We’ve gone through Lent, celebrated Easter Sunday and the six weeks of the Easter Season, celebrated Pentecost and Trinity Sundays, and we are now in the season after Pentecost, back to what’s called “ordinary time”. That means we return to the regular schedule of readings. Kind of like: “we now return to our regular programming.” And this year, as you may recall, in ordinary time we are reading from Mark’s gospel. Or maybe you don’t remember because it’s been 17 weeks since we left ordinary time, way back in February! The cue that we’re in ordinary time can be seen in the colour of the liturgical hangings, properly called paraments—we’re in green again! ‘Ordinary time’ is the time of year in the church when we do not have any special times of focus or celebration, like Lent or Easter or Advent or other special days like Pentecost or Trinity.
So let’s re-acquaint ourselves with Mark’s gospel. According to my Oxford Annotated Bible, this gospel’s authorship has been traditionally attributed to John Mark, who is mentioned in the book of Acts. However modern scholars find little evidence to support this. It is the shortest and the earliest of the four gospels, probably written before AD 70. It contains mostly stories about Jesus’ actions, including disputes with the scribes and Pharisees, along with some of Jesus’ sayings, miracle stories and parables. Indeed, the gospel of Mark is a story of conflict, actually many conflicts.[1] And today’s stories from the beginning of the gospel definitely support that assertion!
So here we are just in the second chapter of Mark, early in Mark’s story of Jesus’ ministry and already there’s controversy. Before our story for today has started, Jesus has been teaching in the synagogue, amazing people by his knowledge and the authority he has in the way he’s teaching. He’s cast out evil spirits, healed all kinds of people, including a man with leprosy—who was only too happy to tell the world about it, even though Jesus told him to keep it on the down-lo. He’s healed a paralyzed man whom his friends lowered down from the roof to get to Jesus—in fact Jesus told him his sins were forgiven. There were some scribes present for this healing—scribes were the teachers of the religious law-- and they question just who Jesus thinks he is, because only God can forgive sins. Well, I’m sure that did more than raise a few religious eyebrows! Next Jesus called Levi, a tax collector, to become one his followers, and then has the audacity to actually have dinner with a group of tax collectors and other sinners. And that too was clearly against Jewish law. Then some other people questioned why Jesus didn’t make his apostles fast, when John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting.
And that leads us to today’s gospel reading, where we find Jesus is being deliberately provocative. It seems his unconventional behaviour has come to the attention of the Pharisees. Now, recall that the Pharisees were “… the holy men who kept the law; they pursued purity with a passion and wanted nothing more than to live lives that pleased God.”[2] Here’s another more detailed explanation about who the Pharisees were.
Pharisaism was a lay reform movement within first-century Judaism, dedicated to superlative adherence to Torah (the Jewish Law) in all walks of life. According to Josephus, (a first century Jewish writer, whose writings have survived to this day) Pharisees were celebrated by their Jewish contemporaries for “practicing the highest ideals both in their way of living and in their discourse” (Antiquities 12.15 [circa A.D. 105]). They were regarded as upstanding, devout, Bible-believing pillars of the community.[3]
Recall the zealousness of St. Paul upon the first Christians before his conversion; he was trained as a Pharisee. Pharisees were very legalistic in their interpretation of the Torah, the Law. They codified, they studied and determined how the Law was to be actually practiced in day to day life. Today’s story is focussing on laws for the Sabbath, the third commandment, the God ordained day of rest. “Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy.”
This reminded me of a story my mother once shared. My mother was raised in a part of Amsterdam that was close to the Jewish quarter. I recall her telling us that when she was a child, she was paid on Saturdays by a Jewish family to come to their house to turn on the lights when it started to get dark in the house, because to turn on the light was considered working, which was contrary to Sabbath adherence. After sundown on Saturday, Sabbath was considered to be over, and so the family could turn off the lights themselves. And a biblical example of Sabbath keeping that came to mind is the expression “a Sabbath day’s journey” which we actually heard a few weeks ago. What does that actually mean? A Sabbath’s day’s journey was the distance that observant Jews were allowed to walk on the Sabbath. Jewish groups, like the Pharisees debated among themselves which activities were permissible on the Sabbath and codified them, they made them law.[4] And an appropriate maximum distance to travel on a Sabbath day was determined to be “¾ mile or 1.2 km.”[5] Any other day of the week travel distances were not regulated.
In our gospel story today we have Jesus being called to task for allowing his disciples to pick and eat the grain on a Sabbath, while going through a grain field. Picking the grain was harvesting, clearly contravened the Sabbath day of rest ordinance. Jesus reminded those who called him out for allowing his disciples to pick the grain of the time of David and his companions were in need of food and they ate the holy bread that only priests were allowed to eat. And Jesus says to them that the Sabbath was made for humankind, not humankind for the Sabbath; so the Son of Man is lord even of the Sabbath. (vs 27-28) That’s a doubly controversial statement, Sabbath is for people’s benefit, not the other way around, and Jesus is calling himself Lord of the Sabbath.
