This post was originally posted at the #Bigbible, #Digidisciple blog on 10 April 2012
Easter Tuesday Mark 2.23-27 #BigRead12 with @minidvr
The Sabbath:
In this passage Jesus and his disciples are seen to be picking ears of corn [1]and eating them on the Sabbath. Something which those who hated them, criticised them for it being illegal. Jesus makes the point very clearly that David, who was God’s annointed, had entered the temple with his soldiers while on the run from Saul, and had eaten the ‘Bread of thePresence’, which even the priests were forbidden to eat. Jesus is drawing our attention to his authority as the Son of God, who the rules of man should not be applied to. His quoted text says it all ‘The sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the sabbath; so the Son of Man is lord even of the sabbath.’
Genisis 2:1-3 describes how God made the seventh day Holy, as a memorial to his creation which was ‘good’ and rested on the seventh day. We are commanded (as were the Jews) in Exodus 20:8 to remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. But surely we should consider every day holy in the service of God, marking the Sabbath as a day of rest and worship of God. Which seems to me to be my interpretation of God’s intention and the reason behind the commandment.
Pondering on this, I think back to my childhood in the UK in the 1950s. In those days, Sunday was kept as the Sabbath, quite strictly. For many working people, it was the only day that they got relief from work for the week. Many attended worship in churches, shops were closed and only essential public services worked. Even those who didn’t go to church took advantage of the Sabbath and pursued leisure activities and sport. Sunday was time for rest, family and prayer, not always in that order. Public transport ran to a Sunday timetable, and pubs and entertainment establishments had very restricted hours. If you lived in a remote community, Sunday was definitely not the day to have a mini-crisis to run out of milk, to break down. Nothing would happen until Monday morning. It was slightly different in more urban communitities, but even here things were closed and the Sabbath was observed to a great extent.
Now, some 60 years later, an enormous transformation has happened. The Sabbath is only observed by those who practice a religious faith. Sunday has been swallowed up in the busyness of life lived in a 24/7 economy. This way of life is common to both rural and urban communities. Shops are free to open for restricted, but fairly long hours. Pubs and entertainment establishments can operate 24 hours in some places and secular work is a norm. Even those who observe the Sabbath, are expected to work if thier employer requires it, or risk losing their job. It seems that society has bowed down the mammon and has allowed secular past times and activities to become more important than those who observe the Sabbath.
I remember in the last 2 years of my working life, I became a Christian. I had quite happily worked innumerable Sabbath’s, but something had changed. Jesus had become my Saviour and I had a new set of rules to live out and to live by. All of a sudden, Sunday became precious. It was the time that I could dedicate to worship, family and leisure. In that last two years, I only worked on 2 Sundays, where it could not be avoided, but only if a dispensation was made that I could have time off to attend worship. Conflict could have ensued, others who had to work, could have said that I was given preferential treatment. But somehow God’s grace didn’t allow this to happen. Those who I worked with having been surprised by my conversion, graciously allowed me the time and space to grow and to develop as a Christian and to practice my faith, which I had proclaimed openly in the work place.
I wonder how often that would happen in other work places? I’m not sure, because I continually read of employers not being ‘faith’ friendly and that reasonable accommodation is not being made for people of any faith to practice their religion freely and in accordance with their conscience.
I don’t blame those employers or people who refuse to contemplate that Christianity or any other faith should be a special case, they after all, are as entitled to their views as we are in ours. But it just seems that something has been lost in the transformation and change of the last 50 years or so. That sense of graciousness, of consideration and compassion for others, displayed by my work colleagues towards me, has been lost in many places. It has been subborned to the busyness of life, of the individual and their rights and the pursuit of wealth and personal happiness, not matter what the cost to our souls.
I wonder if it will ever be regained without a wholesale infusion of the Holy Spirit into people’s lives. I pray for it daily.
[1]Image Ear of Corn http://www.fotosearch.com/photos-images/ear-corn.html
FILED UNDER: BIGREAD TAGGED WITH: #BIGREAD12, GOSPEL OF MARK, REFLECTION
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