ONCE AGAIN JESUS went out beside the lake. A large crowd came to him, and he began to teach them. 14As he walked along, he saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax collector’s booth. “Follow me,” Jesus told him, and Levi got up and followed him.
15While Jesus was having dinner at Levi’s house, many tax collectors and “sinners” were eating with him and his disciples, for there were many who followed him. 16When the teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw him eating with the “sinners” and tax collectors, they asked his disciples: “Why does he eat with tax collectors and ‘sinners’?”
17On hearing this, Jesus said to them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
18Now John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting. Some people came and asked Jesus, “How is it that John’s disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees are fasting, but yours are not?”
19Jesus answered, “How can the guests of the bridegroom fast while he is with them? They cannot, so long as they have him with them. 20But the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them, and on that day they will fast.
21“No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. If he does, the new piece will pull away from the old, making the tear worse. 22And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the wineskins will be ruined. No, he pours new wine into new wineskins.”
23One Sabbath Jesus was going through the grainfields, and as his disciples walked along, they began to pick some heads of grain. 24The Pharisees said to him, “Look, why are they doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath?”
25He answered, “Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need? 26In the days of Abiathar the high priest, he entered the house of God and ate the consecrated bread, which is lawful only for priests to eat. And he also gave some to his companions.”
27Then he said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. 28So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.”
3:1Another time he went into the synagogue, and a man with a shriveled hand was there. 2Some of them were looking for a reason to accuse Jesus, so they watched him closely to see if he would heal him on the Sabbath. 3Jesus said to the man with the shriveled hand, “Stand up in front of everyone.”
4Then Jesus asked them, “Which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill?” But they remained silent.
5He looked around at them in anger and, deeply distressed at their stubborn hearts, said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand was completely restored. 6Then the Pharisees went out and began to plot with the Herodians how they might kill Jesus.
Original Meaning
IN THE PREVIOUS section, peppered with the phrase “and immediately” (1:21, 23, 28, 29, 31, 42, cf. NASB), Mark has shown Jesus’ fame and popularity spreading like wildfire. In this next unit (2:13–3:6), he shows opposition to Jesus from religious competitors rising just as rapidly. This section comprises a cycle of four disputes regarding Jewish ritual laws and customs. Each controversy except the last contains a question posed by objectors, which Jesus answers with a declaration or a proverbial saying. (1) The question, “Why does he eat with tax collectors and ‘sinners’?” (2:16) is answered with a truism: “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners” (2:17). (2) The question, “How is it that John’s disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees are fasting, but yours are not?” (2:18), is answered with proverbial sayings about not patching old cloth with new or putting new wine into old wineskins (2:19, 21–22). (3) The question about why the disciples do what is unlawful on the Sabbath (2:24) is answered with the proclamation, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath,” and, “The Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath” (2:27–28).1 (4) In the last controversy, Jesus turns the tables on his inquisitors and provokes an engagement. He asks those who have gathered to monitor his activity a question about the Sabbath: “Which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill?” (3:4). The Pharisees have no answer. When Jesus restores a man to a healthy life, their only response is to conspire with the Herodians to kill him (3:6).
The Call of Levi the Tax Collector and Dinner in His House (2:13–17)
JESUS RETURNS TO the sea. As he passes along the shore (see 1:16), he once again singles out a person and challenges him to follow him. This time it is a tax official, Levi son of Alphaeus, busy with his duties at the tax office, just as the fishermen had been with their nets. Levi is no tax baron but one who is stationed at an intersection of trade routes to collect tolls, tariffs, imposts, and customs, probably for Herod Antipas. Toll collectors were renowned for their dishonesty and extortion. They habitually collected more than they were due, did not always post up the regulations, and made false valuations and accusations (see Luke 3:12–13).2 Tax officials were hardly choice candidates for discipleship since most Jews in Jesus’ day would dismiss them as those who craved money more than respectability or righteousness.3
Although Levi is called in the same way as the four fisherman were, his name does not appear in the list of disciples in 3:17–18. In Matthew 9:9, one called Matthew is summoned from his toll booth, and that name does appear in all four lists of the Twelve (Matt. 10:2–4; Mark 3:18; Luke 6:13–16; Acts 1:13). A James also appears in all four lists who is identified as the son of Alphaeus, presumably to distinguish him from James son of Zebedee (3:18). Is Levi son of Alphaeus to be identified as one of the Twelve? The puzzle does not offer an easy solution. One explanation is that this toll collector may have been known by two names, Levi and Matthew, in the same way that Simon Peter is identified as Simon or Peter (Cephas). The Gospel of Mark uses the name Levi while the Gospel of Matthew uses the name Matthew. Another solution is that James and Levi may have been brothers or two names for the same person. Some ancient texts solve the discrepancy by reading the name of James here instead of Levi.4
The concern to clarify Levi’s relationship to the listing of the disciples, however, may cause us to miss something that Mark’s text discloses. If Levi is not to be affiliated with the Twelve, as he is not in Mark, the call to follow Jesus is not limited to the Twelve. That Jesus summons a tax gatherer in the same way as he called Peter, Andrew, James, and John reminds the reader that following Jesus is open to “all-comers.”5 One’s position or caste, even one’s shady reputation, is not a liability when it comes to receiving and responding to Jesus’ call. This interpretation is reinforced by the statement in 2:15: “for there were many who followed him.”
