Sunday Sermon June 16, 2024: Rest and Mercy For You
MARK 2.23-28
A few weeks ago, a reporter at an alternative news magazine out of the Pacific Northwest, wrote that he has been noticing a particular trend in the Portland, Oregon food scene. Many boutique restaurants, pop-ups, and food truck proprietors are intermittently closing their establishments to take needed times of rest.
According to the reporter, the pandemic has reset expectations in way that created space for such prioritizations of health and wellness. And unlike conventional wisdom, the customer isn’t always right. Cohen found several examples of owners making frank, impromptu social media posts or even posting physical signage explaining the need for sudden, unforeseen closings.
“CLOSED TODAY FOR CATERING. WE ARE NOT SORRY, WE GOTS TO GET THIS WORK WHEN WE CAN,” read a sign at Kim Jong Grillin. The food cart Poppyside said something similar last summer, “Closed August 3 to 6 to recharge and enjoy time with the people I love.”
Restaurant owner Maggie Irwin said, “I feel like post-pandemic, there’s been a much broader conversation around mental health in the workplace. We have so many repeat customers, and a lot of them that came in [after a closure] were like, ‘Hey, we saw your posts and like we’re so happy you guys did that. Like, it means a lot to us that you guys take care of yourself so you keep being in this neighborhood.’”
The article concluded with pensive note of positivity. “In the endless seesaw of work-life balance, consider this a win for life.”
What do you do to recharge and enjoy time with people you love?
What do you do to rest?
What amount of time, or what type of activities, do you schedule for you and your family to find a reprieve from the go, go, go of everyday life in a meritorious 21 Century world?
Maybe, I should just ask, do you rest?
Do you see the utmost importance of letting your mind, heart, soul, and body have time to be renewed and refreshed after running from place to place and activity to activity during the week?
In this morning’s text, once again chosen for us by the lectionary, we find ourselves in the disciple Mark’s biography of Jesus.
In this piece of the world’s historical record, we have a clash of ideas about what God’s Sabbath, or God’s set aside day for rest, is for.
Let’s hear from our Biblical text now.
Mark 2:23–28 says this:
[23] One Sabbath he was going through the grainfields, and as they made their way, his disciples began to pluck heads of grain. [24] And the Pharisees were saying to him, “Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath?” [25] And he said to them, “Have you never read what David did, when he was in need and was hungry, he and those who were with him: [26] how he entered the house of God, in the time of Abiathar the high priest, and ate the bread of the Presence, which it is not lawful for any but the priests to eat, and also gave it to those who were with him?” [27] And he said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. [28] So the Son of Man is lord even of the Sabbath.” (ESV)
After hearing our text, let’s begin by asking, “What were Jesus and His disciples doing?”
We hear in this specific Biblical text that Jesus and His disciples were traveling from one place to another and began to gather some food from the edges of a grainfield that they were passing by.
Seems simple and innocent enough? Except for maybe taking food from a field that they didn’t own, right?
Well, the Jewish religious teachers, known as the Pharisees, didn’t think what was happening with Jesus and his disciples was kosher (pun completely intended).
The Pharisees get really upset with Jesus and His disciples and accuse them of sinning by breaking God’s Laws about the Sabbath day.
Now, to catch you up, or to refresh your memory, the Sabbath day was the 7th day of the week, Saturday, and it was put in place by God during Creation as a time for rest.
Rest, after working hard all week, is so important to God that He actually built it into the created order of the universe for every man, woman, and child.
And, not only did he build a period of rest into the week for you and for me to have our minds, hearts, bodies, and souls renewed and refreshed for another week of life ahead of us, God also made it a commandment for you and me to obey if we are to live a balanced and healthy life.
When giving the commandments to His people, God said this in Command 4 out of 10:
Exodus 20:8–11
[8] “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. [9] Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, [10] but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. [11] For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. (ESV)
What this commandment is telling you is that God, out of pure love for you, wants you to have some down time—a break from the constant go, go, go, of daily life.
