Courageous Imagination: Relationships Over Rules
Introduction
In the delightful children’s picture book, “Frog and Toad Together,” by Arnold Lobel, the first chapter is called The List. Before I read this, I need to offer credit to Kevin Peters Unrau, pastor at Hillcrest Mennonite. Years ago he led a worship and reflection time for Rockway teachers using this story and some of the themes we are reflecting on today. So I want to recognize him as a conversation partner in the shaping of my reflections today.
Read it aloud.
Toad structured his day based on The List. He was focused on crossing things off his List–so focused that when The List blew away, he didn’t know what to do. He froze. Even when his friend Frog suggests running after The List to catch it, Toad can’t do that because running after The List is not one of the things that he wrote on his List of things to do! And because he can’t remember any of the things that were on his List of things to do, he decides he will have to just sit and do nothing. Toad prioritizes The List–the structure for his day. Frog prioritizes their friendship–he chases after The List for his friend, and when he can’t catch it, he returns and simply sits with Toad.
Toad’s List can be a metaphor for how we do things in the church. I think all churches have a sort of List, a set of rules (written or unwritten) that they cling to. When have we been like Toad in this congregation? When have we been like Frog? This interplay between Toad and Frog, between rules and relationships is worth paying attention to for followers of Jesus. What does that look like at SJMC? What can we learn from Jesus about this?
Teachable Moments: Exploring the Biblical Text
In both of today’s biblical stories, Jesus has a run in with the Pharisees over what is lawful to do on the Sabbath. First Jesus is criticized because his disciples pick and eat heads of grain, and then because he heals the man with the withered hand. The law in question is from the 10 Commandments, “Remember the Sabbath day, and keep it holy. Six days you shall labour and do all your work. But the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work (Exodus 20:8-10a). Of course, like any law there is still much left for interpretation. What constitutes work? What is the best way to “keep the Sabbath”?
In the Jewish faith there is a wonderful tradition of engaging with the law by discussing and parsing out what each of the laws mean, and how to best live them out in every new circumstance. There is no end to the lively debate about exactly how to keep the law. This oral tradition is a way of carefully planting what’s been described as a hedge or a fence around the law to safeguard both the law and those practicing the law. It is like an extra layer of protection, so that if you break one of those particulars that are part of the fence, you don’t actually break the heart of the law itself.
Keeping the Sabbath was, and is an important part of Jewish practice, defined with great care by the rabbis. In Jesus’ day thirty-nine kinds of work were forbidden on the Sabbath, including “sowing, plowing, reaping, threshing…winnowing…grinding, sifting, kneading and baking. Spinning and weaving, hunting and slaughtering, building, hammering, and transporting,” according to Wayne Muller in his book “Sabbath: Finding Rest, Renewal, and Delight in Our Busy Lives” (Muller, 29). There were also rules about how far you could walk on the Sabbath, and how much you could carry. We might call these “nit-picking” rules, but for Jews, including the Pharisees and Jesus, the way that you showed your love for God was by obeying the law. So when the Pharisees see Jesus’ disciples plucking grain on the Sabbath they accuse Jesus and his followers of breaking the Sabbath. And when Jesus heals the man with a withered hand, they get upset too, because in their strictest interpretation it had to be a life and death situation before you could offer help to a stricken animal or person on the Sabbath.
Jesus responds directly, using these incidents as teachable moments. He defends the behaviour of his disciples with a three part argument, all of it appealing to Scripture.
First, he says, David and his soldiers ate the holy bread in the tabernacle when they were hungry, bread which only priests were supposed to eat. So, his argument goes, a servant of God can permit his followers to set aside a ritual law because of hunger. Second, Jesus notes that priests have to perform duties (that is, work) in the temple on the Sabbath. Here Jesus argues that his cause is greater even than the temple. And third, Jesus asks his opponents to consider what is the true intent of the Sabbath law. And he quotes a passage from Hosea 6:6, “I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.”
In the case of healing on the Sabbath, Jesus makes it personal to his listeners. What if one of your sheep fell into a pit or a ravine on the Sabbath? Wouldn’t you pull it out? If it is right to help a sheep on the Sabbath, how much more so a fellow human being?
It is right to do good on the Sabbath, he concludes, and proceeds to heal the man with the withered hand. It is an act of mercy. In both of these stories we can see that Jesus does not follow the letter of the law. He puts relationships ahead of the Sabbath rules. He prioritizes the well-being of people ahead of a system or structure.
Keeping the Sabbath and performing the ritual sacrifices at the Temple were two of the most important institutions in the Jewish tradition–they defined what it meant to be a Jew. For Jesus to claim authority over them, to play fast and loose with the rules and practices around them was a threat aimed at the very heart of the tradition.
