Proper Timing for the Life of Faith—Lectionary Reflection for Pentecost 2B (Mark 2-3)

 

James Tissot, Man with the Withered Hand

Mark 2:23-3:6 New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

²³ One Sabbath he was going through the grain fields, and as they made their way his disciples began to pluck heads of grain. ²⁴ The Pharisees said to him, “Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath?” ²⁵ And he said to them, “Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need of food, ²⁶ how he entered the house of God when Abiathar was high priest and ate the bread of the Presence, which it is not lawful for any but the priests to eat, and he gave some to his companions?” ²⁷ Then he said to them, “The Sabbath was made for humankind and not humankind for the Sabbath, ²⁸ so the Son of Man is lord even of the Sabbath.”

3 Again he entered the synagogue, and a man was there who had a withered hand. ² They were watching him to see whether he would cure him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse him. ³ And he said to the man who had the withered hand, “Come forward.” ⁴ Then he said to them, “Is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the Sabbath, to save life or to kill?” But they were silent. ⁵ He looked around at them with anger; he was grieved at their hardness of heart and said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand was restored. ⁶ The Pharisees went out and immediately conspired with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him.

 

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                There are rules and regulations in life that are designed to keep order. The problem that can emerge is that these rules and regulations can on a life of their own. So, in pursuit of order, we end up harming one another. Jesus often ran up against the Pharisees during his ministry because he was less concerned about proper order and more concerned about people. It can be a delicate balancing act and at least in the Gospels, the Pharisees come off as legalistic. It’s unfortunate because, for the most part, Jesus shared a similar theology as the Pharisees. It’s also unfortunate because Christians have made Pharisees symbols of legalism and purity. They come off as dour killjoys while Jesus is seen as one who joyfully flouts the rules out of love of one’s neighbor.  Of course, in the Gospels, Jesus comes off quite well as opposed to the Pharisees. We see this dichotomy play out in our reading from the Gospel of Mark, where the Pharisees are portrayed as enemies of Jesus, who seek to destroy him because he won’t obey the rules of the Sabbath.

                In this reading from the end of Mark 2 and continuing into Mark 3, we have two incidents that take place on the Sabbath. The first involves Jesus’ disciples plucking heads of grain to eat due to hunger. Plucking grain was, in the eyes of the Pharisees, work, and you aren’t supposed to do any work on the Sabbath. The second incident presumably takes place on the same Sabbath, when Jesus enters a synagogue and cures a man with a withered hand. This again was considered an unlawful breaking of the Sabbath law.

                These two incidents are part of a larger set of encounters found in Mark 2:1-3:6, in which Pharisees challenge Jesus on a number of issues from table companionship to healing on the Sabbath. That the Sabbath becomes a point of contention is rooted in the centrality of this observance to Jewish life, especially since it is enshrined in the Decalogue. William Herzog II points out that Sabbath keeping is the most fully developed of the Ten Commandments. When it comes to the keeping of the Sabbath commandment, he writes:

It is the only commandment rooted both in creation and in the exodus from Egypt. The Sabbath was the reminder of the liberation from slavery that made the Sabbath possible. The Sabbath was more than a day of rest for the individual Israelite. The commandment was a reminder that YHWH had chosen Israel to be a light to the nations. During the exile, Israel preserved its identity by keeping Sabbath and maintaining circumcision. The loss of sacred space was a given after the destruction of Israel and Judah, but they could keep sacred time in almost any space.  [Feasting on the Gospels: Mark, p. 77].

If this is true, then you can understand why the Pharisees would see it as part of their identity that needed to be protected. Jesus, you would think, would have understood the importance of the Sabbath, but he interpreted it differently. As recorded in Mark, Jesus tells his opponents that the Sabbath was made for humans, not the other way around. Therefore, doing good, whether plucking grain to deal with hunger or healing a man with a withered hand, was something appropriate for the Sabbath.

                In the first encounter, when confronted by the Pharisees about the issue of the disciples plucking grain, Jesus quotes scripture. He points their attention to a time when David was fleeing from Saul, who was seeking to kill him. According to 1 Samuel 21, David convinced Abimelech the priest to feed his hungry men the loaves of holy bread, at least that was Jesus’ reading (as relayed by Mark), though David’s actions were a bit problematic. Nevertheless, we have a Scriptural foundation for Jesus’ interpretation of the Sabbath as meant to benefit humans.

                Jesus claims to authoritatively interpret the Sabbath command by telling the Pharisees that the “Son of Man is even lord of the Sabbath.” Is Jesus using “Son of Man” here in a generic way, such that it refers to humankind? Or is he using this phrase, as he often does in Mark’s Gospel, to speak of his own authority over the Sabbath? Might it involve both possibilities? In any case, Jesus appears to claim a degree of authority over sabbath keeping, such that it serves human needs.

                We’re not finished with the question of sabbath-keeping, because, perhaps on the same day, Jesus enters a synagogue. He’s accompanied there by a group of Pharisees, who are watching to see if he will again break the Sabbath rules concerning working on the Sabbath. This time, it’s a question of whether it is appropriate to heal on the Sabbath. When Jesus enters the synagogue, he encounters a man with a withered hand. As the Pharisees watched to see what Jesus would do, he invited the man to come forward. He then turns to the Pharisees and asks them whether it was “lawful to do good or to do harm on the sabbath, or save life or to kill?” They chose not to respond, which angered Jesus who “grieved at their hardness of heart.” At that point, Jesus told the man to stretch out his hand, which he did. When he did this, the hand was restored. As with the first story, this story raises the question of what permissible activity on the Sabbath is. We’ve already heard Jesus say that the Sabbath was created for humankind, not the other way around. However, other than telling the man to stretch out his hand, there is nothing here that could be considered work. Note that Jesus only spoke to him. He didn’t touch him in any way, such that he could be seen as treating the man’s symptoms. So, Jesus couldn’t be accused of breaking the Sabbath. What he did, however, was exerting his authority over the Sabbath. This leads his opponents to plot with a more government-oriented group, the Herodians, to have him killed.

                So, what is the message here? For one thing, Jesus knows how to provoke his opponents. He can also show anger at his opponents who seem unmoved by the man’s plight. Yes, Jesus could have done this on another day, but he wants to make a point. While the sabbath is important, a person’s welfare is more important. As Renata Furst writes:

                As Jesus makes clear in this pericope, we worship a God whose goodness should incline us toward a whole, rich, and balanced life, a God who established the Sabbath for humans, not a God who would have us sacrifice humans for the sake of the Sabbath. This is a God who wants us to provide a weekly Sabbath rest for all creatures, including the rich and powerful, those who are poor and desperate, and those who minister to both. Sabbath rest is not merely cessation of activity; freedom from nonstop toil restores wholeness, and thus holiness to the world [Connections, p. 51].  

 

                We can, I believe honor the original intent of the Commandment while recognizing that it needs to be interpreted in a way that affirms the welfare of God’s people. Now, the truth is that most of us don’t observe a sabbath of any sort. I know that I’ve been remiss in that. However, we needn’t sit in our living rooms on the Sabbath reading the Bible all day, as the Puritans required. The Puritans are another group with a bad reputation that is probably undeserved.

Image Attribution: Tissot, James, 1836-1902. Man with the Withered Hand, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=57938 [retrieved May 25, 2024]. Original source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Brooklyn_Museum_-_The_Man_with_the_Withered_Hand_(L%27homme_%C3%A0_la_main_dess%C3%A9ch%C3%A9e)_-_James_Tissot_-_overall.jpg.