2nd Sunday After Pentecost
Deuteronomy 5:12-15 Psalm 81:1-10 2 Corinthians 4:5-12 Mark 2:23-3:6 Dear fellow ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ, grace and peace to you from the one who chooses abundant life over safety. Amen Jesus right from the beginning of his ministry chooses abundant life over safety. We have two prime examples in our gospel for today. In the first story Jesus’ disciples are hungry, and so as they walk through a field they pluck heads of grain to eat. Some Pharisees see this and complain to Jesus. The grain was not the problem they were not stealing it, Jewish law demands that farmers leave a certain portion of their crops in the fields for the poor, widowed and orphaned to glean, and that is what the disciples were doing. The problem was that the day happened to be the sabbath, the seventh day of the week given by God to the people to rest, therefore, also in Jewish law work is forbidden on the Sabbath and that is what concerned the pharisees. Jesus responds to this legal question with a legal answer - rabbis love to debate the law so this is not unusual, he gives them a precedent example of when a law was broken because someone was hungry, in need, and there was a higher purpose at stake. It was not legal for David to eat the bread of the presence, but doing so allowed him to fulfill his God given call to become King of Israel. According to biblical scholar Matt Skinner, none of these arguments would have been new or even unreasonable to the Pharisees and even though the story doesn’t tell it I can just imagine a debate ensuing about how hungry someone must be to justify breaking the law. But we don’t get that, the story ends when Jesus reminds the Pharisees that the sabbath was given as a gift to humans, and claims power over the Sabbath “So the Son of Man is lord even of the sabbath” of course the pharisees don’t like that claim of authority but that’s a whole other sermon. In entering into this debate, in effect the pharisees are valuing the law over quality of life while Jesus is valuing quality of life over the law. His point is what good is keeping the law if it takes away life rather than gives it? Now I don’t want to portray the pharisees as the bad guys as so often happens, they are deeply religious and sincere leaders who want the best for their community, the problem is that they have gotten caught up in following the letter of the law rather than the spirit of the law. And if we’re honest with ourselves we can probably think of a time when we were guilty of the same thing, focusing so much on something supposed to give life that it actually took life away. But Jesus is clear, if it comes down to a decision between following the rules or abundant life, he will choose abundant life. This choice is reinforced in the next story. Jesus enters the synagogue on the Sabbath where there is a man with a withered hand and now the pharisees are on the lookout for Jesus and his sabbath breaking ways, they’re waiting for him to break the Sabbath by healing the man so they can go tell on him. And Jesus knows this, so he tries to enter into a legal debate with them again offering them the familiar argument that it is lawful to save a life on the sabbath but this time they refuse to respond, they have passed the point of reason and this makes Jesus angry and sad at the hardness of their hearts, that they are so intent on catching him doing something wrong that they refuse to celebrate the life giving intent of the sabbath with giving life. So Jesus heals the man, restores his ability to work and provide for his family and raises up the whole community along with the man. At this the pharisees and the Herodians, presumably people with the ear of King Herod, begin conspiring against Jesus, working on a way to destroy him. Already at the beginning of chapter 3 of the gospel of Mark Jesus has begun walking toward the cross by choosing abundant life, putting his own safety at risk by defying the definition of how he is supposed to act as defined by people with some measure of power. Choosing life sets Jesus on a path to his death, a death which leads to abundant life for all because even in death Jesus defies what’s supposed to happen when God raises him from the dead to abundant life. This abundant life Jesus offers to us, freely as a gift. And out of joy we proclaim Jesus Christ to others and offer our lives in service following Jesus’ call to live in the same way he did, choosing abundant life over safety. Paul, in our reading from 2 Corinthians speaks to what happens when we live lives of service to Jesus. Paul notes that we have a tendency to forget while doing ministry that the power comes from God and not from ourselves- like the pharisees we end up focusing on the wrong thing forgetting that God is the creator of the universe and that we are creation. This, is why, Paul says, we have the treasure of life in clay jars, our bodies are impermanent prone to breaking, a reminder that only God is forever. And with our fragile impermanent bodies we are to follow Jesus which means choosing abundant life over safety. Paul goes into great detail about just what this looks like “We are afflicted in every way but not crushed perplexed but not driven to despair, persecuted but not forsaken, struck down but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies. For while we live, we are always being given up to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus may be made visible in our mortal flesh. So death is at work in us, but life in you.” In contradiction to the ways of the world in Jesus death is followed by new life. The world around us tries to tell us differently, playing on our need for safety and security to bring out fears and pit us against one another. But we have the antidote to those fears, Jesus Christ Because when we have Jesus we have all we need, we have abundant life and nothing, not even death, can separate us from the love of God. Amen
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AboutPastor Emily Johnson preaches weekly at Christ Lutheran. These are manuscripts of her sermons given at Christ Lutheran. Feel free to engage with them in the comments section of the blog. Archives
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