Besides healing on the Sabbath, Jesus got in trouble for breaking or bending all sorts of rules. He called tax collectors to be part of his group of disciples when they were considered traitors of Israel. He broke the laws of “clean” and “unclean” by touching a leper to heal him, by eating with so-called “sinners,” and by eating without doing the ritual hand washing that was expected. He quieted a mob ready to stone a woman to death based on the law, because she had been caught in the very act of adultery. He and his disciples didn’t fast when they were supposed to, he broke a whole bunch of barriers and taboos by talking to a Samaritan woman, and he stepped out of line by offering forgiveness for sins, when only God was supposed to be able to do that. In all of these cases, Jesus put people ahead of the rules, and it infuriated the Pharisees. So much so that at the end of today’s passage we read, “the Pharisees went out and conspired against him, how to destroy him” (Matt. 12:14).
It’s not that Jesus was trying to throw out the law. He takes issue with the way that these extra layers of interpretation, that hedge or fence that we described earlier, sometimes blunted or obscured the meaning and the intent of the law. In the Sermon on the Mount we regularly hear him say, “You have heard it said…but I say to you…” (Matthew 5:21-48). He tries to “get to the heart of the law, and to probe what it truly means to be faithful.” This has often been called “Torah intensification” (“Recovering Jesus: The Witness of the New Testament”, Tom Yoder Neufeld, 208).
The Heart of the Sabbath
So, in the case of the stories we read today, what is at the heart of the Sabbath law for Jesus? How does he intensify the Torah teachings around Sabbath? In the case of someone hungry or suffering, Jesus says it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.
From his Jewish tradition Jesus understood that at its heart, the Sabbath is meant as a gift of creation; it is meant to be a blessing. It is not meant to be a burden. The Sabbath is all about our well being. “Ancient rabbis teach that on the seventh day, God created menuha–tranquility, serenity, peace, and repose–rest in the deepest possible sense of fertile, healing stillness. Until the Sabbath, creation was unfinished” (Muller, 37). One rabbi describes it as a day to “pamper my soul” (Muller, 30). I have also heard the Sabbath described as the “Queen” of the days. As the week comes to a close we look forward to Sabbath with anticipation and longing, and after the Sabbath its experience of “spaciousness and delight” (Muller, 30), seeps into the following days, so that the whole week is infused with Sabbath.
It is a day set aside. It is about ceasing, stopping, stepping back and resting from working, striving, efforting, earning, proving ourselves, trying to be the masters of our own destiny, believing that it all depends on us. In Jesus’ day unfortunately, the Pharisees became overly legalistic, focused on the prohibitions, making the day grim and suffocating, draining the joy and spontaneity and passion out of what was meant to be a “gratuitous day of delight” (Muller, 31).
There is another aspect of Sabbath. “By saying no to making some things happen, deep permission arises for other things to happen…love, friendship, prayer, touch, singing, rest–can be born in the space created by our rest” (Muller, 29-30). The point of the Sabbath “is the space and time created to say yes to sacred spirituality, sensuality, sexuality, prayer, rest, song, delight” (Muller, 30). Sabbath creates space for worship and witness to the goodness of God, for being restored from the wounds of the week, and yes, space for relationships.
So when Jesus heals the man with the withered hand on the Sabbath, he is touching into the meaning at the very heart of this tradition–goodness. Sabbath is a gift! Sabbath is good for humans. Is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath? Yes! Of course it is! At its best, that is what the Sabbath is all about!
So What About Our Structures?
Instead of throwing out the rules about the Sabbath Jesus intensifies them–takes them back to their deepest, truest intent–serving the good of humanity. It reminds me of what Jack Suderman says in his book about the nature of the church called, “The Baby and the Bathwater.” Jack addresses what he calls “the most frequent critique” of the church–the church has become “institutionalized” which is seen as a bad thing compared to being a spiritual movement. But Jack goes on to reframe this negative impression of institutions. He says, “Good ‘institutions’ are designed to make sure good things can be repeated (Suderman, 32).” And “such efforts need budgets, programs, training and accountability…It is spirituality in action.” He says, “I am well aware of the need to restore the church,” but “structures are needed…every spirituality requires flesh for its existence…we will organize in some way to ensure that it can happen–more than once” (Suderman, 33).
So when it comes to rules v. relationships, programs v. people it is not one or the other. We need both. According to our scripture text for today, the structures should serve the good of the people. If that gets skewed or distorted, the emphasis is in the wrong place. If we start serving the structures, and basing all of our decisions on following a set of rules or assumptions that have grown up around those structures, we lose sight of the people that are affected. According to Jesus, that is a problem. That is when the people and the relationships need to come first. He understands that transformation is more likely to happen through relationships than through rules.
