Proper 4B, 14 April 2024. The Very Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

• 1 Samuel 3:1-20.  The word of the Lord was rare in those days; visions were not widespread.
• 2 Corinthians 4:5-12.  We have this treasure in clay jars…so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies…in our mortal flesh.
• Mark 2:23 – 3:6. The Sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the Sabbath.

O God of our delight, grant us the strength, the wisdom and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.

This morning, we heard the stirring reading of the call of Samuel with the fantastic introduction that back in the really olden days (prior to 1000 BCE), the word of the Lord was rare, and the ability to see clearly was not widespread! And that assessment is from the perspective of hundreds of years later in the 7th or 6th century BCE! Three thousand or so years ago, people of the Holy One were going through a time of immense societal change, spiritual desolation, religious corruption, and great political danger.” [1] Eli the priest and his sons were responsible for guarding the Ark of the Covenant and its holy oracle.  Eli’s sons were violent and Eli was unable to control or improve their behavior.

This is a story of the subsequent transfer of authority from Eli to Samuel that highlights Eli’s wisdom and integrity, and Samuel’s responsiveness and bravery. The word of God, here, is like a light that is both harsh and bright, both exposing what is shameful and shining like a beacon to light the way. The call that Samuel hears is to prophetic work of declaring both judgment and hope, both repentance and return to the way of obedience to Love (which is another word for God). It’s a call for a better future, new and unconventional. It’s not the story of a grand religious act, but of an invitation to a fresh, and risky social reality based on freedom and the promise of the Holy One.[2] The Bible testifies that God most often chooses to heal the world through intimate gestures. [3] 

The intimacy with the Holy One, and the healing and love that are a part of engaging the vision of a better future, don’t inoculate anyone against calamity or illness, but they sustain our spirits on our journeys. [4] This intimacy with the Holy One will not save us from death any more that it saved Jesus from the cross, but if we allow it to move through us, ultimately it will set us free. This is the point that the apostle Paul is making in his second letter to the church in Corinth, that by God’s mercy, when we are engaged in the ministry of Jesus Christ, we do not lose heart. It is by Love’s mercy that we have the opportunity to love one another. We are all carrying treasure in clay pots – in the containers of our mortal bodies. This intimacy with the Holy One will save us from having our spirits crushed, from being driven to despair, from being forsaken, or destroyed. This intimacy with the Holy One can set us free from even the fear of death. I don’t just know this because the Bible tells me so; I know it because I’ve seen it with my own eyes.

You know, one of the ways to maintain intimacy with the Holy One is to have regular dates, otherwise known as Sabbaths. I want to say some things about Sabbath and about our Gospel reading this morning, but I have to start with Mark’s caricature of the Pharisees, and the libelous ways that Christians refer to this Pharisaic movement within Judaism at the time of Jesus. Pharisees were teachers who sought to extend the benefits Jewish religious observance to all areas of Jewish life for people who lived outside of Jerusalem, far from Jerusalem’s immediate vicinity. The first century Roman Jewish historian, Josephus, described Pharisees as being precise when it came to Jewish life, teaching and encouraging people to live their daily lives with integrity based on their commitments and values, rather than their social or geographic location, according to Jewish New Testament scholars. [5] They were a fairly progressive, proto-rabbinic movement, within which there was a wide range of interpretations of how best to live faithfully. There is plenty of evidence in Jesus’ teachings to suggest that he was at least educated in the Pharisaic movement, if he was not a Pharisee himself. Certainly Jesus had friends who were Pharisees, with whom he regularly traveled and dined. So I implore you to never, never use the word Pharisee as short-hand for someone who is hard-hearted or legalistic, or petty and mean, or incompetent and unfaithful. When Christians do that, we’re saying more about ourselves than we are about Pharisees.

I think it’s best for us, when we hear the word Pharisee, to substitute the word Episcopalian. It’s not a perfect substitute, but it’s pretty close. If you’re not an Episcopalian, substitute a word that describes whatever movement you are a part of, and realize with some humility that such a label could never do justice to describe all of who you are. When you reflect on this Gospel reading, think, “we are the Pharisees.” We are the ones who notice and point out others who violate the norms, who break the rules, who selectively disregard our covenants (our baptismal promises, for example), who go to the police or the government when people create disturbances in our neighborhoods or our places of worship. Just sayin’. So let’s understand that Jesus is arguing with us, reminding us that the commandment to rest is for our benefit, not for God’s benefit, and that gathering food and freeing others from harm are reasonable, even faithful, responses to human need on the Sabbaths. Responding to creaturely need was and still is a legitimate on the Sabbath. 