Levi responds to Jesus’ call as promptly as the fishermen did and gets up and follows Jesus, but his obedience marks an even more radical break with his past. The other disciples can always go back to fishing (John 21:3), but not so a toll collector who abandons his post. The next scene finds Levi along with many other toll collectors and sinners who follow Jesus and eat at “his house” (2:15, lit.). The “house” in Mark is connected to Jesus (Levi follows him and sits at table in his house; see 2:1; 3:19; 7:17, 24; 9:33; 10:10). Jesus then serves as the host of a ragtag assemblage of social pariahs.
In other words, Jesus does more than preach repentance to sinners; he befriends them. On the one hand, the scene suggests that Jesus possesses “a magnetic power” to draw “people who ordinarily would have little or nothing to do with religion.”6 On the other hand, people who have something to do with religion usually would not want to draw this kind of people. This display of open acceptance of sinners appalls the Pharisees. Their dismay precipitates Jesus’ comment about the sick needing a physician. No physician waits for the ill to recover fully before consulting with them. As their physician, Jesus offers the remedy that vanquishes the illness of these so-called sinners.
One should not picture Jesus as simply partying with notorious sinners. For one, they may have been labeled “sinners” by pietist groups, such as the Pharisees, out of disdain for their refusal to heed their guidance on proper holiness, their consorting with Gentiles, or their employment in a blacklisted trade, such as a tanner or tax collector. For another, to follow Jesus in the full sense of the word requires repentance and obedience. His goal in reaching out to the sick is to bring about healing and transformation in their lives, not to gather them together for a fun time. Instead of sorting people into classifications, holy and unholy, clean and unclean, righteous and sinner, Jesus gathers them under the wings of God’s grace and love.
The Question of Fasting (2:18–22)
NOT ONLY DOES Jesus befriend tax collectors and sinners, Jesus eats and drinks with them (Matt. 11:19). The disciples of John and the Pharisees do not question Jesus’ behavior, however. They ask why his disciples do not fast. These two groups have set themselves apart from others by their ascetic practices. The Pharisee in Jesus’ parable, for example, gives thanks that he is not like the rest of men and boasts to God that he fasts twice a week (Luke 18:12).
The query about fasting prompts three parabolic answers. The first response assumes that the kingdom of God, which has drawn near in Jesus’ preaching and merciful activity, is not a funeral wake but a wedding party. No one wants grim-visaged fasters casting a pall on the joyous celebration. In the presence of such joy, it is not only inappropriate to fast, it is impossible. Jesus does allude, however, to a time when mourning will be more fitting, when the bridegroom is “taken from them,” an oblique reference to his passion and death. But even that is not to be a permanent state. The joy of the resurrection will transform all grief and sorrow.
The second and third responses draw on metaphors from everyday life to illustrate the significance of Jesus’ ministry. The images of patching cloth and pouring new wine into wineskins do not provide advice for the happy homemaker. No tips are given on how to prepare the patch by prewashing it or the wineskins by moistening them. The garment will tear when it is washed and the patch of new, stronger fabric shrinks. Old wineskins already stretched to their limits and now inflexible will burst when the new wine expands. The point is clear. The new that Jesus brings is incompatible with the old.7 He has not come to patch up an old system that does not match the revolutionary rule of God. He is not simply a reformer of the old, but one who will transform it. There can be no concessions, no accommodations, and no compromises with the old. The old is not just represented by the Judaism of the Pharisees because the disciples of John and their Judaism are also mentioned. The old, exemplified by the condemnation and exclusion of sinners in the previous controversy and the practice of fasting in this debate, cannot contain the new. Both will be ruined if they are combined.
