Law Bends Down to Love

Transcripts are AI-generated and may not be 100% accurate.

Hi everyone. Um, my little rough start there of jumping in, might have to do with a little lack of sleep. Um, usually it's Matt who runs in here going, “I haven't slept in days,” but, uh, tonight I can say it's, it's me. And wow, what a week. Have you ever had one of those weeks where you feel like you're holding everything together? Like really, really good stuff, but also really, really hard stuff? 

A week ago I was officiating a wedding on Saturday, officiating a funeral on Sunday, a heart-heavy pastoral care week, including someone who's become a dear friend and, talking about some hard end of life stuff that just weighs, weighs on all of us. That's hard and heavy. And then at the end of the week I was thinking like, okay, Friday is my day. I am gonna work on my sermon. I have nothing scheduled. Do a little workout class in the morning and don't I, in the middle of my workout class, see my phone go on and get a little call from my daughter 10 days before she's due and her water breaks and she is at the hospital. “Mom, get to the hospital.” 

So here's little Millie Moberg was born on Friday, and uh, for those of you who don't know, my daughter Kate is married to Matt’s brother Jordan, which makes all this even weirder. His brother Jordan, my son-in-law was in a tree stand when this happened. Um, so we were rushing to the hospital and we made it there. But um, Matt made me promise that I'd say my granddaughter was born on Friday, but also his niece. And to that point, if you saw our Table team text, I had texted earlier in the day, “Hey guys, prayers for Jordan and Kate. Kate's water broke. We'll be at the hospital” and a few hours later there's a picture of Millie on our table team text put on there by Matt who said “On another note, I had a niece born today.” And of course I had to respond, “What a coincidence, I had a granddaughter born, too!”
So it has been a week and our little Millie wasn't quite following the rules. She just like her brother Ben, came early and kind of threw us all for a loop. And ironically, tonight we're talking just a little bit about that, about rules and relationship and law and love and all those things. And we're continuing on in the book Mark. As Matt says, at week after week, we're easing our way through. Well, we're already in chapter three, so here we go. Mark 3:1-6: 

“Another time, Jesus went into the synagogue and a man with a shriveled hand was there. Some of them were looking for a reason to accuse Jesus. So they watched him closely to see if he would heal him on the Sabbath. Jesus said to the man with the shriveled hand, ‘Stand up in front of everyone.’ Then Jesus asked them,”—which is the Pharisees—“which is lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill? But they remained silent. He looked around at them in anger and, deeply distressed at their stubborn hearts, said to the man,’Stretch out your hand.’ And he stretched it out and his hand was completely restored. Then the Pharisees went out and began to plot with the Herodians how they might kill Jesus.”

Now the Hebrew word for Sabbath is Shabbat, which simply it means stop, stop and rest. The world will continue on without you, God is [God] and you are you. So stop and rest. And the Sabbath-keeping thing, what's important about it, it was really important to Jewish identity. They define themselves this way because over the centuries of exile, over those centuries living as strangers in other countries, they were the only people that held a day a week for rest. 

And the commandment for the Sabbath came in Exodus. And it's grounded of course in the story of Genesis, that God, you know, created everything in six days. And on the seventh day he rests. So God rests so God's people rest. But it's a little more than that for the Jewish people because in Deuteronomy, the Sabbath commandment is also tied to slavery, their experience of slavery. Because in Egypt, um, under Pharaoh's rule, there was no rest. There was no time off unless you were free. So under Pharaoh's rule and the continuing building of, of um, bricks and the harsh conditions, there was no rest. So when this commandment comes and when they pause and rest, what they're reminded of is God's goodness of God's rescuing them from slavery. 

And at the end of the day, what's so important about this is that it's a gift. It's a gift of life given by God. And in this gift, it's where we see the heart of God, that what God wills for all of us is the abundant life. So right before this in Mark, there's a story, Jesus breaking rules again, again on the Sabbath. And he's walking through some grain, some fields of grain with his disciples and they start picking them and eating them. And of course the Pharisees see it and they ask, “Why are you doing this? Breaking the law again on the Sabbath?” 

And Jesus responds by pointing back to a story about David and how David, he enters this house of God with his companions and they eat this consecrated bread that is meant only for the priest. So again, David's breaking the law, but he points back to it. 'cause the point of the story is that feeding someone who's hungry is far more important than holding onto the law. So Jesus applies the same logic in this story. His disciples were hungry, they needed something to eat. And here's what Jesus says in Mark's version, right before the text we're in right now: “the Sabbath was made for humankind and not humankind for the Sabbath. So the son of man is Lord even of the Sabbath.” At the end of the day, the Sabbath is meant to be life giving, not life harming. 

