Mark 2:23-3:6

This is a classic confrontation with the Pharisees. Unfortunately, it is often overlooked. It was not pointed out to me in a sermon, rather by an author in an essay, David James Duncan. He gives an excellent history and analysis of the Fundamentalist Christian Right movement in the latter decades of the 20th century in his collection of articles titled "God Laughs and Plays". With this passage, he points out how the Bible says the opposite of what they say. They would be more likely to remember a partial line like, "so the Son of Man is lord even of the Sabbath", while skipping over that it was made for humankind.

The Pharisees are depicted as hypocrites, sticking to a strict interpretation of Torah law, but forsaking traditions of justice. No specific names for them are mentioned and their actual philosophy is not completely clear from the historical data. There were differences of opinion on how to interpret Mosaic Law in the time leading up to the writing of the gospels, so one person saying someone else has it wrong is not that surprising. The difference here is pretty clear, if someone is sick or needs to be fed, the rule about not working on Sunday doesn't apply. Seems like a pretty easy choice, but when Jesus reaches out in human kindness, the Pharisees begin their plot to bring him down.

The sad thing about this story, it is all too familiar today. A modern believer in Jesus might not be against feeding people on a Sunday, but many of them would not want the dominant political powers to be questioned either. As Dom Helder Camara said in Brazil in the 1970's when he was opposing the military regime and working for the less favored people, "When I feed the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor are hungry, they call me a communist."

1 Samuel 3:1-10, (11-20)

We just did this one a few weeks ago, during Epiphany. We're going to be covering the two Samuel books in detail over the next few months. They are pivotal books. In the stories before those books, there are scattered tribes and men like Moses and Abraham who talk to God but aren't prophets exactly. By the end, there is a united kingdom, at least according to these stories anyway.

Deuteronomy 5:12-15

This is an odd lection. It's part of the second reading of the commandments. Depending on how you parse them, it's 14 or 15 of them. I guess they needed a review since Moses smashed his original copy. They aren't exactly the same as before either. This is something that religious people pretend to not care about and non-religious people are not surprised about it and don't care too much about the details either. Maybe because of the Mark passage, the Lectionary creators thought it was important to remind us that the Sabbath is holy.

I covered the Exodus passage last year.

2 Corinthians 4:5-12

Second Corinthians might not have been written by Paul. This passage reflects him fairly well though. It makes prolific use of the analogies to slaves and being persecuted. At the time, that was actually the audience. It's a bit hard to take from Christians today who talk about being persecuted and afflicted, then drive off in their Mercedes.

This passage is about, and ends with, a statement that this life is not about this life, it's about preparing for death and what comes after. You will see Jesus working his magic so no matter what evil you see or how bad things get, you'll know that's what you are really living for. That's the only interpretation I've heard anyway.