In the incident that follows, Jesus argues that such things as the Sabbath laws are made for the benefit of humans and not vice versa (2:27). Food laws are superfluous; it is only purity of the heart that matters (7:19–23). Love of neighbor is greater than sacrifice (12:23). The temple will even be destroyed, and a new one not made with hands will be raised in its place. The sound of ripping is discernible throughout the Gospel. The heavens rip open at the baptism (1:10). Caiaphas, the high priest, tears his garment when confronted with Jesus’ claim to be the Christ, the Son of the Blessed One (14:63). The temple veil is ripped from top to bottom when Jesus dies on the cross (15:38). The rips signify “the end of the old and the birth of the new.”8
Two Sabbath Controversies (2:23–3:6)
THIS SECTION CONCLUDES with two Sabbath controversies. The first (2:23–28) is provoked when the Pharisees, who seem to function here as a kind of religious police, spot the disciples plucking grain as they saunter through a field.9 The law permitted anyone (particularly the needy) to pluck ears in a neighbor’s field of standing grain as long as one did not use a sickle (Deut. 23:25), but the Pharisees would have classified this as harvesting, a violation of the Sabbath (m. Sabb. 7:2). The negligence of the disciples in such matters, whether because of ignorance or laxity, reflects negatively on Jesus as their teacher. Consequently, the Pharisees direct their challenge to him.
Jesus’ first response recalls a Davidic precedent, when David took it upon himself to violate the law by eating the bread of the Presence,10 the most holy portion of the offering that was to be eaten only by the priests in a holy place (Lev. 24:5–9; see Lev. Rab. 32:3). The Scripture tacitly sanctions his actions by not condemning him. David was not just a hungry man, however. He was to become the king of Israel, the ancestor of the Messiah, and a type of the King-Messiah. His personal authority legitimated his actions. If the strict regulations regarding the bread of the Presence could be set aside for David, who was fleeing for his life, how much more can holy regulations be set aside for Jesus (and his companions), whom Mark presents as David’s Lord (Mark 1:2–3; 12: 35–37) and who is in a situation of far greater urgency in proclaiming the coming of the kingdom of God.11
The second part of the argument moves in a different direction, with the premise that God created the idea of the Sabbath for the well-being of humans, not the other way around. God intended the Sabbath to be a “gracious gift, a release from the necessity of seven-day toil, so that anyone who interprets the Law as to make the Sabbath a burden, or to inhibit the free course of God’s mercy, merely reveals his own ignorance of God and His purposes.”12 The priority of human need always outweighs the need for humans to conform to ritual formalities. The Pharisees would argue that if the disciples did not have any food prepared for the Sabbath, they should go without.13 Jesus argues that it does not transgress God’s will for hungry people to have something to eat on the Sabbath, even if it infringes on the Pharisees’ narrow interpretation of what is permitted.
The third part of the argument consists of the climactic announcement that the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath. This segment begins with the statement, “The Pharisees said …” (2:24). At the conclusion it is clear that it makes no difference what they say. The narrative to this point has demonstrated that the authority of Jesus far outstrips that of the teachers of the law. This statement boldly affirms that as Lord the Son of Man is the one who decrees what is lawful and unlawful, permissible and impermissible, and any customs ordained by the Pharisees or their traditions are thereby rendered null and void. It is Jesus who makes plain the humanitarian purpose of the Sabbath, and his word is final.14 The Pharisees with their rules and regulations, quibbles and fusses, misrepresent the will of God.
The second controversy over the Sabbath (3:1–6) augments the humanitarian purpose of the law by revealing how easily rules can get in the way of restoring people to health.15 It also exposes the true nature of Jesus’ opponents. It begins with the notice that they are “looking for a reason to accuse Jesus,” treacherously inspecting his every move (3:2). They do not question his power to heal—that is presumed by now; they want to see if he will heal on the Sabbath and violate their interpretation of the law. A Sabbath violation, just like blasphemy, was worthy of death (Ex. 31:14). The segment ends with the Pharisees joining forces with the Herodians to plot his death. Of what is he guilty? Bringing healing on the Sabbath! This reveals more about the opponents than it does about Jesus or what is permissible on the Sabbath.
Jesus does not flinch in the face of the scrutiny of his actions. Instead, it is his turn to become righteously indignant over the hardness of heart that besets his antagonists. Hardheartedness does not mean that these enemies are cold-hearted, as it does in our idiom. The heart was the place where one made decisions. Hardness of heart thus had a moral and religious meaning and referred to a lack of understanding—a hardness of mind that made one calloused to any spiritual truth—as well as scornful disobedience to God’s will.16 It seems that nothing Jesus can say or do will pierce the thick armor of moral insensitivity that encases the Pharisees’ minds. The withered hand of the man is nothing compared to the withered souls of these religious examiners. But Jesus deliberately provokes them in one last bid to get through, the only healing miracle that he initiates without prompting.
He calls a man with a withered hand to stand in their midst.17 No worry about secrecy here. When he commands him to stretch out his immobile limb, he could also have said, “Your sins are forgiven,” as he said to the paralytic, but that is assumed when the man has faith enough to obey his command. The implied forgiveness of sins and Jesus’ power to heal underlies what Jesus does but is not stressed in this episode. The focus is on what Jesus’ presence means for the observance of holy days. Clearly the Messiah has not come to commemorate the Sabbath but to save life.18
With his defiant question in 3:4, Jesus frames the issue around doing good or doing evil, saving life or destroying it. The question contains its own answer: Doing good is not to be limited to certain days. The way Jesus phrases the question recalls Deuteronomy 30:15–19: “See, I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction.… I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live.” Even on the Sabbath one must make the right choice. Suffering may be alleviated at any time, and to refrain from doing good is to abet evil and to pick death over life.