God knows you need rest if you are going to continue to be able to live a life of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
If you are stressed out and burnt out, you easily become unloving, joyless, irritated, impatient, unkind, evil, faithless, rough, and out of control.
So, in order to help you recharge your battery, God commands you to rest and makes it a requirement for your life.
That means that NO work is allowed on the Sabbath.
You are to cease from working in order to focus on the things of God, express thanksgiving and gratitude for all God has done for you and provided for you, experience some peace, and have your hope renewed after spending time in the often burdensome grind of the broken and fallen world.
Martin Luther, the 16th Century Church Reformer, said this about the Sabbath, the day of rest:
“Man was especially created for the knowledge and worship of God; for the Sabbath was not ordained for sheep and cows but of men, that in them the knowledge of God might be developed and might increase.”
Now, because it was the Sabbath, the day of rest, where no work was allowed, the Jewish leaders got upset when they saw Jesus and His disciples doing the work of gathering grain from the field.
In their religiously zealous minds, working to gather food to eat was a clear violation of God’s Commandments.
The interesting thing about the Jewish religious leaders of Jesus’ day is that they were always arrogantly boasting about what they believed was a superior knowledge of God’s Word and about a lifestyle that actually went above and beyond what God required.
However, as we see time and time again, they didn’t really know God’s Law or God’s Word and they definitely were not living according to God’s standards for life and love.
In this morning’s text, they were telling Jesus and His disciples that it was unlawful to pick grain to eat on the Sabbath.
However, that is not what God’s Law says or what it intends.
Let’s first address the issue of taking food from someone else’s property.
In another place, God institutes a Law about picking grain from someone else’s field. The law is found in Deuteronomy 23:24–25. It is there that we hear this:
[24] “If you go into your neighbor’s vineyard, you may eat your fill of grapes, as many as you wish, but you shall not put any in your bag. [25] If you go into your neighbor’s standing grain, you may pluck the ears with your hand, but you shall not put a sickle to your neighbor’s standing grain. (ESV)
This piece of God’s Law is just one of many, many places that you get to see God’s heart for you.
First, it is God’s desire to make sure that you have what you need on a daily basis for life and love. So, here he makes sure the poor and the traveler (or, the sojourner, to use Biblical language) have food to eat to strengthen their bodies and minds for the days ahead.
God let’s everyone know that it is the right thing to do to let those that are in need of food take what they need from a field owned by someone else in order to meet their immediate need of hunger. But, to safeguard the fields and lands from the sinful greed of humanity, God establishes that no one can take more than they need in that moment. The poor and traveler cannot fill up a bag or cart with food from someone else’s field.
Second, it is God’s desire that you are generous and caring. This law about helping the needy have food shows that God desires for you to be like Him—doing all that you can to ensure that the needy around you are provided for.
Next, let’s address the purpose of the Sabbath, or day of rest.
As Jesus points out, even on the day of rest, the first priority is the health and well-being of His creatures—you and me.
Jesus says, “The Sabbath is made for man, not man for the Sabbath.”
The Pharisees believed that man was made for the Sabbath. This means that the Pharisees believed that humanity earned God’s love and place in God’s Kingdom by strictly obeying God’s Law—and the Jews still believe this today.
In the context of today’s verses, we see that even though they are claiming that no work can be done on the Sabbath, the Jews were working overtime to “not work” in order to prove to God that they knew how to rest.
This shows us that even when we attempt a day of rest, as commanded by God for our good, we cheat and make excuses to justify working.
The Jews spent their Sabbath stressed out. There was no rest. The same is true for observing Jews today. They stress out on Thursday and Friday preparing to make sure their rest is perfect on Saturday. And, on Saturday, they stress out about perfectly obeying hundreds of rules so that they don’t ruin their day of rest.
To update the idea for you and me today, our Sabbath, or day of rest, is now Sunday.
After Jesus’ resurrection on the first day of the week, Sunday, the disciples starting meeting on Sundays as their Sabbath day so that they would always be reminded of the resurrection—the day of forgiveness and eternal life.
So, we can say that we actually celebrate Easter, or Resurrection Sunday, every single week on our Sabbath. Not just once a year.
