Deuteronomy 5.12-15; 2nd Corinthians 4.5-12; Mark 2.23-3.6
Today’s biblical readings offer, at first glance, an opposing set of messages. Take the Old Testament reading and the Gospel; consider them side by side. Deuteronomy tells us how vital it is to keep the Sabbath; Jesus seems to suggest we can hold lightly to that command. The Pharisees, devout and religiously serious as they are, want to obey the scriptures—a good thing, surely; yet Jesus has something else in mind, shakes up the expected way to observe the Sabbath. So that will need some exploration. Next, put Jesus’ words and deeds in the Gospel side by side with St Paul in today’s Second Reading; consider the difference there. Jesus shows his authority; meanwhile, Paul says his life is just the opposite. “We have this treasure in clay jars…afflicted, perplexed, persecuted, struck down.” Jesus acts with power and his opponents refuse to believe that he is God’s messenger; Paul looks powerless and that seems to prove to the Corinthians that he can’t be God’s messenger. Where will we find truth here, including truth for our lives?
Let’s start with the Sabbath. For the people of God in the Old Testament, observing the Sabbath was a defining marker of faith and identity. Of the Ten Commandments, the one to observe the Sabbath is the longest and even includes an explanation for why a day of rest is commanded. By way contrast, “You shall not steal,” is quick, to the point; what more do you need to say: if it’s not yours, don’t take it! But the Sabbath? There’s something in us, and our fallen human condition, that resists rest and views a day of being unproductive as an unproductive waste of time. So the Sabbath command comes with an explanation.
When the Ten Commandments are listed in the book of Exodus, that explanation is grounded and found in creation. “In six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day.” If God can take one day off a week, so can you. And in today’s first reading, we hear the Sabbath command in Deuteronomy, but it comes with a different explanation. Here, keeping the Sabbath is connected with God rescuing the people from slavery in Egypt and giving them freedom. And not only is the Sabbath a day of freedom and rest for you, but it is also for the people around you. In other words, on the day when you’re not working don’t make other people do your work for you, animals included.
That’s the background to the Pharisees’ objection. In their eyes, Jesus and the disciples have done something prohibited by the Bible. Yet Jesus’ response takes them right back to their Bibles. “Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry?” And in recalling that incident, Jesus shows biblical precedent, wants us to know the true purpose and meaning of the Sabbath. This day is a gift, not a burden. “The Sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the Sabbath.” Now that’s a sort of circular answer but you know how this works in a practical way. Your car, for example, is meant to get you from place to place, even take you on a sightseeing road trip. But when you can’t get from place to place because of maintenance issues—oil changes, new tires, endless trips to the shop to figure out why the check engine light keeps coming on—it starts to feel less like the car is made for you and that you have been made for the car. People are not made for the Sabbath as though it needs constant maintenance to keep it running; rather, the Sabbath is God’s gift instituted to bless humanity and enhance human well-being.
For the man in need of healing in the second half of today’s gospel reading, this is especially true. His is not a life-threatening condition. He could wait and come back the next day out of reverence for observing the Sabbath; Jesus, for that matter, could wait, too. Yet in both cases, hunger and healing, Jesus wants us to see the true purpose of the Sabbath and, more broadly, of a life of faith. The litmus test of true faith versus false religion is the response to human need. From its beginning in creation and as a gift of freedom, the Sabbath is God’s gift to renew and refresh God’s own people—hunger, healing, and you.
Jesus asserts authority, divine authority, over one of the most important markers of faith and identity for God’s people in the Old Testament, of what makes them who they are—the Sabbath—and restores the day to its original purpose as a gift to be welcomed and received. Yet Jesus’ words about the Sabbath being made for us and for our freedom can’t, I don’t believe, be taken as an endorsement of where we all-too-often find ourselves now: hardly having time for rest and relaxation, time to just ‘be’ and not always ‘do,’ time to be reminded of what, in God, is important in life. There is something in us that resists rest and views a day of being unproductive as an unproductive waste of time. We like to keep busy.
Yet when the disciples gather food on the Sabbath or Jesus heals the sick on the Sabbath, he is not saying, ‘Don’t give a second thought to going to Target seven days a week.’ He is reminding his listeners of the Sabbath’s original intent—a day off the hamster wheel of endless demand, a day for God to bless humanity and renew human well-being. We bear the image and likeness of God. We are more than just people who live to work, shop, or keep the economy strong. The true reason we are here is far more important than that. And it takes time and rest to discover that truth and to delight in it. Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel once wrote, “On the Sabbath we especially care for the seed of eternity planted in the soul.” In Jesus, that means if the hungry and the sick are to share in the fruit of God’s eternal joy and delight, they need to be fed and healed on the Sabbath. As for those of us who are distracted and overworked? The Sabbath is a gift, a gift of rest, so that the truth and value of our life can be restored, a time for us to share in the fruit of God’s timeless joy and delight in, and for, us.
Maybe it’s time to reclaim the Sabbath as a grace given by God. Reclaiming a day of rest is certainly becoming a cultural conversation. I’m surprised by the number of news stories from secular sources with headlines like, “Work has conquered every day of the week. How do we remain human in a world of toil?” Or this: “The Quiet Revolution of the Sabbath: Requiring rest, rather than work, is still a radical idea.” Now I know a day of rest can’t always be the biblical Sabbath. But a day of rest at another time? Anne Lamott once wrote, “Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you.” This is what grace means and does.
And that brings us around to the other question in today’s readings, the contrast of Jesus’ power next to Paul’s weakness. “We have this treasure in clay jars.” Paul is speaking about our life as fragile, frail in contrast to the power of God’s grace in Jesus. “We have this treasure in clay jars so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us.” On our own we are earthen vessels just as Adam was at creation, dust of the earth without God’s breath and life-giving Spirit. The life we have is not ours alone but God’s life in us. That means a lot of self-perpetuating myths we cling to about where we find identity and worth are better off letting go—myths of buying and busyness, of consuming and connecting; that who we are is what we make of ourselves rather than the who we are as a gift of God—and to find, instead, that all our life is in the hand of God and in God’s hand we can rest and be renewed.
This is what the Sabbath is for: made for humankind to restore our humanity. And if the Sabbath is made for humankind, it is God’s gift for you, too, in your need to rest and be renewed—the treasure of God’s life in you, an earthen vessel cared for by God. Today readings show the grace and power of God at work in our life and for our well-being. This life, the New Testament says in another place, is “life that really is life.” Jesus gives this life when he feeds the hungry and heals the sick. Christ is our Sabbath, says the New Testament letter of Hebrews; Christ, who says to all who are weary and carrying heavy burdens, “Come to me…and I will give you rest.”
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