Sabbath Day Thoughts — “Heart Trouble” Mark 2:23-3:6
Sunday mornings at the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church in Washington, DC can feel like a curious collision of reverent worship and human need. The church, just a couple of blocks from the White House, is in an area of the city with a burgeoning homeless population. The benches in the tiny triangle park outside the church are a favorite overnight sleeping spot. A mentally ill woman pushing a shopping cart inspects the trash for thrown away treasures. A down and out neighbor scrounges for cigarette butts on the sidewalk.
Before I went to seminary, when I was a young adult member of the church, I was often panhandled on my way into worship, “Sister, can you give a man a little help?” During worship, when the children and those feeling a little childlike were invited to the front of the sanctuary, there would always be at least one adult participant—Larry, a developmentally disabled man from a local residence who lived with mental illness. One Sunday, during Dr. Craig’s sermon, someone was snoring. It was loud—so loud that those of us in the pews spent the better part of the message craning our necks to see one of our homeless brothers, stretched out in a side pew. On another day, Dr. Craig told us that as he was locking up the church to head home, he fell, tripping over a homeless man who was sleeping in a corner of the doorway.
Churches are sacred places, built to glorify God with our worship and praise. Churches are serving places, where neighbors in need find “a little help.” Sometimes finding that right balance of worship and service can be tough.
Our reading from Mark’s gospel tells of two Sabbath controversies. First, Jesus was challenged by the Pharisees for the Sabbath day behavior of his disciples. As Jesus’s hungry friends walked through the fields, they plucked ears of barley, rolled them between their hands to remove the chaff, and ate the ripe grain. Next, Jesus was in the synagogue on the sabbath day when he noticed a man with a helpless, withered hand. Jesus provocatively asked his critics, “Is it lawful to do good on the sabbath?” Then, answering his own question, Jesus healed. The useless hand grew hale and able.
Jesus and the Pharisees clearly had a difference of opinion when it came to interpreting what scripture had to say about sabbath observance. We tend to poke fun at the Pharisees, but Prof. Clif Black, who teaches at Princeton Seminary, reminds us that the Pharisees, a reform movement in first century Judaism, were well-regarded as upstanding and devout people. They were dedicated to “superlative” obedience to scripture in all walks of life. They liked things done decently and in order—that sounds downright Presbyterian.
The Pharisees had two problems with Jesus’s friends in the grain field. For one, they were traveling on the sabbath. For another, it was a slippery slope from gleaning to harvesting – if you let people glean on the sabbath, who knows what sort of work could happen next. And that man with the problem hand? More work. The man and Jesus should have had the good sense to wait until the sabbath was over to get their healing on. Jesus, with his disregard for their sabbath piety, put the whole community at risk. They needed to be holy as God is holy, and that meant their strict observance of the Torah.
Jesus disagreed. He looked at the big picture. Jesus considered God’s intent in instituting the sabbath as part of the rhythm of creation. God certainly didn’t need to rest after bringing the world into being, but humanity? We would need rest. In imparting the ten commandments, God mandated sabbath so that the people might be gratefully reoriented in God, might deepen their relationship with the one who created us—and deepen our connection to one another. What a radical gift for former slaves, who had never known the blessing of unfettered leisure! Sabbath should inspire our profound gratitude and reverence, yet it also helps and heals us. It promotes our wholeness. We might even say that on the sabbath day we are re-created.
“The sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the sabbath,” Jesus taught. The choice to relieve someone’s hunger, the choice to end the suffering and disability of a neighbor, these beautiful, compassionate acts honored God’s original intent for the sabbath, every bit as much as the reverent worship of the Pharisees. Unfortunately, Jesus’s opponents were so invested in their own perspective that they could not hear Jesus or allow their hard hearts to be moved with compassion. Instead, only 79 verses into Mark’s gospel, Jesus’s adversaries began to conspire to discredit and silence him.
I am told that the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church struggled to find that right balance between sabbath day reverence and sabbath day service. In the early 80’s federal funding for mental health services saw big cuts, transferring responsibility for formerly institutionalized people to states that just weren’t ready. The streets of cities like Washington soon teemed with folks who could not care for themselves. As the church’s triangle park became a de facto mini homeless settlement, they wondered, what do we do? Close the park? Work with law enforcement to encourage homeless neighbors to find someplace else to be on Sunday morning? Open up the church’s Lincoln Room for bagels and a gospel hymn sing?