Explore what this looks like at SJMC
At points in our history, Mennonites had their own share of rules and structures that unfortunately, often led to judgment and shame, deeply harming relationships as a result:
- Rules around how women should dress.
- The application of Matthew 18, a text about progressive discipline, led to shunning
- Young men from Mennonite churches who enlisted and served in in the CAF, returned to feel unwelcome in those pacifist churches
But there are also examples of times when we did prioritize relationships. When Marcia Shantz saw the title ahead of time for this service, she sent me a brief story that illustrates this so well. Marcia recalled an incident from her grade 1 Sunday School class way back in 1970, with teacher Ruth Martin. Marcia knew Ruth well, as their families camped together. So one Sunday, Marcia asked, rather shyly, if they could sing “The Hokey Pokey” in Sunday School. Marcia knew it wasn’t particularly a Sunday School song, but it was a campfire song she loved to sing, and she knew that fun-loving teacher Ruth knew the Hokey-Pokey too! So when Marcia asked if they could sing the Hokey-Pokey in Sunday School, Ruth, with only a slight pause, said an enthusiastic “Sure!” As Marcia says, “a split-second decision on [Ruth’s] part put relationships over ‘rules’ (or customs).”
Here are three other examples:
- In the past Biblical texts were interpreted in a way that excluded women from pastoral ministry. I remember in the late 80’s when our pastoral committee took the time to meet with everyone in the congregation as a way to listen and discern if we were ready to hire a woman pastor. Shortly after that, Sue Steiner was hired as our first full-time woman pastor.
- In the past Biblical texts were also interpreted in a way that judged and excluded people who identified as LGBTQ. More recently we engaged in an intentional listening process–eating together, sharing stories and opinions, and eventually crafting a welcoming statement out of that relational process.
- For many years our communion table was closed to those who were not baptized members of the church. Over time we have opened up access to the communion table, recognizing that it is Christ’s table, and not ours to control.
Discerning together when our structures no longer serve the good of the people is a delicate journey, and not without its disagreement and pain. Perhaps one more metaphor can be helpful here.
Application
This past year I was forced to pay a lot of attention to the bones in my body. After a couple of injuries, I became a bit of a frequent flier at the chiropractor’s office! In the course of treating my injuries my chiropractor showed me the bone structure in the body on his replica skeleton in the office. The skeleton really is an amazing structure. We tend to think of bones as hard, solid and strong. We think of the spine as firm and straight. And of course we need the firm shape and structure provided by our bones and especially our spine. But our skeletal structure is also remarkably flexible. At each bone in the spine there is room for movement so that we can bend and twist and turn. Our ribs, as they come around to the front of our bodies, turn from bone into cartilage which allows for the flexibility we need to breath, and move.
This skeletal structure gives form and shape to our body. But it does so much more than that. As I was preparing this sermon, I sought out the wisdom of Bruce Kleinecht, retired chiropractor in our congregation. We talked about how the spine protects the spinal cord–the nervous system which is the main supply route for the body from the brain. The ribs protect our vital organs. The bones are actually alive–it is here in the marrow of our bones that red blood cells are made. And it’s all connected–one integrated, intricate system, where disease or pain or tightness in one part of the system affects the function of another part of the system. The nervous system keeps up the conversation between different parts of the body–it responds, sending signals when there is something negative somewhere in the body. Problems arise where there is interference, when there is a block or a restriction. Bruce went on to say that as a chiropractor when he treated a patient, what he was doing wasn’t so much treating a symptom, but rather removing the interference, working with the body, which is always seeking to heal and repair and restore itself. Removing the interference helps it to do that.
The skeleton is a great metaphor for today’s biblical story. Structure with flexibility is exactly what Jesus is talking about. Think once more about Toad whose List blew away in the wind. If we had one, our List too has been blown away by the wind of the pandemic! As we reflect with courageous imagination on what the church will be like going forward, let’s be mindful of this relationship between rules and relationships, program and people. In the church can our structures provide form and shape to our body, while at the same time being flexible and sensitive to the relationships in our midst? Can the structures provide the safe container within which the Spirit, like the nervous system, can be at work? Can the structures themselves by lifegiving like bones produce red blood cells? Can they be alive and dynamic–a place where new things can be born, and where broken or damaged things are healed? More specifically, how can our rituals offer healing? How can our building and our property be a gift? How can our spending plan be about serving the good of others? How can our planning and our organizing be lifegiving? How can our worship routines be about doing good things over again?
And when our Lists get blown away, and our plans and structures get disrupted, we can simply be like Frog, willing to sit with our friend through a rough patch, offering mercy prioritizing the relationship, just like Jesus taught.