In a recent peer-learning session with other young-ish Presbyterian pastors, I heard a colleague present about his church’s creative communal practice of sabbath: once a month they have worship on Saturday night so that everyone can take the whole day off on Sunday. As part of the workshop, he asked us to share our own sabbath practices with the group. I eagerly quoted Rabbi Abraham Heschel’s precept for sabbath activity: “If you work with your hands, sabbath with your mind. If you work with your mind, sabbath with your hands.” “That’s why I love folding laundry on my day off,” I continued. My colleague smiled kindly at me and said, “It’s amazing what we can convince ourselves is not work, isn’t it?” What constitutes permissible sabbath work? That is the point of conflict in these paired controversial stories in Mark. First, Jesus’ disciples pick grain on the Sabbath, the religious rest day. The Pharisees object, and Jesus responds that if David’s men could break the law by eating consecrated bread when they were hungry, then his disciples could bend the rules about harvesting on the Sabbath to satisfy their needs. This puts the Pharisees on high alert. So when Jesus enters the synagogue on the Sabbath, they watch to see if he will heal a man with a withered hand, if he will work on a day when religion instructs him to rest. Jesus does, and again the Pharisees take issue, their anger increasing. Jesus reasons that he is saving the man’s life, and work that saves a life is permitted on the Sabbath. Mark does not record the Pharisees’ counterargument, but I can imagine they thought that since the man’s injury was not life-threatening, healing him could wait until the work week. It’s easy for us to read the hard-hearted Pharisees as the villains in this story, and Jesus, Son of Man, Lord of the Sabbath, as the hero. ... Read the rest of the commentary on the website.
Thank you to this week's writer Ellen Williams Hensle. | 
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