EDITOR'S NOTE: On Oct. 23, 2021, I was ordained as a minister of word and sacrament in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and installed as pastor at Faith Lutheran Church in Wolverton, Minn. I also served the same church for four years from October 2017 to October 2021 a synodical authorized minister. The journey together these past seven years has been an amazing one, full of learning, growing and a deepening of my theological mind. This sermon took place on June 5, 2024.
This week's gospel: Mark 2:23-3:6
Pronouncement about the Sabbath
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.”
The Man with a Withered Hand
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.
The message:
One online dictionary I visited this week defined the word “disruption” as this: “radical change to an existing industry or market due to technological innovation.”
There are other definitions, of course, and you might find this one a little askew when we apply it to faith. But I don’t think it’s that much of a stretch tif we replace a word or two.
For instance, what if we changed the definition to: “a radical change to an existing faith due to the incarnation.”
Now … how does that strike you as a definition of disruption in terms of when we talk about Jesus?
I recognize that most people probably don’t think about the incarnation that way … the incarnation as disruption … but in reading today’s gospel, I believe that is exactly what God’s intentions were.
And I find one line in today’s gospel to be especially telling. This line: “Then he said to them, ‘The sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the sabbath; so the Son of Man is lord even of the sabbath.”
We need to unpack this a bit, but I assure you Jesus’ statement should be heard as nothing less than mind blowing.
So let’s unpack …
First, let’s start with the fact that we are only in Chapters 2 and 3 of the Gospel of Mark, and think about this … we already have the religious leaders of the day conspiring to “destroy” Jesus. … That’s the word that Mark uses! … Faith Family … they already wanted to “destroy” Jesus.
So, that is the backdrop of tonight’s gospel. … We are just two chapters into Jesus’ life … maybe a year or two into his ministry … and the religious leaders of the day are already conspiring not just to push him out or ostracize him … but to actually “destroy” him. … That should be heard as ominously as the writer intended it to be.
However, in the face of all that, Jesus deliberately provokes a fight with the religious leaders over the idea of sabbath and what the Hebrew Bible’s rules regarding it meant.
Famously in this text, the Pharisees accuse Jesus’ disciples of not following the commandments because they collected food from a field on the sabbath, and then more importantly directly accuse Jesus also of being unlawful when he heals the man with the withered hand on the sabbath as well.
Now … separated by some 2,000 years, it’s hard for us to imagine the seriousness of this debate. … I mean, after all, in our context, doesn’t everyone still have to eat on the sabbath. … And if you could possibly heal a person on the sabbath and change a person’s life, why wouldn’t you want to do so? Right?
Wouldn’t healing them be more humane than waiting a day because some scroll somewhere said so?
The reality though was that wasn’t the context of Judaism in the first century.
Judaism in the first century was regulated by the hundreds of commandments that had been written and collected together into the Hebrew Bible … what we know as the Old Testament … to guide community life.
And it was the ruling religious elite … in other words, the Pharisees … who were placed in charge of ensuring that faithful Jews lived by those commandments. … And adherence was strict and obligatory.
They believed that God had handed those commandments down to the faithful as a gift, and as such, this was how Jewish life had been conducted for many thousands of years. And, so the Pharisees were faithfully discharging their duties when they questioned Jesus about these perceived unlawful actions.
But what they could not understand, Faith Family … was that Jesus was not sent by God to uphold the status quo in the first century. … He was not sent to support the rule of the religious Pharisees and the secular Roman overlords.
But rather … he was sent to “disrupt” both and to give advantage to all of those who had lived on the margins of society for many thousands of years.
And thus … that is why Jesus’ defiant statement … “The sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the sabbath …” is so disruptive … “a radical change to an existing industry or market due to technological innovation.”
Or as we modified it … “radical change to an existing faith due the incarnation.”
However, before we think little of the Pharisees here in this context, Faith Family, I think a little self introspection probably is justified.
After all, it’s dangerous to think that we are that much more enlightened than the Jewish leaders of Jesus’ day.
Do we not do the same things when we forget Jesus’ commandment to love one another? … Think of all of the times that we use rules and commandments to separate Jesus’ love from those whom we consider don’t deserve it.
Well, in these cases … we’re doing exactly the same thing the Pharisees were guilty of … forgetting that God’s incarnation replaced the law by giving us Jesus’ love to supplement the commandments.
That is the “disruption” that we are talking about tonight. … The disruption that Jesus brought with him, Faith Family.
Let’s not misunderstand, though: Jesus was not saying that the laws -- such as keeping the sabbath -- were no longer applicable … but rather, he was saying that the laws and commandments were made to make people’s lives better, to make living more equitable among all in the land …
… as opposed to the laws being restrictive and advantageous only to those in power.
Faith Family … Jesus … the Son of Man is lord even of the Sabbath.
I hope that that message gives you chills. … In a good way, of course!
This means that there is no barrier to God’s love. … And just as importantly, it means that all are invited into God’s love. … Because God wrote all of those commandments we see in the Bible as a way of supporting better community life and not as a barrier to participation in the kingdom of heaven.
And that means each and every one of us sitting here tonight … and every single person out there … is invited to the table, invited to partake in Christ’s salvation
… invited to partake in the Eucharist. … Because Jesus came here to disrupt everything we believed about the Kingdom.
Faith Family … this means that the kingdom doesn’t require each of us to be worthy to get in, but rather assures us that out of God’s love we are already included. … And now God asks us to practice that very same kind of love with every single other person we encounter.
And that is the Good News for this Wednesday, June 5, 2024, the second week after Pentecost. … Amen.
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