Context, Context, Context

Luke 6: 1 – 16

 

I want to start at the end of today’s passage, because I think it might be the key to unlocking something valuable for us in the first two vignettes here.

 

In the midst of Jesus’ travels and teachings, we are told that he goes out “to the mountain” – to a quiet place away from others – to pray. He spends the night in prayer to God and when the day comes, he gathers all of his disciples to choose twelve of them to be his “apostles.” 

 

A disciple is one who is a pupil, a learner, specifically learning from another. At this point in his ministry, I think we can assume Jesus has collected a lot of students who seek his teaching.

 

An apostle is one who is commissioned to represent another, to speak for another. So among the community of learners following Jesus, after consideration and prayer, he selects 12 who will have the authority to represent his teachings. It is a way of expanding the message – preparing others to be sent out in Jesus name. As we dig deeper into Luke’s gospel, we will see times when Jesus pulls the apostles aside to explain something to them in a deeper or more direct way than he might be teaching the crowd. Because they have the burden of carrying his message further into the worlrd.

 

Now, let’s look backward into today’s story to see what the apostles might be learning. Let’s look at what Jesus is demonstrating, doing and proclaiming in front of those who will eventually be doing this kind of work on his behalf.

 

In both of the first two short episodes from today’s reading, the Pharisees challenge Jesus and what he is doing on the Sabbath. 

 

Sabbath, in Jewish tradition, is prescribed by Torah. We often refer to it as a law or set of laws to be kept. I think another way of thinking about it would be that all of the law is an invitation to a relationship with God. The law helps the Jewish people navigate how they are to relate to one another and to God in order to have safe, strong, God-centered communities. 

 

I might even go so far as to see Sabbath, for the Jewish community, as a means of grace. That is “metho-lingo” for practices that help us to receive God’s love and forgiveness and acceptance.

 

Sabbath is the Jewish practice of setting aside one day every seven or time each day for the purpose of holy rest. There are specific rules in the Mishnah about what can and what cannot be done on those days. Sabbath practices emerged from God’s actions at creation – after six days of work, God rested. Sabbath practice typically forbids work that “creates.” But perhaps more notably, the day after humankind is created, humankind’s first action in creation is to REST. And so another interpretation of Sabbath is that humankind is created for “being,” for resting with God first before “doing,” work that stokes the engines of our world.

 

In the text, Jesus’ disciples are passing through fields or around fields on the Sabbath and as they walk, they are taking heads from the wheat, rubbing it between their hands, and eating the grains. 

The pharisees see this as an unlawful “winnowing” of grain on the Sabbath, and so they ask Jesus what is up? Jesus offers up a story about David, suggesting that their circumstances are similar. (Now I have some questions about those similarities – I think Jesus is stretching a comparison here, but I also don’t think that is the point of this story.) Because in his closing line of the defense, Jesus proclaims “the Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath.”

 

It's a little bit of a “because I said so.” But for the pharisees it probably sounded a little like blasphemy – they don’t see Jesus as “son of man,” a reference to the Messiah cited in the writings of the prophet Daniel.

 

In the second episode, Jesus is teaching in the local synagogue on the Sabbath, something that would be expected. Among the gathered listeners is a man with a withered right hand.  The text indicates the Pharisees are there in the synagogue, watching to see if Jesus will heal on the Sabbath – so that they might find grounds to accuse him of breaking Jewish law.  Jesus, aware of being monitored, invites the man with the withered hand to the center of the gathering. He asks the crowd, “is it lawful to good or to do harm on the Sabbath, to save a life or destroy it?”

I imagine some murmuring and whispers among the crowd. Jesus asks the man to hold out his hand and it is restored. Jesus doesn’t touch it. He doesn’t say any words over it. He doesn’t address the man. (At least the text doesn’t give us those details.) 

 

But the man’s hand has been restored.

 

In the first episode, Jesus plainly names his authority, “The son of man is Lord of the Sabbath.” In the second, Jesus asks a question that goes unanswered by the Pharisees but that he seems to answer with a miracle – “is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the Sabbath, to save life or to destroy it?” 

 

I want to offer a word of caution about our reading of this text: 

I hope I have made it clear that, as we have taken deep dives in both Mark’s and Luke’s gospel over the past two years, every gospel writer has an agenda, and even as their work is inspired by the Holy Spirit, their life circumstances and the point that they are trying to make are the lens through which they have written these words down and the lens through which we have to read in order to find something meaningful for our lives today.

 

Luke’s gospel sets up “the Pharisees” as a monolith – they act as foil, highlighting differences between things that temple authorities were teaching and things that Jesus was teaching. Serving as a foil, the gospel writer paints them in a very negative light to highlight Jesus’ message. That treatment is not entirely fair and I hope that we will always be careful in our approach to scripture to remember that.

 

As presented here, these conversations about Sabbath are disagreements among Jews – as if we as Christians were arguing about whether baptism is necessary to receive communion.

Jesus is offering a contextual interpretation of the Law, calling people to an essential understanding. He’s working to apply the law in real life circumstances. He’s suggesting that hungry folks gleaning grain is not the same as hired hands being out in the fields on the Sabbath. He’s suggesting that it is better to do good than to leave someone to suffer, on the Sabbath or any day.

 

Jesus is interpreting the Sabbath law in a way that honors God and creates wholeness, health, pleasure and joy. It is a different interpretation than other Jewish teachers and leaders around him. And it’s creating a stir. And some tension.

 

And all of this is being witnessed by those who are just about to be named apostles. This kind of interpretive work will be their work, too, soon.

 

I think we are wrestling, right now, as a society with some tension between what is said lawful or procedurally correct and what might need to happen to care for people’s wholeness and thriving. 

 

In a pretty common example, I know that professionals who work with unhoused folks discourage handing money to panhandlers on the streets. But I also know that sometimes, looking an unhoused neighbor in the eye and handing them enough cash to go get a hot meal or a hotel room for the night is the gracious and loving thing to do.

 

I know that this country needs laws and standard practices that help people to gain lawful citizenship. I also know that there are people here in our country who have arrived under the cover of darkness to escape grave dangers, or who were brought here as infants unable to choose their own path. Are there ways that preserve wholeness and honor humanity to address the situation?

 

My call to follow Jesus suggests that there should be ways to honor humanity and care for the foreigner in our midst. My call suggests that interpreting context is part of the work. 

 

But we don’t do that work of interpreting context alone – we do it in community, and in our case, we are called to do it in Christian community, honoring Jesus’ example, seeking Jesus’ teaching and wisdom, following Jesus on the Way.

 

I wonder, where are the places you see a chance for healing and wholeness rather than shame, hunger and harm?

 

May God guide our steps into the real world. 

May our time at the table today remind us to build longer tables.

May it be so.

Amen.