore, in as much as our Sunday worship and time off embody the principles of the Sabbath, they are a weekly reminder of the rest that Christ has prepared for us.

  The upshot of all this then is that Jesus has set us free from a prison of our own making. As Isaiah said of him, The spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me; he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners. (NRS Isaiah 61:1). We are free from a sabbath that is a burden and restored to a rest that is a blessing. And all, thanks to Jesus!