Civil Disobedience.

Mark 2:23-3:6

June 3, 2018

I.

Early in his ministry, Jesus begins deliberately making points in his actions about the Sabbath.  In fact, one of the things he would have been known for in his own time was as a Sabbath breaker, or Sabbath reformer, depending on your perspective.

The Sabbath laws in the Torah, especially in a chapter like Leviticus 25, are about justice.  They pull people out of the economy of producing and consuming, buying and selling, owning and working, and periodically reset the system as a reminder of the One to Whom it all belongs.  The Sabbath is about liberation and life in opposition to the oppressive regime demanding constant money-making.  One day in seven, one year in seven, and every fiftieth year are set apart and dedicated to God.  These were times when people, and even the land and animals, could rest.  In the case of the fiftieth year it was called a Jubilee when wealth was redistributed downward. 

The use of Sabbath laws to oppress people is one of the things Jesus is most upset about, and he sets out making an intentional nuisance of himself over the Sabbath laws, so much so that some think he is committing acts of what we would call civil disobedience.  He is deliberately breaking the law to make a point.

Which is what is going on in these two stories.  The act of plucking heads of grain and eating them, from a field he and his disciples were passing through, is not a casual thing, anymore than if you stopped on a highway and grabbed a few ears of corn from a local farm.  It could be considered stealing.  And Jesus pointedly has his disciples do this on the Sabbath, which just adds insult to injury as far as the Pharisees are concerned.

The Pharisees had an interest here.  Their policing of religious rules was the center of their power and identity.  Because they decided what was religiously “pure,” and therefore what could be sold in the market, the Pharisees exerted a good deal of control over the poor subsistence farmers of Galilee.  Power always corrupts, and it may have been that the Pharisees used their leverage for other purposes.

Jesus’ intentional act of picking and eating the grain basically thumbs his nose at the Pharisees.  The fact that he then justifies it on the basis of hunger does not necessarily mean that the disciples themselves were starving, but that the workers who grew the grain were constantly at risk of starving due to the religious hyper-vigilance of the Pharisees, not to mention all the other liabilities that go along with farming: taxes and weather and prices and labor costs and so on.

The second point Jesus makes brings up an obscure and on the surface not quite applicable, and not quite accurately recounted, story about David from 1 Samuel 21.  David is given by the priest the holy Bread of the Presence from the tabernacle to feed his men.  The fact that Jesus makes this episode the rationale for his actions indicates that he sees all grain as participating in the Bread of the Presence, and is here making the larger point that “the earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof,” advocating an economy of sharing, as opposed to the market-based regime the Pharisees were busy manipulating.

II.

Jesus opposes market-based economics whenever he encounters it, proposing instead an economy of “give what you have and receive what you need.”  And the Sabbath, as the time of remembering and implementing God’s justice, would be the perfect time to express this set of values.  

So in contrast to the Pharisees, who were on everyone’s case about keeping rigidly to the letter of the Torah, Jesus, following the spirit of the Torah, affirms that “The Sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the Sabbath; so the Son of Man is lord even of the Sabbath.”  “Son of Man” here is ambiguous enough  a term to include its literal meaning of “human being,” as well as its theological meaning for Jesus as “the Messiah.”

Jesus’ point is that the Sabbath is not supposed to be this oppressive time of guilt and fear, repression and doing without, but a celebration of life in the face of the machinations and predations of the economy.  The Sabbath is exactly the time for the hungry to be fed, the poor to be assisted, the workers to be compensated, the sick healed, the dead raised, and the earth given rest.  Sabbath is exactly the time for sharing, even if it means, according to the arbitrary, self-serving dictates of those who interpreted the Torah, “stealing” and “breaking the Sabbath”.

Jesus enters a synagogue immediately on the same Sabbath, and makes a visible point of healing a man who is afflicted with a withered hand.  Before he does so, he asks the loaded question:  “Is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the sabbath, to save life or to kill?”  

Now the man with the withered hand’s life was not at stake.  He could have waited a few hours until the Sabbath was over at sundown to be healed.  But Jesus is not talking about life in terms of mere survival.  He doesn’t just mean the minimal food, water, air, and shelter we need to exist.  Life is way more than this!  Life is about fullness and wholeness!  Jesus doesn’t want another minute to go by before this man can enjoy that fullness and wholeness.

When the man stretches out his hand, he discovers it to be healed and whole.  Instead of being withered and inert, his hand may now open.  It may open to give to another.  It may open to receive from another what is needed.  It may open to share.

That is what the Sabbath is about!  It is not about what, and who, we can say no to in the strictness of our Biblical perfectionism.  It is about realizing God has provided more than enough for what we need if only we open our hands to each other in sharing and generosity.  

Jesus talks about how amazing and blessed and good life can be!  For Jesus, the Sabbath is a party!  It’s not a time to sit home and mourn in guilt over our transgressions.  It is not a grim patriotic and religious duty to maintain independence.  It is not to be crippled by fears of scarcity; still less is it to manufacture scarcity for the sake of profit.  It is a celebration of God’s amazing love and forgiveness!  It is a celebration of life!

III.

But the Pharisees don’t care about the man at all.  “He certainly could have survived until sunset; he wasn’t at death’s door; he wasn’t even in pain.  He should have declined to stretch out his hand when Jesus told him to.”  All the Pharisees care about is their power and influence, and that the Torah be kept according to their specifications, because that is the way the nation and their religion would be preserved.  

The Pharisees care about these abstractions — nation, religion, law.  Jesus cares about the actual person, the man who had been crippled for years.  But this is a threat to them because they control and determine the law that Jesus undermines.

The law as it was practiced and applied was not holy.  It was an interpretation of Scripture, performed in the interests of the ones doing the interpreting.  They claimed it was all handed down by God, but really it was mainly handed out by them.

They are so angry with Jesus that the Pharisees get together with the Herodians, that is, the supporters of the Roman-installed collaborationist local king, named Herod.  And they connive how to destroy Jesus.  It’s only chapter 3, and Jesus has alienated the authorities so sufficiently that they are now out to kill him, which will take them 12 more chapters to accomplish.

They are apoplectic about Jesus healing on the Sabbath because of course it makes them look bad.  It makes them look like they don’t care about the crippled man… which, of course, they don’t.  It also undermines the people’s faith in them and in their interpretation of Torah.  This is dangerous because their nation and religion could get wiped out if people don’t strictly keep the Torah.  What’s one crippled guy when national security is at stake?

But perhaps more importantly — and I wonder if this isn’t why the lectionary puts these two passages together — they are afraid of what will happen if people listen to Jesus and follow his example of what they see as stealing grain from the fields.  The economy based on markets and prices, owners and employees, supply and demand, with Pharisees helpfully overseeing the whole process to make sure it is done with religious propriety… that whole regime is in jeopardy if people stop playing their part.  If people start sharing with each other directly?  If people start realizing that all creation is God’s Temple and all bread is the Bread of the Presence, available now to the hungry and to all?  If that happens?  It’s all over.  

IV.

The message for us is that we have to follow Jesus, even if that means going against the laws.  Because laws are not holy or sacred.  They’re developed by a bunch of lawyers, politicians, judges, and the people and corporations who give them money.  These are not particularly moral, smart, wise, or good people.  They do what’s best for themselves.  And they are happy to keep others crippled and withered, if it means their profitable gig is maintained.               

But following Jesus has to mean living according to the values of his Kingdom, values of generosity, sharing, forgiveness, compassion, and equality.  Give what you have, take what you need.  For it all belongs to God.  And God intends for us all to live together in peace — shalom. 

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