The passage from Mark we will hear next Sunday tells two stories, and in both of them Jesus does something on the Sabbath day that the Pharisees consider against God’s law. In the first story, he defends his disciples snacking on the Sabbath as they walk through a grain field. In the second, he heals a man in the synagogue on the Sabbath – his detractors call that “work.” We’ll take up each story in turn, but today let’s look at the way Jesus defends his actions.
He says,“The sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the sabbath; so the Son of Man is lord even of the sabbath.”
The religious leaders of Jesus’ day had so elevated the Law of Moses, and the rules and regulations to which that Law had given rise, it was as though they worshipped the rules more than God. Jesus had a deep respect for the Law, but constantly set it into the broader context of God’s love. And here he unequivocally asserts that people matter more to God than the rules meant to keep the people blessed.
In our time there are many who claim to follow Jesus, but make an idol of the Law, even literally making statues of the Ten Commandments. Every time we worship the rules above the God who made them we have departed from the Jesus Way. Indeed, it is harder to follow our Lord than to follow the rules. Jesus continually poured himself out for those around him; he did not stand aloof and point fingers. Jesus continually ascribed value to people the “righteous ones” discarded as being too broken, too blemished, too poor, too sinful, too foreign. That’s why his message was Good News – he was living out God’s mission to reclaim, restore and renew all of creation to wholeness.
This reading invites us to examine our own relationship to “the rules,” where we draw lines that condemn more than they bless. Are there particular rules or laws you are drawn to? Particular “rule-breakers” you despise? Ask God to reveal the love at the heart of his law.
Episcopalians are particularly good at rules about worship. Worship tools like the lectionary were made for worshippers, not worshippers for the lectionary. Same with the texts of the prayer book, the hymns of the 18th and 19th centuries we still sing, whether we stand or sit or kneel.
If it brings us closer to God, great. If it keeps us at a distance, or worse, makes it harder for others to draw near to God, reevaluate it. Let love rule.
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