Mark 2:23-3:6
All four of the gospels tell us basically the same story, but each one bears certain unique marks that set it apart from the other three. Mark’s gospel is believed to be the first one written, probably around the year 70. It is short; it is blunt. Mark has two focuses: Jesus and his disciples. It is all about the relationship between them.
Mark wants us to have a clear and correct understanding of Jesus, in order to have a clear and correct understanding of what it means to be a disciple of Jesus.
But the understanding is not easy, nor is it simple.
As you read Mark’s gospel, pay attention to his disciples and you will see a change happening.
At the beginning, they seem promising. They are eager, enthusiastic, even brilliant at moments. But as we read on, we watch that change. Increasingly, they fail to understand Jesus. And we see that their failure to understand leads them to fail in other ways too.
By the time Mark reaches the end of the gospel, the picture looks quite dismal, as the disciples flee the tomb and say nothing to anyone, because they are afraid. It’s all enough to make you want to throw a shoe at them.
But pause a moment and see how much we are like them.
The Gospel of Mark speaks not only about the relationship between Jesus and his first disciples, it speaks to the life of discipleship in every age. We are like them: sometimes enthusiastic and passionate. Now and then, we shine with brilliance. But much of the time we are hitting our heads against a wall, again and again, unable to figure out how to stop doing that and find a better way.
Even, at times, fleeing from the good news because we are afraid.
Yet Jesus continues to call us, imperfect and frail as we are, and beckons us follow him. So let us follow, right alongside these first disciples and see for ourselves.
Jesus is leading his new disciples through some fields, plucking heads of grain as they go, and consequently challenging the traditional sabbath laws. What about this was unlawful? Work.
Work of any kind was prohibited, and that would include harvesting, or even preparation of food. Eating, of course, was not against the sabbath laws. But any work of gathering and preparing food had to be done before the sabbath.
It seems a trivial thing. But the religious authorities, who cared very much about providing a system of rules that everyone could understand and follow, would not see it as trivial. Breaking a rule in a small way may very easily lead to breaking the rules in larger ways, and soon, there is the fear, the rules no longer matter at all.
Sabbath was, and still is for observant Jews, a way to mark them as different, set apart. It is about identity. We are the people who follow God’s laws and so we remember the sabbath day and keep it holy. And this is how we do that.
This is what Jesus confronts in that moment when he leads his disciples through a field plucking heads of grain to eat. His response to the Pharisees who question this is to say, “The sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the sabbath;
so the Son of Man is lord even of the sabbath.”
The tradition is not lord. The rules are not lord, but the Son of Man is lord, even of the sabbath.
I am pretty sure people were shocked to hear this. I doubt they were able to understand it, but it relates to something he said a bit earlier.
When Jesus was in Capernaum, he called Levi, a tax collector, saying “follow me.” He joined Levi and some of his friends at Levi’s house for dinner. And some Pharisees asked him why he is eating with sinners.
Later, he was asked why he and his disciples do not fast, as other devout Jews do. Interestingly, all these queries have to do with food. How we eat, what we eat, when we eat, who we eat with.
Jesus says to them, “Look. No one sews unshrunk cloth onto an old cloak; no one puts new wine into old wineskins. The old structures do not accommodate the new reality. The old patterns cannot contain the new dynamic.” Jesus cannot be shrunken, reformed, or cut into a shape that fits the old beliefs and traditions. Jesus is new light by which we may see the world God created and our place in it.
He is the lord of the sabbath: by his presence, brokenness will be made whole; evil will be overcome with good; death will be conquered by life.
And he calls us to be his disciples, to follow him. We learn to be like him from following him – as Eugene Peterson says, the long obedience in the same direction.
But it is not always easy to remember who we are following. On this long journey we lose our focus; we let our attention stray to lesser gods.
We make a shift we might not even notice and become disciples of a particular religious leader. And the lines between religious power, civil power, and political power get blurred.
Maybe we turn to a politician, who becomes our north star.
Do you see the danger? It is too easy for us to slide into becoming disciples of a false messiah.
It matters who you follow. Who you are a disciple of does and always has made a difference. Two thousand years ago as much as today. You will learn from, learn to be like, whoever you choose to be a disciple of. If you choose to follow Jesus, then what you will learn is love.
With Jesus, it’s about love. And what a powerful thing that is when it is set loose. And the strange thing about that? The world still cannot get their head around this notion. We are still trying to wrap up the good news of Christ in old ideas of power and tribal allegiances. We are still trying to put this new wine into old wineskins.
To put it in a few words, rules can be helpful. But they become unhelpful when you lose sight of the real point. The real point that Jesus teaches is that people are important, that community is important, that life is precious. The most important rule is to love one another. And figuring out the way to do that is a process we have to be engaged in every day of our lives.
Because you cannot put new wine in old wineskins. The old structures cannot contain the new reality. And Jesus is always the lens through which we may see, the light which will guide us forward.
