Perhaps you have heard this story:
One day, someone was walking along the street and watching while two men worked. One would dig a hole about three feet deep, and then walk down the street about twenty-five feet and dig another hole, and on and on. Then a second man would follow behind the first and fill the hole back up. Like the streetscape projects happening uptown right now, this was hard, gritty work in the hot sun.You see, these obedient workers had learned well how to work diligently, and they were committed to the established pattern of work that they had established. Each of the workers knew exactly how to do his part. They were hard-working, well-intentioned and earnest.
And, finally, with his curiosity piqued, the outsider approached the men and said to them, “Guys, I’ve been watching you work, but I don’t understand what you are doing. One of you digs a hole, and then the next one fills it in. It doesn’t look like you’re accomplishing much of anything.”
And gently, the first two men explained that usually they had a third man on their crew but he was out that day. You have to understand, they told the outsider, it was his job to plant a tree in each hole.
But no one had ever painted a picture of what their obedience and toil could accomplish.
No one had ever invited them to participate in the bigger vision or told them that they weren't just out there digging holes and trucking dirt. They were supposed to be planting trees, and beautifying their city and increasing green spaces.
In Mark’s gospel today, Jesus comes into the lives of the Pharisees as an outsider and challenges them to expand their vision for what it means to be obedient. He challenges them to question what it is they are doing in their sabbath-keeping, what does it mean to be obedient to God’s commands. “He is proclaiming—in word and deed—a new way of understanding who God is.”[ii]
It would have been so much easier for Jesus to just go along with the status quo. After all, just before today’s gospel reading, the disciples and Jesus are gathered at Levi’s house where they sat and ate together; the disciples weren’t going hungry int hat moment; surely, they could have waited until the Sabbath was over to eat the grain from the fields where they were walking... And the man with the withered hand wasn't in any hurry; he didn’t ask to be healed; surely, Jesus could have waited until after the Sabbath to offer his restoration.
Instead of just going along, Jesus challenged their understanding of who God is and what it means to seek the kingdom of God that has drawn near. (1:15) He teaches that Sabbath-keeping isn’t about displaying an empty and devout piety or observing a religious practice for its own sake. Midway through these scenes Jesus tells them, “The Sabbath was made for humankind, not humankind for the Sabbath.” (2:27)[iii]
Sabbath-keeping is not about checking a box or crossing it off your to-do list.
It is about a practice that invites us into life with God – the very same God who loves every one of us, regardless of our economic or social status, regardless of the label the world places on us. This radical life-giving God gives us new life in the forgiveness of our sins even when we have done nothing to earn that grace and shows us that “there is life available, greater and more abundant than we ever imagined.”[iv]
This radical life-giving God sets this day apart and calls it holy.
It is important, not because keeping the Sabbath demonstrates our own diligence and obedience, but because keeping the Sabbath frees us to live differently, and perhaps, even to see differently.
For the people of Israel who came out of slavery in Egypt, the idea that everyone, even slaves and servants, are given a full day set apart from work truly was radical. Imagine their surprise when they learned that their one, true God saw them. God saw the people who go unseen or ignored, the people who work without respite or reward, without refreshment or rest.
And today, God invites us to see them, too.
As Pastor David Lose writes,
God gives us the law to help us get the most out of life and, in particular, to help us get more out of life by helping others, by looking out for them, by taking care of them and, by extension, taking care of each other. [v]
The vision that Jesus casts is one where relationships are more important than rules.
Hear me say that again, relationships are more important than rules.
It is a vision that recognizes that all too often Sabbath-keeping becomes a meaningless pantomime, the repetition of empty motions without any experience of the transformative power of God’s love in our lives.
It is a vision where the Gospel is not only read out loud but lived out loud everyday in our lives!
Pray with me now…
Radical and life-giving God,
We give you thanks for your abundant grace poured out on us regardless of time and season.
We give you thanks for the gift of law that calls us into relationship with you, with each other and for the sake of the world.
By your Holy Spirit, strengthen and empower us to live in the richness of your mercy and the joy of our salvation, restored to relationship with you.
We pray in the name of Your Son, our Lord and Savior, Jesus.
Amen.
[i] Feasting on the Word: Year B, Volume 3: Pentecost and Season after Pentecost 1 (Propers 3-16) (Feasting on the Word: Year B volume) (Kindle Location 3354). Presbyterian Publishing Corporation. Kindle Edition.
[ii] Feasting on the Word, (Kindle Locations 3502-3503).
[iii] David Lose, In the Meantime.
[iv] Feasting on the Word, (Kindle Locations 3525-3527).
[v] ibid
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