The CROSSroads: Personal Lessons from Mark's Gospel by Rev. Mitch Schultz

Updated
2001-05-26; 14:34:15utc

Lesson Fourteen: LOOSEN UP (Mark 2:18-28)

It is here that Jesus shows us that you don't have to live a rigid life to be holy. Many Christians would do well do study his example. I grew up in a strong missionary setting (see previous devotional) where early on I learned to associate holiness with the do's and don'ts of Christian living at the boarding school where I attended. No sports on Sunday. hair had to be at a certain length, and at one point the dorm parents insisted on measuring girls dresses to assure the distance between the knees and the hem of the dress did not exceed 4 inches. The leadership meant well and only functioned within the attitude of that day when Christians furiously sought to fight against the tide of rebellion against authoritarianism. There were many times I wondered what all this really had to do with the Christian life.

Similarly the Pharisees in our story were close to losing the heart factor of Sabbath keeping. People could not be blamed for asking what the Sabbath was really for anyway and what it really had to do with holiness. God never meant for the Sabbath to become a measure or rule for holiness but he did intend that it help his people to live out their holiness. Is Jesus suggesting here though that it is possible to break rules and still remain within the boundary lines of godly living? If the rules are man-made than then the answer to this is yes. At this moment in history the Jewish religious leaders had imposed so many rules on God's people it became literally impossible for the faithful to even come close to measuring up. Trying became such a burden that by the time Jesus came the heart factor had been completely lost in the maze of legal living. What God intended from the Sabbath was no longer recognizable.

By having his disciples eat grain on the Sabbath, Jesus was not attempting to relax the rules but rather redirect people to the only rule of holiness, to what Sabbath keeping was originally intended for. This had to do with the condition of mans heart, not his ability to live up to heavy demands.

What Jesus also sought to include here is that his presence with the disciples in that field and his participation with them made this activity perfectly acceptable. We find here a precise measure of whether something we do is acceptable to God or not. That is, is it something Jesus would willingly do with us? Here are some pointed questions to ask ourselves as we look for the heart factor in all our activities. Would Jesus be found sitting with us watching a particular program on television? Would we find him comfortably listening to our conversation? Would he be pleased with the places we go? Yet in all this let us be careful not to become so rigid that we lose the heart factor. Here is the only rule to holiness that we are to measure our lives against: "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength." (Mark 12:30) Some Christians have become so rigid they have lost this measuring stick along their walk toward holiness.

So here is a little advice. Loosen up, and go enjoy some ears of corn once in a while, even if it is Sunday.

There are people who do not want us to be free. They don't want us to be free before God, accepted just as we are by his grace. They don't want us to be free to express our faith originally and creatively in the world. They . . . insist that all look alike, talk alike and act alike, thus validating one another's worth. Without being aware of it we become anxious about what others will say about us, obsessively concerned about what others think we should do. We no longer live the good news but anxiously try to memorize and recite the script that someone else has assigned to us. We may be secure, but we will not be free. -Eugene Peterson