Now by Jesus's time there was lots of different Jewish sects. And so there's lots of arguments over the exact rules of honoring the Sabbath, what constituted work: lighting a fire to cook, uh, taking your cattle out to be fed. But in all of the arguments and the discussions, the religious leaders, they lost sight of the most important thing that Sabbath is meant to be a gift of life. 

So here's what I want y'all to do. I want you to visualize the story we're in the text, I read at the beginning. If you want you can close your eyes—although don't keep 'em closed the whole rest of the time, I'll know you're sleeping. But visualize the story. The people gathered a worship in this synagogue. Put yourselves right there. See the persons, listen to the conversations. Observe what's happening and feel the tension. Will Jesus actually, will he heal the man with the shriveled hand or not? Who will win the argument that's going on? Feel the emotions that must have been in the room that night. 

Now Mark doesn't tell us how Jesus felt toward the man with a disability, but we could probably gather that because he does end up peeling him. So we're assuming he had empathy and compassion for that man. But he does tell us how he felt about the Pharisees. He was angry, he was grieved at their hardened hearts that they would choose to observe the law, the legal code, than to be touched by the plight of their fellow human being. It looks pretty calloused and uncaring.

But I think it's way too easy for us to look and go, oh, the Pharisees are the bad guys. The man with the shriveled hand. He's the guy to be pitied and Jesus, that's who we're aspiring to be like, right? But I think the question for us, 'cause there's so much to take out of this short text, who are we? Who am I? Who are you in this text? And my guess is 'cause I know it's true of me, that I have often, at different seasons and different times, been each of those characters in my own life. 

So we have the Pharisees, those who in their attempt to protect the Sabbath, they actually put so many restrictions on it that it just sucks the life outta the Sabbath. Now Jesus, he shocks the Pharisees, right? Because for them religion is meant to be observance of rituals, of regulations, of rules. And in the face of Jesus's way, their hearts they’re rigid, they're unbending. The Pharisees, what they were though, they were clear about the world, they knew their place in it. They knew God's plan for it. The words and actions of Jesus totally turned all of that upside down. The Sabbath day was restricted. It was incompatible with God's intention for the Sabbath. 

And I think that's where they went wrong because we wanna ask what happened to the religious leaders? What corrupting influence could have possibly gotten hold of their hearts? What made them stiff and rigid and hanging on having the rules be above the love of God? 

You know, it's interesting because when Jesus asked that question in the text, when he asks this question “Which is lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill?” they remain silent. A child could have answered that question. Of course the Sabbath is a day for life giving, not harming. Everyone knows this. Those men in that room knew that. But yet they remained silent. Why? 

And I think it happens to all of us, not just about Sabbath, not just about religion, but in our everyday lives. It happens that slowly over time, our love for God in this story, their love for God was replaced—they replaced that love for their religion. In other words, their traditions, their interpretations had become the irreplaceable objects of their affection. They weren't there for God anymore. But for these religious practices and all those practices did what gave them a sense of their own self-worth and importance. And ultimately it kind of places them above everybody else, somehow their own holiness. And here's what happens when you start to love those things: it makes you blind to what it's all about. 

I had so many examples I could think about in my own life, especially as I got older, when I was younger, I can think of time and time again where I thought I had all the answers. I know better than you. It better look just like this. Fortunately, as I grow older and live more life and see that there's a lot of gray, I'm able to hold those things more loosely. 

But one thing that really came to mind is probably in my thirties and forties, I had a lot of friends that were doing a lot of great Bible studies. But after a while I started to see some people hold the Bible up above God and God's love. I can remember clearly, I had a friend who so badly wanted her husband to know Jesus and her prayer request over and over again was “I just pray that he can get into BSF and into a good Bible study.” And over and over again I was like, “wow, God is so much bigger.” The Bible's awesome, lovely inspired word of God, but the Bible is not equal to this big huge God that we just get a glimpse of and we're trying to follow. 

But I’m guessing that everybody out there could relate. And maybe again, not just about the Sabbath, but we all have laws, right? We all have rules for ourselves, we all have boundaries. And those are important, don't get me wrong. But we always have to be flexible. We always have to be able to move and shift as things happen because we can easily lose sight and become blind ourselves and we can forget. 

