We’ve been hearing a lot about the law recently. After weeks of jury selection and testimony in the criminal trial against a former president, the verdict was returned on Thursday. Guilty on all 34 counts.
Much has been made about the fact that this is the first time a former president has become a convicted felon. Commentator after commentator has written or spoken about the significance of this verdict — that it shows that in this country no one is above the law, that the law applies equally to all citizens, from those who live on the street to those who once occupied the White House.
Even religious commentators agreed. “The law is King!” was the headline on one blog I regularly read.
The commentators are correct. At least in this case our cherished belief that no one is above the law held true. Whether you agree with the verdict or not, the process followed in this trial was the same process that thousands of Americans charged with crimes go through every day.
It is not an exaggeration to say that the idea that all people are equal under the law is central to who we are as a country.
As is so often the case, our scripture readings for today reflect what is going on in the headlines of the week.
In scripture it is the Jewish law in question, specifically the law regarding the Sabbath.
“Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy,” is one of the Ten Commandments, the God-given laws that Moses brought to the people in the wilderness.
Our reading from Deuteronomy spells out the importance of this command. No one is to work on that day, including animals, slaves, and immigrants, whether or not they are Jewish. All living creatures are to have a day of rest.
And if anyone disagrees with giving slaves a day off, God reminds them that they were once slaves in Egypt, compelled to work every day. When the Israelites are in charge they are to treat people better than they were treated.
Just as the adage that all people are treated equally under the law is at the heart of our justice system, the Sabbath was at the heart of Jewish life. Deuteronomy devotes many verses to what is and isn’t allowed on the Sabbath.
The weekly Sabbath is an opportunity to rest, to recollect ourselves, to remember who and whose we are. God gives us the Sabbath out of love. It is supposed to be a blessing, not a burden.
Violating the Sabbath is not a trivial thing. That is why it is shocking to see Jesus doing just that. He and his followers are walking through a field on the Sabbath, when the disciples begin to pluck heads of grain.
They are doing this in front of the religious authorities, who immediately point out that what they are doing is a violation of Sabbath law. Jesus responds that even the great King David ate food that was by law only for the priests when he and his companions were hungry.
“The Sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the Sabbath,” he says.
Then Jesus goes into the synagogue and sees a man with a withered hand, who he calls forward. Jesus turns to the religious authorities and asks, “Is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the Sabbath, to save life or to kill?” And then he heals the man’s hand.
Jesus is deliberately trying to provoke a confrontation here. The laws around the Sabbath allowed feeding someone who was starving, or healing in life or death situations.
These situations are neither. There is nothing to suggest that Jesus or the disciples were in dire need of food.
And the man with the withered hand was not an emergency situation either. Presumably his hand had been withered for a long time, maybe even his whole life. Would it really have mattered if Jesus had waited a few hours until sunset to heal him?
Jesus is among us as the embodiment of God. He never trivializes the God-given laws by which the people of Israel live. That is why it is so shocking to see him act this way.
In seemingly flouting the law, Jesus is showing us that healing and compassion are never against the law, and that our religious commitments can render us indifferent to human suffering.
He is telling us that our religious commitments can become idolatry. Cherishing the gifts of God, even Scripture and our most sacred rituals, can blind us to cherishing the people of God.
Jesus is angry when he heals the man with the withered hand; angry at the Pharisees’ hardness of heart that puts idolatry of the law before human need and suffering.
When Jesus does heal the man, the religious authorities leave and immediately go to speak to the Herodians, the governmental authorities, to conspire against Jesus, and how to destroy him. Even though this is only the second chapter of Mark’s gospel, both the religious and political authorities already realize that he is a threat and must be stopped.
The road to the cross has begun.
“The difficult truth of the cross is that we would rather kill Jesus than be transformed by his love,” pastor Nibs Stroupe says. “We prefer a dormant God who is subject to our rules and rituals to the barrier-busting God who is ever present in our lives.”
Stroupe has some hard questions about this passage for Christians to ponder.
“What field is Jesus walking through in our lives, plucking ears of corn from our sacred rituals?
“Who is Jesus healing that we believe should remain sick?
“What is Jesus doing in our time that makes us believe that he is foolish at best and dangerous at worst?
“What are the essential categories of our lives that Jesus threatens?
“What have we made divine in our lives that should remain mortal and finite?
“When and where are our hearts hardened to the work that God is doing in our midst?”
I don’t have ready answers to those questions, but I believe they are ones to which we should all give serious thought.
Amen