We continue with another section of Walter Wink’s “The Human Being.” This is from the section on the Pre-Easter sayings of Jesus.
This will be the last piece dealing with the story about “plucking grain on the Sabbath” (Mark 2:23-28). Here it is to read:
One Sabbath he was going through the grain fields; and as they made their way his disciples began to pluck heads of grain. The Pharisees said to him, “Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath?” And he said to them , “Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need of food? He entered the house of God, when Abiathar was high priest, and ate the bread of the presence, which is not lawful for any but the priests to eat and he gave some to his companions.” Then he said to them, “The Sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the Sabbath; so the Son of Man is lord even of the Sabbath.”
…Jesus could speak of himself as the Human Being (Son of Man), but also of anyone else (the peasant plowman, for example, or Jesus’ grain-plucking disciples) who could respond out of the higher self, even if it violated current morality. Such sovereign freedom, placed in the hands of the underclass, inevitably strikes terror in the hearts of those entrusted with the tranquility of society. The dramatic location of the initiation of the death plot against Jesus, only a few verses after the story of the plucking of the grain in Mark (3:6), may or may not be chronologically exact, but it is logically appropriate.
The terror that could strike those “entrusted with the tranquility of society” when people begin to consider something more than the law as it is written and then act from what Wink says is a higher self, comes because the order as it is fears chaos. I think that is not a bad thing. Chaos has a tendency to bring with it great destruction…but…and this is a big but…the fear of chaos also prohibits the very creative aspects of humanity that take us beyond the letter of the law. Those steps in life that look after the welfare of others within the vision of what is called the “Human Being” must be taken if we are to realize the depths and wholeness of our humanity within the Reign of God. Just look at the civil rights movement in this country or the movement against apartheid in South Africa. The letter of the law could not be the rule anymore…someone and then others had to step out and eat from the vision beyond the law.
Connection: For the well being of another, do you let the law/rules be bent…or as some may say “loosed.” And if so, what is the outcome. Is it chaos…or is it something creative and whole.
Lord of the Sabbath, lead us within this day to rise up and follow our Lord, Jesus, into the realm of you blessed Reign. Amen.
This will be the last piece dealing with the story about “plucking grain on the Sabbath” (Mark 2:23-28). Here it is to read:
One Sabbath he was going through the grain fields; and as they made their way his disciples began to pluck heads of grain. The Pharisees said to him, “Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath?” And he said to them , “Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need of food? He entered the house of God, when Abiathar was high priest, and ate the bread of the presence, which is not lawful for any but the priests to eat and he gave some to his companions.” Then he said to them, “The Sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the Sabbath; so the Son of Man is lord even of the Sabbath.”
…Jesus could speak of himself as the Human Being (Son of Man), but also of anyone else (the peasant plowman, for example, or Jesus’ grain-plucking disciples) who could respond out of the higher self, even if it violated current morality. Such sovereign freedom, placed in the hands of the underclass, inevitably strikes terror in the hearts of those entrusted with the tranquility of society. The dramatic location of the initiation of the death plot against Jesus, only a few verses after the story of the plucking of the grain in Mark (3:6), may or may not be chronologically exact, but it is logically appropriate.
The terror that could strike those “entrusted with the tranquility of society” when people begin to consider something more than the law as it is written and then act from what Wink says is a higher self, comes because the order as it is fears chaos. I think that is not a bad thing. Chaos has a tendency to bring with it great destruction…but…and this is a big but…the fear of chaos also prohibits the very creative aspects of humanity that take us beyond the letter of the law. Those steps in life that look after the welfare of others within the vision of what is called the “Human Being” must be taken if we are to realize the depths and wholeness of our humanity within the Reign of God. Just look at the civil rights movement in this country or the movement against apartheid in South Africa. The letter of the law could not be the rule anymore…someone and then others had to step out and eat from the vision beyond the law.
Connection: For the well being of another, do you let the law/rules be bent…or as some may say “loosed.” And if so, what is the outcome. Is it chaos…or is it something creative and whole.
Lord of the Sabbath, lead us within this day to rise up and follow our Lord, Jesus, into the realm of you blessed Reign. Amen.
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