And maybe it's just the little things that we sort of have these rules around. Like my kid will always go to bed at this bedtime or I refuse to take any calls on my day off. Or maybe it's something like, I don't ever sing any Christmas carols during the advent season. But also sometimes it's bigger things, right? It's bigger things like traditional gender roles or human sexuality. But whatever it is, there are some laws we feel we should keep because I think we think if we don't, what else is gonna unravel? How many times have we heard that in the history of this country? 

Maggie, you talked about, you know, in the [SBC], whatever the [Southern Baptist Convention] is, I wasn't one, but I read during the whole time about how nope, women will not be preachers, they're equal, but their role is different. I mean, again, the reasoning behind that. But if we let them speak in front of people, then what next? I mean years ago, is was: they might be working outside the home. I mean this is the thought that comes outta hanging tight to these rules and these laws to, to leaning into fear instead of love and flourishing and graciousness. 

So I think we can all relate to that. That is the way of the law, right? The law matters. It helps us keep order to our life. It helps us keep the peace, it helps us keep needed boundaries creates room for us to flourish. The law matters because it encourages us. It encourages us to look beyond ourselves, to love our neighbors.

But as important as the law is and notice that Jesus doesn't set aside the law but rather offers a different interpretation of the law. It must always, the law must always bow to mercy and to life and to freedom. The law helps us live better. But grace creates life itself. The law helps order in the world. But grace is what holds the world together. And above all the laws that have ever been received and conceived, the absolute law is love. That's it. That's our bar. That's how we measure. That's what we should be questioning and discerning about is love. 

One other interesting aspect of this healing story is that you know Jesus, he actually doesn't ever touch the man with the shriveled hand. He just speaks the words that actually heal him. And it makes it even more absurd that these Pharisees then would object to it because there is no law regarding the Sabbath that requires, that says you can't speak. So I think that their reaction in discussing what they might do to Jesus is much more of a sign of fear than legitimate concern for the law. 

'Cause let's face it, they were, they were threatened by Jesus. There's fear of losing power, losing their position. I mean this is a guy who ate with tax collectors and claimed he could forgive sins and his disciples didn't bother to fast. Jesus was a threat to all that they held sacred and he was gaining tons of followers. And I think that happens to us when we're in the role of the Pharisee, that often we are fearful. We're hanging onto something that maybe we don't even know we're hanging onto. And that's why it's so important to name it and to look at it being the pharisee in the story. I think we've all been there. 

But what about the man with the withered hand? That's way easier to relate to, right? 'cause we all got our stuff. We're all broken, our stories all have hard pieces. This man with the withers, with the withered hand though and I talked about this a few weeks ago, that in that culture he would've looked down upon, many would've thought that his withered hand was because God was judging him from some sin or sin of his parents. 

It's interesting too because this flawed vision, this flawed perspective along with our own humanness, right, would've made this man probably have a desire to avoid being looked at, to avoid being called up front. He might have had a measure of shame and embarrassment over his disability, but Jesus calls him forward and he heals him. Mark uses the word, he restores him. And he restores not only him, his hand, but his humanity as well. 

We all have that brokenness. We all have things that we're embarrassed about. Bad habits, unreasonable emotions, broken relationships, personal failures. We aren't who we're supposed to be or what we could be. We wished we could be different. But Jesus comes along, he meets us. He met the man where he was at. He'll meet us where we are at 'cause He wants to restore us. He wants to remind us that we are loved just as we are. And he meets us in that place. And he says, stand up, come forward. Don't be anonymous anymore. And that's what's important for us. It's exactly what God wants from us. Just like the man in this story. He wants us to name our need and to and so that he can meet it. And whether that's through confession or admitting our weakness or our fears or getting or pulling down the facade that we live with, it's then that the restoration and the healing actually happens. 

This man had to believe, right? He had to believe in Jesus. He had no idea what was gonna happen. But something in him, something in him made him stand. When Jesus told him to stand, he had to believe in him. He had to obey him. Jesus said, stretch out your hand. I love that this man, he didn't argue with Jesus. He didn't say, “Well, I've never ever been able to stretch out this withered hand.” Jesus said, stretch out. And he was able to, he was able to stretch out his hand where he could never have done it before and it was restored. 

