Listen to the audio of today’s Reflection:
https://soundcloud.com/hapearce/reflection-for-october-4-2024
Luke 6:1-11
Lord of the Sabbath
1One Sabbath Jesus was going through the grainfields, and his disciples began to pick some heads of grain, rub them in their hands and eat the kernels. 2 Some of the Pharisees asked, “Why are you doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath?”
3 Jesus answered them, “Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry? 4 He entered the house of God, and taking the consecrated bread, he ate what is lawful only for priests to eat. And he also gave some to his companions.” 5 Then Jesus said to them, “The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.”
6 On another Sabbath he went into the synagogue and was teaching, and a man was there whose right hand was shriveled.7 The Pharisees and the teachers of the law were looking for a reason to accuse Jesus, so they watched him closely to see if he would heal on the Sabbath. 8 But Jesus knew what they were thinking and said to the man with the shriveled hand, “Get up and stand in front of everyone.” So he got up and stood there.
9 Then Jesus said to them, “I ask you, which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to destroy it?”
10 He looked around at them all, and then said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He did so, and his hand was completely restored. 11 But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law were furious and began to discuss with one another what they might do to Jesus.
The two churches I served before coming to Medina were both over a century old. One was a little country church in a crossroads village with one grocery store and a gas station/convenience store. People in those churches remembered members who had strict ideas about keeping the Sabbath. One pillar of the church was a lady who always brought cold dishes to after-church potlucks because she thought cooking on Sunday was sinful. Another thought no money should ever change hands on Sunday unless it was going into the collection plate. Those old people’s ideas about Sabbath-keeping were thought of as “quaint.”
And if that’s how we think about Sabbath-keeping fifty years ago, the practices in the ancient Hebrew world can seem excessive – even ridiculous.
We should probably remind ourselves that for the ancient Hebrews, keeping the Sabbath was one of the most important marks of their identity as the covenant people. During the Babylonian exile, keeping the Sabbath had become one of the ways that the Jews set themselves apart from the gentiles among whom they were forced to live. The practice became so firmly ingrained that when the exile ended, it continued to be regarded as an important element of Jewish identity.
That historical background should be kept in mind when we think about today’s reading, which is made up of two stories that show how seriously the Sabbath was taken among observant Jews and their religious leadership.
In the first story, Jesus and his disciples are walking along on the Sabbath when the disciples get hungry. So they start picking heads of grain from a field, rubbing them between their hands to get rid of the hulls, and eating the grain. (According to the rabbis, it was permitted for travelers to pick and eat grain as they walked by. It was related to the law permitting gleaning.)
But the story takes place on the Sabbath – and what the disciples were doing was a violation of the strictest rules about Sabbath-keeping. Picking grain and removing the hulls was regarded as harvesting and threshing – both things that were prohibited on the Sabbath. So the Pharisees point out to Jesus this violation of the Law of Moses.
Jesus responds by reminding them that during his civil war against the house of Saul, the future King David had entered a religious sanctuary, taken the consecrated bread from the altar, and shared it with his hungry men. Strictly speaking, that was a violation of religious laws. But the priests at the sanctuary had approved of David’s action, or at least they had tolerated it.
In the second story, Jesus himself violates the official rules for the Sabbath. He heals a man’s shriveled hand in a synagogue on that day. Healing was permitted on the Sabbath, but only for a life-threatening problem. Chronic conditions like a shriveled hand were supposed to wait until the Sabbath ended.
Jesus heals the man’s hand, but first he turns to the religious leaders present and puts them on the spot. What kinds of things are permitted on the Sabbath, he asks, doing good and saving life, or doing evil and destroying it? Then he turns and restores the man’s hand. The religious leaders are furious, because they find themselves in the position of standing against something that clearly represents the will of God, even though it violated their rules for Sabbath-keeping.
In both of these stories, Jesus rejects traditional interpretations of the Law of God as meant to define Jewish identity in favor of a different interpretation, one that says the Law of God is meant to promote human well-being.
It seems important to note that Jesus doesn’t say there’s anything wrong with keeping the Sabbath. In fact, he seems to have personally observed the Sabbath as a matter of regular practice. But Jesus clearly wanted to make the point that strictly keeping the rules of the Sabbath was less important than meeting human need.
People of faith and good will can feel called to different standards of Sabbath-keeping. But our master said that the Sabbath was made for humankind, not humankind for the Sabbath. We actually need to step away from work and stress for a time of rest and refreshment. We can’t be healthy unless we do. Even those who have to work on Sunday can and should make a point to set aside some other time during the week for that rest and refreshment. And those of us who follow Jesus should respect the need for those around us have some form of Sabbath in their lives, too.
This reading challenges us to make sure that our practice of the faith doesn’t become so strictly religious that we turn our backs on the needs of others, and especially of people who are suffering or in need. We may tell ourselves that we would never do that, but I’m not so sure. Some Christians refuse to give to those who beg, and say it’s because they don’t want to enable addiction or laziness. Is that an example of being so religious we fail to demonstrate love for our neighbor? Or is it just an excuse for failing to give to those who are in need? I can’t help wondering what other examples of our religiosity might fall into the same category in God’s mind.
Let’s pray. Lord, we pray for your help in understanding how you want us to keep the Sabbath in ways that help us to serve you and live out our faith more and more faithfully, so we can honor your holiness and still feed and heal the broken humanity around us. Amen.
Grace and Peace,
Henry
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