For some of us, Sunday is a day like any other day: a day to catch up on work, to play and recreate with no thought of you and no desire to make worship and fellowship a priority. We foolishly believe that we can love God well on our own, without the brothers and sisters whom God has called us to walk through life with. We feel little awe and reverence for God or gratitude for all He has done for us. Our appetite for God’s Word is small, while our belief in our own understanding looms large. We are wise in our own eyes, and we fail to see the consequences of our selfish and immature behavior. This is just one of the countless ways that we live in weakness and sin.
But, God knowing our sin and weakness and still loving us with an unstoppable love gave us Jesus.
Jesus loved our Father in Heaven above all and delighted to worship and study in his house.
From Jesus’ childhood, He was a careful scholar, dedicating Himself to studying and teaching others.
Jesus loved to pray and withdrew often to meditate and speak with our Heavenly Father.
Jesus’ heart was never cold, but always warmly devoted to living in gratitude, faith, and obedience.
Jesus, always honored the Sabbath for us, in His heart and with His body.
Jesus courageously faced every temptation to misuse God’s appointed time of rest.
Jesus always stood firm in obeying God’s Law because He knew we would need His goodness to stand before a Holy God.
For this, we should be quick to say, “Thank you, precious Savior.”
As Jesus pointed out to sinners like the Pharisees and you and me, the Sabbath was made for man.
The Sabbath is a day for you and me to take time to focus on God’s gift of Jesus, the One who died to take punishment for all of our commandment breaking—including not obeying God’s law to rest our mind, heart, body, and soul—and offer us forgiveness and reconciliation with God, our Father in Heaven.
The Sabbath is a day for us to take deep breaths while we remember and celebrate all that God has done to be gracious and merciful to us in the person and work of Jesus Christ and say in response, “Thank you, precious Savior.”
In his book, The Wisdom Period, author Brett McCracken says this:
Beauty and Sabbath go hand in hand. Both are extravagant. Unproductive. Unnecessary. Both are reflections of God’s abundance and reminders that the world is chiefly a gift to receive, not a prize to be earned. Beauty doesn’t have to exist. The fact that humans delight in sunsets, symphonies … and pecan pie cannot be explained by the Darwinian account of human existence.
The only explanation that makes sense of beauty is that we are created in the image of God who relishes it; a non-utilitarian God. Just look at the ten thousand species of birds in the world, or the four hundred thousand species of flowers; each unique in color, shape, and texture. Consider the diversity of spices—from cumin to cayenne to nutmeg and turmeric. God could have created the world so that humans only needed to have a bland, gruel-like substance in order to survive, but he didn’t.
He created thousands of edible plants and animals, from which millions of culinary combinations could be made. He created humans with taste buds to appreciate things like salted caramel gelato, buttermilk fried chicken, and lamb tagine. Just as he is a God who not only creates but pauses to enjoy what he has created (Gen. 1:31), so he created us with the capacity to enjoy.
That’s why beauty exists.
When we refuse to observe the Sabbath and don’t allow space for the enjoyment of beauty, we implicitly signal a mentality that doubts the goodness of God. But when we do stop to rest, to feast, to “smell the roses,” we display a contentedness and calm acceptance about the world and the One who holds it together.
This is the Word of God for you today.
This is the Grace of God for you today.
Amen.
Reverend Fred Scragg V.
June 16, 2024.
Prayer:
Holy Spirit, correct our thinking and strengthen our souls. We are blind and deceived by our own wisdom; open our eyes and show us our hearts. Remind us of the love of Christ until our hearts are humbly drawn to hunger for God’s Word preached faithfully. Help us to understand your Word and to know what you ask of us. Help us to believe that you are loving and that all your commands are good for us and are meant for our joy and growth. Holy Spirit, help us to worship wholeheartedly, and strengthen us with the body and blood of Christ at the Lord’s Table. Enable us to love other believers, even when it feels uncomfortable to be in church. May all other things seem small and insignificant compared to loving and obeying you well, as we look forward to worshiping you forever, gathered with all the saints around your throne. Amen.