SCC Reflection

 

I love sitting around the dinner table when my whole family is together. It’s one of the most enjoyable parts of my day.  Usually, I’m able to understand what’s being said, follow the conversation, and feel close and connected to everyone.  It feels great!  But sometimes, seemingly in the blink of an eye - or faster, my wife and daughters enter into that strange and incomprehensible place of “the secret language.”  All of a sudden they are all laughing hysterically at what has been said or are nodding firmly in unison with deadly serious looks over some point - and I am sitting there completely clueless.  “What the heck are they talking about?! When did I enter the twilight zone!?”  Conversations that began last month (and, I thought, ended) are taken up again, in the middle, with just a word, or a glance.  Frustrated, but unwilling to give up my place in the “family gathered lovingly around the dinner table” scene, I courageously enter the new conversation.  Silence.  Glances exchanged.  Eyes roll.  Someone snickers.

 

You’d think, having grown up in a family with five older sisters, that I would have learned the “secret language.”  I guess not.

 

Today’s Scripture passage may make you feel as I sometimes do around the dinner table, dropped into the middle of a conversation without any context that will give a clue to its meaning.  “What did Jesus do that was so wrong?  Why are the Pharisees so upset?” 

 

If you grew up going to Church listening to a zillion homilies, you might think that you should be able to easily figure this out.  If you can’t, don't feel bad.  Around the dinner table I’m often caught in a world I don’t understand. Today’s reading takes us into a world few of us know anything about – the world of first century Judaism.

 

The Jewish people were committed to upholding God’s command: “Keep the Sabbath holy”.  The Jewish Sabbath (the last day of the week, Saturday) commemorates God resting from the labors of creation “on the seventh day”.  It was seen as a day of physical and spiritual re-creation, a day in which people ceased from their everyday labors and dedicated the time to honoring God. 

 

The difficulty of this, as we know when WE try to relax or pray, is that life intervenes.  Stuff happens.  The rabbis, wisely, tried to accommodate both realities: God’s call to keep the day holy and the fact that the needs of daily life don’t stop just because it’s a holy day.  To do this they put much effort into defining just what would be classified as “work”, thus forbidden, and what was not “work,” and allowed.  However, as happens with many human endeavors, the spirit of the law was forgotten. The good intention of honoring God was lost and a legalist approach began to grow.  The result was that by Jesus’ day there were 39 detailed categories of activity that were forbidden as “work.” 

 

This reading hinges around two of those Sabbath work prohibitions. The first of these is harvesting crops. The second is the prohibition of any healing activity unless a person’s life was in danger.  If the illness or injury were not life threatening then medical treatment should wait until the end of the Sabbath day.

 

Jesus seems to challenge both of these prohibitions.  As He and his disciples walk through a field they pluck heads of grain, rub them between their palms to remove the husks, and eat the grain. Technically, they were harvesting on the Sabbath.  Also, Jesus heals a man whose infirmity was in no way life threatening, and does so, not secretively, but in a very public, “in your face” way.

 

After reading the Scripture passage spend some time jotting down your reflection to the questions provided.  Don’t spend much time writing, just a few key words that will help you verbalize your thoughts.  These are discussion questions, not test questions. There is no “right” answer.  As you enter this conversation with Scripture, allow the Holy Spirit to speak to you through your own reflections and the insights of those gathered with you.