and ourselves as your slaves for Jesus' sake.
2 Corinthians 4:5
Deuteronomy 5:12-15
12 Observe the sabbath day and keep it holy, as the Lord your God commanded you. 13 Six days you shall labor and do all your work. 14 But the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work — you, or your son or your daughter, or your male or female slave, or your ox or your donkey, or any of your livestock, or the resident alien in your towns, so that your male and female slave may rest as well as you.
15 Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm; therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the sabbath day.
Mark 2:23—3:6
23 One sabbath he was going through the grainfields; and as they made their way his disciples began to pluck heads of grain. 24 The Pharisees said 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 and his companions were hungry and in need of food? 26 He 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." 27 Then he said to them, "The sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the sabbath; 28 so the Son of Man is lord even of the sabbath."
1 Again he entered the synagogue, and a man was there who had a withered hand. 2 They watched him to see whether he would cure him on the sabbath, so that they might accuse him. 3 And he said to the man who had the withered hand, "Come forward."
4 Then 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. 5 He 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. 6 The Pharisees went out and immediately conspired with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him.
Ordinary Time
Last week we celebrated the Feast of the Most Holy Trinity; now the church's year of grace moves into six months of Ordinary Time, the Green and Growing Time Season of the Spirit, Time of the Church, when the church comes into her own as we continue following the Crucified and Risen Jesus Christ as his presence in the world, everywhere we go. We'll be counting or numbering Sundays after the Day of Pentecost. Today is Pentecost 2.
Ordinary time refers to structure and organization, not to common and mundane, though it does have a sense of "commonality" because everyone shares in it.
Shabbat
The first reading from the Hebrew scriptures and the gospel account relate to the commandment to observe Sabbath rest. We find the The Words or Commandments in both Exodus and Deuteronomy. Today we read from Deuteronomy, when through Moses God says everyone needs Sabbath or intentional rest (not laziness!) because God freed us, liberated us, from the burden of working under the usually unreasonable demands of empires and bosses of all kinds.
With a different focus, the Sabbath commandment in Exodus explains we need Sabbath rest in imitation of God because as we labor faithfully to claim that imago dei [divine image], some of our work imitates divine creativity; almost all of everyone's work contributes to the realization of God's new creation. Sometimes sabbath/rest needs to be at times other than the historical biblical Sabbath day of Saturday or the Lord's Day Sunday many Christians set apart as a day of worship and rest.
In this passage, Jesus heals on the Sabbath in order to free the man with the withered hand to do the work he needed to do to be a contributing member of society and probably provide for his family.
Deuteronomy and Mark
In the sparse environment of the exodus desert, Israel had to trust life and sustenance as a gift. They'd left slavery in Egypt, where everything was about production quotas, counting, keeping up. To what avail? To keep their jobs so they and their families could get by.
Out from Egypt, with water from the rock, manna from the sky, a cloud to lead them during the day and fire at night, Israel experienced God's supply and trustworthiness before God asked for their trust. They knew life as gift before entering the land of promise where they'd again need to work to produce agricultural and practical goods essential for everyday survival and for a more abundant life. But there would be a difference. It wouldn't be non-stop, and everyone would have a measured time of rest, of grace. Everyone: animals; servants; guests; non-Israelite strangers; the land.
The actual Sabbath never changed from Saturday, though Sunday, day of resurrection became the day of worship and rest for most Christians. People in some occupations must work on the Sabbath; for overall health, they're wise to take a dedicated day or two of rest and re-creation each week. As Jesus reminds us, The sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the sabbath/ Shabbos is for all creation, not the other way around.
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