Readings, 2 Cor 4:5-12 and Mark 2:23-3:6
Image, The Reaper, Vincent Van Gogh. 1889. There are two different stated reasons for the giving of the Sabbath. One draws attention to God’s creative activity, noting that our sabbath rest reflects and remembers God’s own rest on the seventh day. The other focuses on God’s deliverance of Israel from slavery, noting that we keep the sabbath as a way of remembering God’s mighty hand and resisting the restless tyranny of empire. The sabbath is a gift of God that not only reminds us of the character of God but teaches us how to live as its witnesses. Now, for this reason, the sabbath is of vital importance in efforts to carve out and sustain a religious identity. This is especially so when (as in the context of our reading) the community is under threat from tyranny. Keeping sabbath is a way of surviving and defying malevolent and ambivalent forces that subject the people. Keeping sabbath is a witness to God’s power and faithfulness, and the people’s devotion and hope. Thus, when Jesus is suspected of jeopardising the seriousness of the Sabbath, he is bound to attract attention and criticism. What is important to note, as is usually the case with disputes of this kind in the gospels, is the line of argument Jesus employs. Jesus does not dispense with the Sabbath or denigrate the Torah. Rather Jesus argues (as prophets, priests, and rabbis have done before and since) from within the tradition, with affection for it, and what it exists to safeguard. In the first instance Jesus cites precedence from history – did not David breach a more serious prohibition, taking food offered to God? Following this he takes theological turn, reminding the assembly that as a gift from God the sabbath is given not for its own sake, but for us and our needs. Persisting in this line, he questions assumptions. When his critics are confronted with a man in need they presume their options are, a) do nothing (good) or b) do something (bad). Jesus reframes this. For doing nothing is doing something (and here specifically, to do nothing is to do something evil) while doing something is doing good. Passivity is not neutrality, and so keeping the sabbath in order to witness to God’s character takes active choices to ensure dignity, survival, and flourishing. In his discussion of the Sabbath, Jesus foregrounds the character of God, considers the breadth of the tradition, unsettles assumptions and invites those around him to reflect on the purpose of the command. None of this, contra the fears of his opponents, seeks to dismiss the importance of the sabbath in discerning how they are meant to be faithful to God in an antagonistic world. Instead, it takes seriously the role the sabbath plays in the life of the faithful, and the role the faithful in the life of the sabbath. How to remember the sabbath and keep it holy remains a live question in communities that live in covenant with God. The incredible diversity in approaches to the sabbath observable in communities of Jews and Christians exists not as a fault in the sabbath. The command is not flawed by virtue of the many ways we might consider observing it (it is not a stop sign after all). Rather the very diversity in the ways in which communities continue to discern how to remember it is a testament to Jesus’ words: the sabbath was made for humankind. Different communities in different times require unique things from the sabbath and are required to observe it in unique ways if it is meet those needs. Jesus does not provide a universal and rigid blueprint for how his followers are to remember the sabbath and keep it holy, rather he provides an example of how we approach the question of the sabbath as a gift and grace of God. And in that spirit, I suggest a couple of things we can glean from this reading for our own discernment of what the sabbath asks of us. First, like the disciples walking through fields, the sabbath is a time to remember that the world is good and has been created to sustain life. This ought, on the one hand, encourage us to take pleasure and delight in the beauty and biodiversity of creation. On the other hand, we ought to oppose worldly systems which have so unequally distributed God’s provisions that millions go hungry each day. For keeping the sabbath, is yet another way to make the life of Jesus visible in our mortal flesh. Second, like the man entering the synagogue in search of healing, the sabbath is a time to remember that we are made for freedom and flourishing; made not only to have life, but life in abundance. God desires for us rest, leisure, healing, and hope. These are not earnt; they are a grace. They are given freely by the one who heard the cries of the oppressed and defined the divine character by the mighty acts to set them free, who saw the needs of his fellow, and defined the divine character by how they were treated by the Lord of the Sabbath. To remember the sabbath and keep it holy starts by remembering that it was made for humankind. In particular, the sabbath is made for communities whose inherent value is so often maligned, and whose right to rest and take pleasure in the world is regularly infringed. In such settings sabbath remains defiance against the powers and principalities of this world. For the sabbath is a proclamation of the goodness of God’s creation, the generosity of God’s character, and the freedom of the human. Keeping sabbath testifies that what makes us is not our own effort, but the grace and glory of God who has gifted the sabbath so that even when we are afflicted in every way, we are not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed. Sabbath by sabbath our inner nature is renewed and prepared for an eternal weight of glory beyond all measure.
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