The hymn sing won out, but still there was a weekly struggle to find enough volunteers to handle the loud, needy, and stinky mess that comes along with homeless neighbors. Members left the church. Those who stayed wondered if new people, who weren’t homeless, would ever come, would ever labor alongside them. They weren’t Pharisees, but they were Presbyterians with a longing for order and a good uninterrupted Sunday sermon. It wasn’t easy.
I think Jesus knew that faithful people would always live with this tension between our desire for holiness and the calling to meet the needs of our neighbors. That’s why his great command is an imperative to do both – love God and love neighbor. God is glorified by our overflowing love and heartfelt worship. Yet God is also glorified when we open our hearts and turn to the world with compassion, when we seek to make a helping, healing difference in the lives of those who need it most. We need both – worship and service. When we get it right, we are drawn ever deeper into the beauty of God and into the spirit of Jesus, who challenged his followers to see him in our neighbors who most need our love and care, every day of the week.
Sundays at this church aren’t quite like Sunday mornings in downtown Washington. I bet no one panhandled you on the way in. My old friend Larry doesn’t sit on the chancel with me for children’s time. While someone may fall asleep during the service, it won’t be because they spent last night sleeping on a subway grate. Yet we are mindful this morning of the need of our world. If you came in the side entrance, you saw the overflowing donation of paper goods for families that depend on Grace Pantry. You saw the pack basket that collects our Food Pantry gifts for hungry neighbors. You may have even noticed the learning stations in the sanctuary and Great Hall about the work of the Holm family to bring the gospel and sanitation to our Malawi neighbors. They may not be sleeping in the pews, but our vulnerable neighbors are with us this morning, and we can choose to make a helping difference. Today, we glorify God with our worship—and God will be glorified, too, as we love those who hunger and thirst for wholeness, good news, and good food.
If those Pharisees and Herodians had only wrapped their hearts around what Jesus was trying to teach them about the sabbath, they would have gotten blessed. So blessed! On that Sunday morning at the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church, when the homeless brother was snoring loudly through Dr. Craig’s sermon, the ushers in their blue blazers and ties marshalled forces in the narthex, devising a plan to wake the guy up. The very wise Dr. Craig stopped preaching and he waylaid their efforts. “Please, folks,” he said from the pulpit, “I’m sure it is the safest and warmest that the man has been all week.” As Dr. Craig’s words sank in, we realized that we had just heard the real sermon for that Sunday. We all thought about how truly blessed we were, to have homes and a church home, to have more than enough, to have people who love us, to have a wise pastor who called us to our better selves. It was one of those graced moments when we found the right balance between worship and service. It was one of those graced moments when we glimpsed Jesus, who told us he would come to us in our vulnerable neighbors. I can’t say for sure, but I suspect that God was, indeed, glorified.
Resources:
C. Clifton Black. “Commentary on Mark 2:23-3:6” in Preaching This Week, June 2, 2024. Accessed online at Commentary on Mark 2:23—3:6 – Working Preacher from Luther Seminary
Matt Skinner. “Commentary on Mark 2:23-3:6” in Preaching This Week, June 3, 2018. Accessed online at Commentary on Mark 2:23—3:6 – Working Preacher from Luther Seminary
John Wilkinson. “Theological Perspective on Mark 3:1-6” in Feasting of the Gospels: Mark. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2014.
William R. Herzog II. “Homiletical Perspective on Mark 3:1-6” in Feasting of the Gospels: Mark. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2014.
Mark 2:23—3:6
23One sabbath he was going through the grainfields; and as they made their way his disciples began to pluck heads of grain. 24The Pharisees said to him, “Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the sabbath?” 25And he said to them, “Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need of food? 26He 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.” 27Then he said to them, “The sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the sabbath; 28so the Son of Man is lord even of the sabbath.”
3Again he entered the synagogue, and a man was there who had a withered hand. 2They watched him to see whether he would cure him on the sabbath, so that they might accuse him. 3And he said to the man who had the withered hand, “Come forward.” 4Then 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. 5He 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. 6The Pharisees went out and immediately conspired with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him.
Joann White 