The Second Sunday after Pentecost | 2 June 2024 | Sermon on Mark 2:23—3:6 | by Paul Bieber |

(Proper 4, Ordinary 9)

Mark 2:23—3:6 Revised Standard Version

²³ One sabbath Jesus was going through the grainfields; and as they made their way his disciples began to pluck heads of grain. ²⁴ And the Pharisees said to him, “Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the sabbath?” ²⁵ And he said to them, “Have you never read what David did, when he was in need and was hungry, he and those who were with him: ²⁶ how 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 also gave it to those who were with him?” ²⁷ And he said to them, “The sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath; ²⁸ so the Son of man is lord even of the sabbath.”

^3:1 Again he entered the synagogue, and a man was there who had a withered hand. ² And they watched him, to see whether he would heal him on the sabbath, so that they might accuse him. ³ And he said to the man who had the withered hand, “Come here.” ⁴ And he said to them, “Is it lawful on the sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill?” But they were silent. ⁵ And he looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, and said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand was restored. ⁶ The Pharisees went out, and immediately held counsel with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him. 

also

Deuteronomy 5.12–15

Psalm 81.1–10

II Corinthians 4.5–12

Lord of the Sabbath

Grace, peace, and much joy to you, people of God.

Jesus is angry in the synagogue, at the hardness of heart of those who were watching him to see whether they might be able to accuse him, instead of seeing the human need of the man with a withered hand. All they see is the law and the possibility of catching Jesus out in regard to it. But the God of creation and exodus is active in Jesus’ words, in his power for life and healing.

What Jesus does is based on who he is. Like David, Jesus is the Lord’s anointed. In these two vignettes of conflict over the sabbath, Jesus interprets the sabbath’s place in his messianic mission. He interprets the sabbath law in light of the presence of the one with authority over the law. It is in the face of Christ that God’s glory is now manifest.

The God who brought light out of darkness in creation has poured the light of faith into our hearts so that we can recognize the power and glory revealed in Jesus Christ. The power to heal and enlighten comes from God, not our clayey lives. The gift of the sabbath reveals Jesus’ identity and ours.

The Pharisees regard even the plucking of a few heads of grain as work, a violation of the sabbath rest. Citing the precedent of what David did, Jesus implicitly claims to be the offspring who will sit on David’s throne, the Messiah, the Christ, with authority to reframe the sabbath as a gift from God to our workaday world, not one more set of rules to obey.

Jesus asks, “Have you never read what David did?” What did David do? On the run from King Saul, who had already tried to kill him, and would try again, David comes to the shrine at Nob, just east of Jerusalem, looking for food. The priest tells him that he has only the bread of the presence, mandated in Exodus 25 and Leviticus 24: twelve sacred loaves were placed before the tabernacle every sabbath as a thank-offering to be eaten only by the priests. David demands five loaves, and Goliath’s sword. In the greater scheme of things, he is trying to save his own life. More immediate is the human need for food.

The sabbath addresses the human need for rest. Although the sabbath commandment as originally given in Exodus refers to God’s rest after the creation of the heavens and the earth, here in Deuteronomy’s restatement of the law, Israel is reminded that they were slaves in Egypt before God eased their shoulders from the burden and set free their hands from bearing the load. Slaves in the ancient world received no day of rest. The sabbath is a gift from God to people who have to work; that is, almost all of us.

The conflict between Jesus and the Pharisees is heightened in the next scene. Those who questioned Jesus about his disciples plucking heads of grain are now watching Jesus and the man with the withered hand. According to their interpretation of the sabbath rules, only healing to save a life would be permitted on the sabbath, not merely to make the man’s hand useful again.

Jesus challenges their interpretation. He questions the questioners: Would it not be consonant with God’s gift to do good to a fellow human being in whom the image of God has been marred, rather than let the harm to him remain by one’s inactivity? Jesus is engaged in battle against the forces of evil. Every healing is a blow struck against these forces. What, after all, is the purpose of God’s gift of the law?

Their hardness of heart keeps them silent as the man stretches out his healing hand and the withered hand is restored. But then they take up Jesus’ challenge; immediately—that is, still on the sabbath—they hold counsel with the Herodians how to harm, to kill, to destroy Jesus. I guess that didn’t break any of their rules about not working on the sabbath.

God instituted the sabbath and commanded that it be kept holy. That means something more than simply refraining from work. It means recognizing that God is the Lord of all work, all activity. We take time out from the workaday world for the sake of God’s activity.

The sabbath has to do with God’s work in creation and the promised rest. And the sabbath has to do with deliverance from slavery by his gracious, redemptive hand. The sabbath is a gift from God to people who have to work, whether in ancient Israel or in San Diego today. It is deliverance from our slavery to whatever idols for which we are drawn to in the workaday world, so that we might instead serve the living and true God.

We serve God and keep his sabbath holy, not by carefully keeping his rules, and watching others to be sure that they do the same, but by recognizing that the light shining in our darkness, the promise of real rest in the workaday world, and later in the world to come, is God’s doing, not ours. Nothing short of divine power could send such beams of light into, and then out from lamps of human clay.

Only as we receive this gift can we proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord; as Lord also of the sabbath. Christians look back to Israel’s story, and the gift of the sabbath, from this side of Christ’s cross and rising. In AD 107, Ignatius of Antioch wrote of the followers of Jesus, “They have given up keeping the sabbath, and now order their lives by the Lord’s Day instead—the day when life first dawned for us, thanks to him and his death.”

We are earthen vessels, as breakable as clay jars. But the light of Christ shines even in our weakness. The treasure, the light of the word, is given to us to hold. The power of God performs mighty works using lowly instruments, fragile human clay, us. We are afflicted but not crushed. Afflictions are permitted by God not for our defeat but for our discipline. We are perplexed but not driven to despair. This is a bit of wordplay from St. Paul: ἀπορούμενοι ἀλλʼ οὐκ ἐξαπορούμενοι is a bit like: sometimes at a loss, but not losers.

We are struck down but not destroyed; always being given up to death for Jesus’s sake, so that the life of Jesus may be made visible in us. Jesus’ life and death are constantly taking shape in our lives, and so the meaning of the sabbath is fulfilled, week by week, day by day, in this life. And we shall in God’s own time enter into God’s rest, the goal of all of God’s works. As Hebrews 4 reminds us, “there remains a sabbath rest for the people of God.”

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

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The Rev. Dr. Paul Bieber

San Diego, California, USA

E-Mail: paul.bieber@sbcglobal.net