Prayer Practice
Spoken Prayer – Pray aloud, asking God to speak to you as you encounter Jesus, the Lord of the Sabbath, in today’s passage. Praise the Lord for the gift of this witness to Jesus. Invite the Spirit to have ears to hear and eyes to see how you might respond to this story, and how your faith might be grown.
DAILY READING
REFLECTION
Letting God Be God On the Sabbath
by Dan Kidd
It’s easy to sit lofty in judgement over the Pharisees for their 39 categories of prohibited activities on the Sabbath. But let us not forget Exodus 31:14-15:
Observe the Sabbath, because it is holy to you. Anyone who desecrates it is to be put to death; those who do any work on that day must be cut off from their people. For six days work is to be done, but the seventh day is a day of sabbath rest, holy to the Lord. Whoever does any work on the Sabbath day is to be put to death.
Banishment? Death? These are the consequences of breaking Sabbath? Perhaps some nice, clear boundaries are best here. And of course we’re going to err on the side of caution.
But now we read of Jesus’ disciples—in plain sight—taking grain and rubbing it into kernels and eating it! This plainly constitutes the act of grinding; expressly forbidden in the Shabbat tractate of the Talmud. This illegal, immoral activity cannot stand!
Jesus disagreed.
Then there’s Luke’s second story. We are not left to guess at the motives of the Pharisees here. We know for certain that they were looking to accuse Jesus, and they had their eyes peeled on him. Jesus noticed, and he would take this opportunity to clear something up.
The Pharisees designed a set of laws effectively prohibiting God from being God in his house on his day. Jesus needed them to understand that it is indefensible to destroy a life on the Sabbath, and that healing this man’s shriveled hand and saving a life are, to Jesus, the same thing. It was inexcusable that their order of worship did not provide space for the Spirit of the Lord to heal and to save.
Is it possible that I’ve done that too? Is Sabbath serving me or am I serving Sabbath? Is there a portion of my life in which I’ve prohibited God from being God? Is there a room in the house that is my life that’s locked away from the Lord? Am I so rigidly settled into some routine that I’d prefer God not interrupt me?
If so, Lord, I pray that you would unlock that door and enter that room; that you would make me interruptible again; that you would have Sabbath serve me; and that I would surrender all of me to you.
2 comments:
Dan:
I am grateful for your research into the Talmud's Shabbat tractate. This is great documentation for how the Pharisees viewed observation of the law which became more important than heartfelt worship of the Law-Giver.
After reading your blog and today's passage, I am reminded of the calloused hearts of the Pharisees.."their hearts are calloused". To me their rejection of Jesus, even as eye witnesses to many miracles, is validation of the parable of the Sower's first planting which fell on soil and was trampled down. Later this month we will read in Luke 8:12 how the devil takes the Word away from those on this path so they cannot believe and be saved. Sounds unfair, unjust. But today's scripture shows how the devil has calloused the hearts of the Pharisees to such an extent "That seeing they may see, and not perceive; and hearing they may hear, and not understand; lest at any time they should be converted, and their sins should be forgiven them."(Mark 4:12, KJV) .They are willfully in denial of God's mercy to a man with a shriveled hand just for the sake of their traditions and literal reading of the Law.
I must admit sometimes I am a Pharisee at heart. I know my way is the right way, my opinion is the right one and anything to the contrary is of no interest to me. Lord help me to be open so that "hearing I may hear and seeing I may perceive".
Thank you, Dan for today's message. It made me think.
Robin Lorms
Thank you, Robin. I'm grateful for your habit of engaging with daily worship and that you are meeting the Lord in these devotions. Like you, I'm convinced that the Pharisees are all too often the characters that reveal us back to ourselves. We've spent a lot of time with them in our study of Luke, and I'd like to believe they are teaching me the importance of humility, along with a permeable relationship with God's instructions.
And you bring up an interesting point about those calloused hearts of theirs. Clearly they, and all of us, could've have benefited from more time receiving Ezekiel's prophetic promise from the Lord: "I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh." Let it be so with us.
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