I think the question we ask ourselves when we look at who we are in this text is what is it that weighs you down? What is it that you are burdened with today? And maybe it's a physical ailment like the man in the gospel. Maybe it's anxiety or depression or grief and loss of a loved one. Maybe it's disappointment, maybe it's just just plain weariness. But whatever burden you're carrying, whatever is weighing you down, hear the good news from this story, which is, God wills life For you. A full life, a flourishing life. 

It's God who sets you free from whatever binds you. It's God who forgives sins. It's God who heals your diseases of your mind, your body, your spirit. It's God that lifts the terrible burdens from your shoulders. And I think sometimes those burdens, they're kind of hard to let go of, aren't they? Long held guilt, old resentments, heavy grief. Sometimes those burdens have been a part of us for so long that we don't even know how to let go of 'em. 

But what this story is about, it's telling us that the Gospel, that Jesus speaks a new word into these old patterns. And that new word is about healing and it's about liberation. What are the burdens that need to be lifted? What healing needs to be taking place in our lives today? I imagine there's not a one of us that can't relate to the man with the withering hand in some way or another. 

And what about Jesus? How do you see yourself as Jesus in the story? 'Cause after all, we are a people, we aspire to practice the ways of Jesus. We're committed to that. And this controversy over a man with a withered hand, it actually seals Jesus' fate. I mean, we kind of know what happens down the road. But for Jesus and that means for us, religion meant service, doing good, restoring life. 

Jesus calls the man forward and he asks the key question of purpose: what kind of action should be done on the Sabbath? For Jesus for sure, there's no reason that this man should have to suffer one more day than he's already suffering. And this choice that Jesus offers, it's not between doing something or doing nothing. The choice is between doing good or doing harm. And the implication of Jesus's question is that acting is not the only way to dishonor the Sabbath. That choosing not to act often results in harm or danger to another, and that dishonors the Sabbath. 

So there's our question, are we willing to act? And like Jesus, often being willing to act comes at a cost. I love that Jesus is able to hold tradition while embodying change. 'Cause isn't that the life of faith that, what did Jesus say right before the Sermon of the Mount? “I, I came not to abolish the law, I came to fulfill the law.” To make it bigger and broader, to make it be about a flourishing life. So I think the question for us is, do we have the kind of courage, the kind of hope, the kind of faith to take a good look and to let go of what needs to be let go of. 

I was thinking about this text and what good timing it is. So many pieces of it for us as a community. 'Cause I think we're in a new season, the next season. As we look at what's our next step and being a flourishing community, whether that's a move or not, change of time or not. Because what Matt and I and our team talk about all the time is we're not just gonna be the church to continue to be the church because it's what you do for the sake of it. We want to continue to be the church because we think it matters. We want to continue to be something that's flourishing, that's good news in the world. And we know that it's gonna look different, that it has looked. And we're gonna be open to that and open to the Spirit move. 

And we're gonna let go of what those rules or those traditions or those regulations that we've always, “well, you're a good Christian if you go to church every Sunday, you're a good Christian if you read your Bible every day, you're a good Christian if you make sure you're pure till you're married.” All those things that over and over again have been held up to say, this is what a life of faith looks like. Oh my gosh. Life of faith is so much bigger than that. 

We want the certainty, we want the easy answers. And that is not the life of faith friends. It is not that at all. So what I say is, I end this tonight is I guess my encouragement. Let's be the church. Let's be open-handed, let's hold sacred some of those traditions that we've loved and have been a part of who we are. And let's let go of those that just don't make sense anymore. When we think about what it means to love God and love our neighbor and to do that well, it's letting go of fear and control and feeling like we have the answers. 'cause I'll say, and I think it's probably been clear from this community, we've never felt like we have the answers, but we do think this is a community that loves really, really well. I'll take that. 

At the end of the day, God insists that the law does not and will not have the last word for there will always be times always when the law must bend to compassion and to love. Let me pray. 

Holy and gracious God, it is so easy sometimes to hang on to things that we believe to be the rule or the law or the regulation because somehow it makes us feel like we got it. We get this, we're in control. We know what we're doing. But the reality is, God, we don't. The reality is life is hard and holy and beautiful and sad and joyous and all those things. But Jesus came, he turned all that upside down. And what he showed us is that you don't have to know every step ahead, that you don't have to know exactly what's next. But what you do have to do, love God and love one another. Help us to be those people. Help us to step forward in faith. Help us to be open-handed. Help us to love well, to love each other, to love you, to love this broader community that we're a part of. I pray it all in the name of Jesus.