Mark 2:23-3:6
2:23 One sabbath he was going through the grainfields; and as they made their way his disciples began to pluck heads of grain.2:24 The Pharisees said to him, “Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the sabbath?”
2:25 And he said to them, “Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need of food?
2:26 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.”
2:27 Then he said to them, “The sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the sabbath;
2:28 so the Son of Man is lord even of the sabbath.”
3:1 Again he entered the synagogue, and a man was there who had a withered hand.
3:2 They watched him to see whether he would cure him on the sabbath, so that they might accuse him.
3:3 And he said to the man who had the withered hand, “Come forward.”
3:4 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.
3:5 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.
3:6 The Pharisees went out and immediately conspired with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him.
A Question or Two:
- Why is it important to the storyteller to place the man with the withered hand precisely in synagogue?
- Why emphasize that he is an observant Jew?
Some Longer Reflections:
There are plenty of conventional readings of this scene, and all of them have their value. Many sink their roots in criticizing religious rigidity. Many see this as a scene about the growth of personal freedom. Some see it as the blossoming of a humanism that knows that sabbath was made for us. And some even see this scene as the moment when the sabbath comes to fruition.
All of these readings are valuable, and all hand us something worth reflecting on.
But this time I find myself thinking about the sabbath.
The idea that this scene shows the sabbath bearing fruit catches something important about the depth and importance of the practice of observing sabbath. Sabbath is finally not about resting from labor. That is how it starts, with God resting not from fatigue (say the rabbis), but simply because it was sabbath. Human beings need rest because fatigue is a very real reality, especially after the story told in Genesis 3, which sees the brokenness of Creation especially in the fact that, even after hard and diligent work, the ground bears thorns. Hard work is too often fruitless. Sabbath promises that all of Creation will finally be freed from futility.
This is a promise we all need.
This is a promise to be protected. That is why the Pharisees reacted as they did. They are portrayed (in most interpretation, and maybe even in Mark’s story, though that is complicated) as irrational opponents of Jesus the Messiah. But even if 1st century audiences would have shared this judgment, they would still have known (and lived) the promise of sabbath.
This is important: if Mark is critical of the Pharisees and their view of sabbath, it was because Mark and the early Christian community believed that Sabbath had been fulfilled, life had triumphed, and futility was finished. They pilloried the Pharisees because they were impatient with a world that had not fully come to rest.
One of the things I love and respect in Judaism and Christianity is the way they use Divine promise to fund the idea of justice, the way they both validate the complaints of people who have been attacked or oppressed. Sabbath does that, and Messiah does, too. Both Sabbath and Messiah give justification for complaint, and measure that justification against a notion of proper justice.
But this scene, and most of the usual readings of it, express impatience with anyone who does not see the world the way the community thinks you should. Anyone who does not see the actions of Messiah as evidence of the enactment of the Messianic Age, the fulfillment of Sabbath, is an enemy.
This kind of apocalyptic impatience always makes me nervous.
Impatient people who are charged with apocalyptic hopes sometimes act without limits, without scruples. Bad things happen in a hurry.
But this week I have been nervous about my nervousness. Hope and impatience are close kin, and passive patience is always an ally of structural injustice.
I don’t have an answer to this problem. My first inclination is to remember the importance of Sabbath, and to try to help impatient people persevere, help them stay in it for the long haul.
But right now I’m more inclined to try to learn how to persevere in impatience.
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