Holy Choices

David Orendorff · Mark 2:23-28 · May 7, 2006

Jesus is driving the Pharisees nuts. He is forgiving sins, which is God's right alone; he eats with the despised, with tax collectors and outcasts; he permits his students to eat full meals on the holiest of days when they should be fasting. And now, on the Sabbath, from Friday sundown to Saturday sundown, the day when God rested from creating all the earth, the day when God commanded all the earth to also rest, Jesus is letting, maybe even encouraging, his followers to pick grain, to labor in the fields.

Jesus actions are clearly disobedient to the law of God, "remember the Sabbath and keep it holy." It is obvious to the Pharisees that Jesus defies God's word and if he is not stopped, God will become angry and punish Israel yet again.

But, of course, Jesus doesn't see it this way. He reminds the Pharisees of the time the great David was fleeing Saul, a king gone mad, and how David and those with him were hungry, and how, because of their hunger, they ate the bread on the altar reserved alone for God and God's holiest priests.

Jesus and his disciples flee a world gone mad, and like David and his army, they are about preparing a new and more gracious kingdom for God. So they too must be fed and so on the Sabbath they pluck wheat and eat it.

In a great reversal of understanding, Jesus says to the Pharisees, “The Sabbath was made for us, the children of the earth. We were not made to serve this day of holy rest; this day was made to serve us. It is our day, for our benefit. So we rest or we labor, whatever the soul needs to serve our God, to bring the reign of our God."

It is a bold thing to say, is it not? It takes two thousand years of understanding the fifth commandment1Exodus 20:8 and stands it upside down. The Pharisees can only gasp and grow red with anger. The law is clear. Its detailed application has been worked out over generations of debate, clarification, wisdom, experience, insight, and prophetic voice. Jesus is destroying the day of God and making it a day for the unholy desires of beggars, prostitutes, and fishermen.

But those in the field cheer. They have been freed from the tyranny of institutional religion. Shouting across the rows of wheat, "Did you hear what the master said? He said this day is ours, not theirs. This day is for us, to be used in what pleases our souls. We can eat all we want and fear not God's anger." So with unwashed hands, male and female together, laughing at the Pharisees grimness, they strip the grain from its stalk and pop it into their mouths. Later they will skip the synagogue, for Rabbi Eliazer is such a bore, and watch the Mariners play Anaheim.

But has Jesus really done them such a favor? If they have not the rules to guide them to pleasing God, and so growing souls of peace and joy, how will they grow their souls? How will they make the right choice so that when the sun sets on the other end of this Sabbath day, they will be a bit more compassionate, their souls and perhaps their bodies, a bit more whole? Left to their own choices, their own pleasures and desires, how will these disciples usher in the new reign of God's eternal grace?

Jesus has done them no favor with free will. In fact, he has placed a great weight upon them. It is Paul who names this weight when writing to the young church in Philippi, a church struggling with being faithful to God, "Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for God is at work in you, both to will and to work for God's good pleasure."2Philippians 2:12-13

Is not this free will a harder way than rules? With the rules we at least know what is expected and what the consequences are. The rules are clear statements of right and wrong, of when to eat and how to eat, of when to pray and how to pray, who are to be friends and who should be avoided. The rules tell us how to live. And when we don’t particularly like the rules we can always figure out a way around them.

Free will tells us nothing and makes us responsible for everything. The consequences of rules are prescribed, "Don't do that or this will happen." But the consequences of free will are ambiguous and even dangerous.

For example: For a long time I couldn't even make a choice about which channel to watch on television without the decision leading to my children haunting me. When my daughters were still living at home, one minute I could be king of the remote control, and the next minute I am a slave at the whim of an adolescent tyrant.

I have to tell you I am tired of males receiving the blame for obsessive compulsive behavior with the remote control. I had only daughters and when the remote is in one of their hands it becomes the instrument of rapid channel surfing. Just as Ichiro comes to bat with two on base and two outs, we are suddenly watching Robin Leach on some infomercial, but we don't know which one because we are now highly engrossed in a Mountain Dew commercial with some woman on a skate board, screaming something I can't understand, and four guys with clothes that don't fit, hats on backwards, drooling over the woman?, the Dew?, the skate board?, I don't know. I can't figure it out because we are already moving on. The one time king of the remote control has descended into hell, where he mindlessly serves the incomprehensible demons and desires of his former free will.

We are faced with Sabbath choices that would lure our souls away from the holy with promises of fulfillment. There is a Seattle Times TV commercial that invites us to think of Sunday as a day to sleep in, leave the good clothes in the closet, and read the Seattle Times, as if this is the true desire of the soul.

A part of my family would worship on Sunday but there is soccer, or baseball, or a haircut that is needed, as if these things would feed the hunger of the soul.

Has Jesus really done us a favor or does choice and free will make life harder? God has given us the Sabbath and it is ours to do with as we have hunger, but what shall we do with it that our souls grow in peace and our deepest, and most genuine hungers are fed? Fear and trembling, I think, are the right words to describe how the disciples ought to be picking that grain on the Sabbath. Fear and trembling describes how we make even small decisions.

However, free will is also a part of our healing and growth. If we are but obedient robots to "the rules" then we are no more than a tomato in life's garden, growing where we are planted and simply responding as nature dictates until we rot. Thanks be to God, we are not tomatoes. We can uproot ourselves and move to a different part of the garden where there is more sun and more moisture. We can make choices, as dangerous as those choices are, that bring us closer to God. We can choose to defy cultural norms that are destructive, change family patterns that make us crazy, practice peace in a world bent on war. All this we can do because God has given us free will.

As a youth my parents made me go to church. When I got out from under their Pharisaical rule I quit going to church, I quit celebrating resurrection day and my life took a selfish and self-indulgent nose dive. I have shared with many of you stories of my failings and misery.

Learning to keep Sunday, the Sabbath of most Christians, holy; choosing a day, and eventually every day, to rest in the mercies of God, was the beginning of my healing and my growth to the fullness of God's vision within me.

To keep the Sabbath holy is to feed the soul the foods it most needs; gratitude, confidence, compassion and justice. For the soul thrives when we recognize how blessed we are by God with this good earth, its beauty, its extravagant abundance, its overflowing creativity. The soul thrives when we choose to be grateful for each other, even for channel surfing children, for friends who will come to us each week and say, "How is it with your soul" and who will care that our soul aches because our dog is ill, or our soul rejoices because one of our students made great gains. By choosing to keep the Sabbath holy we choose to keep our souls healthy.

The Sabbath was made for us and by choosing to keep it holy, by choosing to gather with others in our most confusing and rewarding of life adventures, we grow in joy and peace. By coming together and seeking together we learn together to weep, laugh, sing and go into the world as the beloved of God. Keeping the Sabbath holy is the great feeding of our souls. It is our balm in a world of trouble and our joy in a world of laughter.

Pray with me: Great God, in your wisdom you have chosen to give us freedom. Our will is free from you, that we might choose our way in life. Many gods compete for our hearing and our devotion, but only you love us as we need to be loved, and only you teach us to love each other. We are grateful for your compassion, yet it remains difficult to make right choices. In our living, grant us not only the freedom to choose, but also the wisdom to make choices that bring compassion and justice, that serve your truth.

Amen and Shalom