2 Pentecost, Proper 4 – June 2, 2024
Mark 2:23-3:6
Jesus and his disciples are walking along on their way to the synagogue on the Sabbath day. They are apparently hungry and so they pick some wheat as they walk through a grainfield and eat it on the way to synagogue. The Pharisees observe this and ask Jesus why he lets his followers break the laws of the sabbath. Jesus tells them a story they already know and likens himself to David, claiming a kind of kingly authority that comes only from God.
In effect, Jesus tells the Pharisees, “Don’t get so bound up in your rules that they become your purpose for living. Let Sabbath do it’s job.” The proper function of the sabbath is to promote life and celebrate God as a liberator. It is a peculiar sign and symbol of the deepest things in life. The Sabbath principle reminds us that there must be a time in our week when we stop and take note of God.
The next story in our gospel today really brings it home. The stakes are raised considerably. Now, we’re not just walking along with the disciples in the field with the Pharisees off in the distance, watching. We’re in the synagogue on the sabbath and the Pharisees are right there, eager to see if Jesus breaks the law even further by healing a man with a hand deformity.
It’s a trap for Jesus, but it reveals the prison of the Pharisee’s own making—for themselves and others. Jesus calls the man in need of restoration forward and then lays it out for them as the Lord of the sabbath. You want to talk about the law? What is the point of the law? Is it to do good or to do evil? To help or to harm?
Fulfilling the sabbath unleashes goodness—it does not restrain goodness. The purpose of the sabbath is to help us become the kind of people who resist doing harm and evil because it reorients us towards the God who is good and always working for redemption. That they willingly choose to ignore the true nature of God makes Jesus both angry and deeply grieved for them. They are the ones who are trapped and it’s hurting others.
Jesus’ words help us understand the true meaning of the Sabbath. Jesus said that God created the Sabbath for humanity not humanity for the Sabbath. God did not declare that we keep one day out of seven holy just to lay an extra burden on us. God knows that we need that time. We need to be able to stop and focus on our real purpose for living. In our day to day lives we tend to lose sight of that, so we need to be reminded every week.
There is actually scientific data to back this up. Our bodies are wonderfully created and amazingly intricate. We have what’s called a sympathetic nervous system and a parasympathetic nervous system. The two have opposite roles. While the sympathetic nervous system carries signals that put your body’s systems on alert, your parasympathetic carries signals that relax those systems.
So, the two work together to keep your body in balance. Your sympathetic nervous system takes the lead for as long as is necessary to get you through what’s need to stay alive and to stay safe. We need that. Then, your parasympathetic nervous system steps in and returns things to normal. And that’s how our nervous system is wired. And so we actually have to put some effort in towards noticing that which is neutral or pleasant; in fact, if we can really notice, most things that are even neutral become pleasant because they become fascinating. But we do have to create those conditions. And it’s so worth it if we do.
There is a quote attributed to Victor Frankl where he says, “Between stimulus and response, there is a space. And in that space lies our power to choose. And in our choice lies our growth and our freedom.”
The Bible itself lets us know that time can affect us but also that we can affect the time around us. That’s why there is such a thing as Sabbath. God took care to weave Sabbath rest right into the richly embroidered tapestry of God’s creation. As such, Sabbath is not just a human technique for stress reduction, it is a way to take hold of time and have it serve the cosmic purpose of glorifying God by paying attention to the rhythms that God instituted.
That’s why in the Jewish tradition the Bible takes care to mention that Sabbath is not just for the well-off who can afford to take a break–for that matter it’s not just for people. The commandment says that your donkey and your ox need a Sabbath, too, and so do your servants, your staff, your employees, and even the out-of-town guest who happens to be with you at any given time–Sabbath is for you and your children, for your friends and animals, for the stranger who is within your gates. Every seventh year the Israelites were even supposed to give the soil a sabbatical year off!
Jesus was formed by the practice of sabbath rest. When we hear him say, “I came that you might have life, and have it abundantly,” he’s not talking about giving us abundant spiritual life, he’s talking about giving us abundant life – the whole shebang, 24/7 – and that, for Jesus, presumed the practice of keeping a sabbath day. The sabbath is meant for life. The sabbath is meant to free us from the numbing routine of a life driven by work, by the need to produce and to accumulate.
Sabbath rest is more than a nap. Sabbath rest is life-oriented and life-giving. Or, at least, that’s in part what God had in mind. God rests at the end of creation so that creation can continue. The Sabbath is created for life. And God rests for the sake of life.
There are many different ways that we can each experience a sabbath that brings us back to an awareness of God and a sense of wonder. I was introduced to Forest Therapy this past week and in that process, I was made aware of the interconnectedness of trees and the healing properties of trees. I was brought into to the present moment, to a sense of wonder in God’s creation, to an awareness of my own connection to nature, to others, and to God. That was a piece of sabbath time for me. Another example is of a New Testament professor who was taken to task by his neighbor for mowing his lawn on a Sunday. The professor explained how doing manual labor on the sabbath, something so different from how he worked the rest of the week, was a discipline and experience in remembering that God gave him a physical body and a calling to be connected to the earth. In other words, working by mowing the lawn was part of his reorientation to the ways and will of God.
Sabbath-keeping is countercultural, it’s also essential. We are hard-wired to need it. Claiming and revering space for rest and re-creation is absolutely essential for us to be whole and holy. What is sabbath for you?
We don’t rest in order to be more efficient. We don’t rest in order to work better. We practice a sabbath rest to be fully alive. We need it. You need it. God knows, you need it. And you’re worth it.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
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