One of the things that gets lost in translation of our Gospel story – it’s a willful mistranslation actually, is that this is not a story about one day on one Sabbath. It’s plural. The ancient text says, “as it happened on the Sabbaths, Jesus was going through the grainfields and his disciples began to make [their] way plucking the heads of grain. The complaint is that Jesus’ disciples regularly plucked heads of grain on Sabbaths. Jesus’ response is to give a rationale for his followers to gather grain on the Sabbath by reminding folks of a story from the scriptures (back to 1 Samuel). I think it’s a misunderstanding to interpret this passage as Jesus teaching about when it’s okay to violate the law. Jesus defends their lawful right by reminding everyone of David and his companions who were fugitives, running from King Saul. The story is that David and his companions were hungry and asked Ahimelech (who was Abiathar’s father) for bread. David asked for five loaves of regular bread, or whatever Ahimelech had to give.

Ahimelech responded that he didn’t have any regular bread. All he had was the Bread of the Presence, 12 consecrated loaves of bread, made with the finest wheat, that were placed every Sabbath on a special table near the entrance of The Holy of Holies, and eaten by the priests at the end of each week to make room for 12 more hot, fresh loaves. The consecrated loaves were a perpetual reminder of the abundance of God’s generosity. Even though David and his companions weren’t priests, Ahimelech told David that he would give them that bread if David’s companions were pure vessels. David gave Ahimelech assurance that even on a common journey or mission, his companions were undefiled. In other words, David and his companions qualified. In our Gospel story, Jesus is asserting that he and his companions also qualify as holy vessels. Jesus is teaching that the law is large enough and compassionate enough to encompass care for all who are without adequate food and water, all who are sick and in prison, all who are without dignified shelter or clothing. This is about a priesthood of all belovers.

What angers and grieves Jesus in the story is hardness of heart, callousness, unresponsive stubbornness. Ironically, one of the things that can cause hardness of heart is lack of rest. Resentment is nearly always born out of not getting one’s basic needs met. So I want to remind you about the central importance of remembering the Sabbaths to be holy – that is, set apart, completely “other.” To remember the Sabbaths to be “other” means that they are consecrated or set apart or withheld from ordinary use. They are for reverence, for rest, for refreshment. They are not for anything productive. This is most challenging and counter-cultural and it always has been. It might be the most foolishly extravagant thing ever commanded in the history of the world – and the most necessary. 

Keeping Sabbaths is not so much about a long list of dos and don’ts – it’s about what Walter Brueggemann calls “a disciplined and regular disengagement from the systems of productivity whereby the world uses people up to exhaustion.” Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg writes that this is “not just counteractive but prophylactic …time has to be made for time.” [6] The restrictive qualities in Christian tradition and in popular imagination have generally obscured the purpose of cultivating joy of experiencing God’s pleasure in creation. Because we share our home with a Jewish synagogue here at 15 Newbury Street, some of you know that what Christians call “coffee hour” (a terrible name), Jews call oneg Shabbat – Sabbath delight. Doesn’t that sound so much more beautiful and delicious and playful? (It is.) You might try practicing extended Sabbath joy all day on a Sunday. If you can’t manage a whole day, start with a portion of a day, regularly set aside for Sabbath delight.

“But I have so much to do,” I can hear some of you thinking. It occurs to me that perhaps the only way for everyone to get Sabbath rest is for us to take turns – some work while others rest. Sabbath cannot rightly be only for those who are wealthy enough to afford leisure. And I think Jesus was actually arguing that very point – for those who are famished, for those who are suffering, a right response is to take turns attending to their needs. Evangelism is, after all, about one beggar showing another beggar where some bread is. 

You know, we are living in a time of immense societal change, spiritual desolation, religious corruption, and great political danger. The call to remember Sabbath, pressing pause, stopping for rest and refreshment, “a disciplined and regular disengagement from the systems of productivity whereby the world uses people up to exhaustion,” is a gift from the Holy One for us – it is a treasure in a clay jar. If we rest and provide for the rest of others, we will find that though we are afflicted in every way, we are not crushed; perplexed but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed, and the light of Redeeming Love will surely come shining out of our hearts wherever we go.

1. Bruce C. Birch, “1 & 2 Samuel,” The New Interpreter’s Bible, Vol II (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1998), pp. 994-995.
2. Walter Brueggemann, First and Second Samuel, in Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching (Louisville: John Knox Press, 1990), pp. 27-28.
3. auren Winner, A Word to Live By, in Church’s Teachings for a Changing World, Vol. 7 (New York: Church Publishing Company, 2017), p. 16.
4.  Ibid.
5. See the treasure trove of material in the appendices of The Jewish Annotated New Testament, edited by Amy-Jill Levine and Marc Zvi Brettler (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011).
6. Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg, The Particulars of Rapture: Reflections on Exodus (New York: Doubleday, 2001), pp. 496-7.