Next Jesus goes to the synagogue on the Sabbath and there’s a man present who had a withered hand. Mark notes that folks were watching to see what Jesus would do, as Jesus’ reputation as a healer by now was well known. Yet a healing would be considered ‘working’ if it was the Sabbath. Jesus, being Jesus, knows their thoughts. Does it make your wonder if they even set him up, making sure the man with the withered hand was there? “Then 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.” (Mk 3.4) And what does Jesus do? As one commentator I read pointed out, Jesus simply asks the man to stretch out his hand. He doesn’t touch the man, offers no words of healing, yet the man’s hand is healed. So Jesus technically has maintained Sabbath observance. But still the hand is restored. Jesus has established his lordship over the Sabbath, it is the Lord’s day, and he is Lord. Clearly, to do good is the overarching principle, instead of adhering to the principle of the law. Jesus “looked around at the people with anger and he grieved at their hardness of heart.” (Mk 3.5) And already at this early stage in his ministry, Mark tells us, that the Pharisees began to conspire to kill Jesus. Jesus, it seems, is intentionally challenging the scribes, the Pharisees and the people’s blind, almost obsessive adherence to the tradition over caring for others. And Jesus’ indifference to adhering to the generally accepted laws around Sabbath adherence just for the law’s sake angered the Pharisees. In fairness to the Pharisees, Jesus was provoking them. Adherence to the Sabbath rules was significant to the Jews, it “was intimately connected to Jewish identity”[6]. Think for a minute, I doubt if the disciples who were plucking the grain really were starving. And Jesus could have waited until the next day, or even after sundown on the Sabbath to heal the man’s hand if he really wanted to. It certainly wasn’t like it was an emergency or anything. Jesus chose to heal the man’s hand rather than the man having one more day of the complications of living with that situation. For Jesus compassion and care overrode any other considerations. Jesus is angered and grieved. What does that sound like? He hurts within himself, because of their hard-heartedness; because the tradition, the adherence to rules and regulations was paramount in their eyes, even over caring for others.
Now, in today’s world Sabbath adherence is almost nonexistent. You can almost forget what day of the week is Sunday, and what Sunday’s purpose really is. And I think we’ve lost a lot because of it. Yet, there are good lessons in these stories still for us still today. Slavish adherence to tradition just for the sake of the tradition—even religious tradition -- is really a form of idolatry. We’re caring more for the rule or belief we’ve created than the reason for which the rule was first formed. We need to consider: Why are we doing what we’re doing, what’s the purpose, the rational for doing it? Is it just because we’ve always done it that way? Is there truly value in continuing to do thing in that traditional way, or is anyone being hurt, or ignored or devalued because we’re doing something, or saying something in that traditional way—the way that was always acceptable? Where is God and God’s love in our particular behaviour, or way of doing or believing? Or have we become so closed minded that there’s no room for the Holy Spirit’s guidance left to come upon us and challenge us? It really is easier to stick to the same ways of doing or believing that we always have. And more comfortable too. A black and white world makes for easy decision making. But the question always must be, Where is God in that? And that’s where the black and white can mesh together and the world can get pretty grey. And it can be challenging to live in the grey!
I’ll end by sharing the words of one of the scriptural commentators I read this week, it sums things up nicely I think.
Christians can be tempted to side with the Pharisees—angry and irritated with everything that seems to fall outside of a customary and familiar reading of Scripture or tradition. There are good reasons to do this: the continuity of any religion over time requires these concrete ways of living out dedication to God. Bu the story reminds us of the terrible price that is extracted when these commitments become idolatry: when we cherish the gifts of God, including Scripture, religious convention and morality, we lose the power to cherish the people of God. Jesus is described as angry and grieved by his opponents’ hardness of heart. But perhaps we should have some pity for the Pharisees, because they are so much like ourselves.[7]
[1] The New Oxford Annotated Bible, Third Edition. Editor Michael D, Coogan. Opening commentary for the gospel of Mark. (Oxford University Press Inc: Oxford New York) 2001. 56-57 New Testament.
[2] https://www.christianity.com/jesus/birth-of-jesus/genealogy-and-jewish-heritage/how-were-the-pharisees-legalistic.html accessed May 27/24
[3] C. Clifton Black in Commentary on Mark 2:23—3:6 https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-09-2/commentary-on-mark-223-36 May 27/24
[4] Black
[5]https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803100435434#:~:text=A%20Jew%20was%20permitted%20to,(Acts%201%3A%2012).
[6] Don E. Saliers in Pastoral Perspective in Feasting on the Word, Year B Vol 3. (WJK Press: Louisville, KY) 2009 94
[7] Wendy Farley. Theological Perspective in Feasting on the Word, Year B Vol 3. (WJK Press: Louisville, KY) 2009 94