The sharp reaction to what Jesus does in this incident is completely unwarranted. Healing by speaking is not a breach of the Sabbath. He prepares no ointments or potions and lifts nothing. Jesus only violates the Pharisees’ finespun interpretation of the law—an interpretation that fosters death because these self-appointed guardians of the Sabbath would insist that the man return the next day if he wants healing, so as to avoid any hint of desecrating the sacred day.19 What does it matter that he suffer through another day? They are hostile to Jesus and the handicapped. In their stubborn resistance, it does not dawn on them that if his words are not in accord with God’s will, the man would not have been healed, since it is God who forgives sins and effects healing. These critics are so blindly cynical that they are incensed when Jesus does good and saves a life on a holy day, but they have no qualms about doing harm and plotting death on that very same day (“immediately” in 3:6, NASB) with the secular powers that be. The way light creates shadows, Jesus’ presence sometimes brings out the worst in people.
The Herodians were the supporters of Herod Antipas,20 who had arrested John and eventually beheaded him. They were anxious to maintain the social and political status quo, which was nicely propped up by religion. The common enemy causes the unholy Herodians to collude with the pious, religious extremists in the pursuit of self-interest, not truth. Unlike Jesus, who works in the open, they plot in secret. Their pact to destroy him will culminate in 15:1, when another group of power brokers take council to destroy him and are successful—or so they think.21 Jesus’ remark that the bridegroom will be taken from them (2:20) now takes on a more ominous cast.
Bridging Contexts
THIS SECTION OF the Gospel reveals how Jesus defied the traditional expectations of the religious pundits over what behavior God expects from the devout. He sparks controversy by associating with known sinners, by the failure of his disciples to fast and observe rules of the Sabbath, and by healing on the Sabbath. Many today take it for granted that Jesus rebelled against what we regard as the stuffy piety of the Pharisees, but to understand this passage, we need to examine the underlying issues. What was behind the criticism directed at Jesus? What was Jesus’ motivation? Was he simply thumbing his nose at religious conventions, like washing his car or mowing his grass on Sunday? Or was something more going on? It is most certainly the latter. Jesus does not dismiss the law in a cavalier fashion. These incidents present for the reader two incompatible religious outlooks, two ways of doing religion that are in inexorable conflict. One leads to death; the other to life.
Each incident unfolds the contrast. The call of Levi and Jesus’ feasting with sinners discloses the contrast between a religious attitude that keeps sinners and the unhallowed at arm’s length and one, the good news of God, that welcomes all comers. The query about fasting reveals the difference between religious exercises that weigh down the soul like a ball and chain and a religious experience that allows it to soar with joy. The controversies over the Sabbath reveal the clash between a religious outlook that withers mercy with pitiless rules and one that places human need above the statute book.
Associating with sinners. Hobnobbing with sinners and tax collectors evoked vociferous complaints from the Pharisees. Occasionally Mark explains for the reader the reasons behind their protest, as he does when they object to the disciples’ failure to wash their hands (7:3–4). He does not provide an explanation here as to why the Pharisees protest Jesus’ camaraderie with sinners because it would have been widely understood across cultures that to associate with the iniquitous was, to say the least, chancy. Many feared that their iniquity might rub off. Companionship with sinners would also sully one’s reputation because people have believed throughout the ages that birds of a feather flock together and a person is known by the company he keeps (but see 9:4). But it is helpful to examine why the Pharisees were scandalized by Jesus’ action to spot the parallels with our situation.
The term “pharisaic” has come over into English to refer to hypocrites who fake morality or to legalistic nitpickers. The word is considered to be synonymous with “holier than thou,” “preachy,” “sanctimonious,” and “self-righteous.” This assumption is an inaccurate caricature of Pharisaism and can perpetuate the notion that God extends grace to all sinners except those of the Pharisaic variety. One may not dismiss the Pharisees as a bunch of hypocrites. In the Gospel of Mark, they are guilty instead of being hypercritical.
The Pharisees (meaning “the separated ones”) were a collection of factions consisting mostly of Torah-concerned laymen who sincerely sought to extend into the lives of ordinary Jews the concerns of ritual purity usually associated in the law with only the priests and the temple.22 Their driving motivation was to fulfill God’s command: “Be holy because I, the LORD your God, am holy” (Lev. 19:2). They especially fastened on the purity rules that classified things, times, and persons according to different degrees of holiness and unholiness. It was essential to their sense of identity as Jews, a holy and separate people, to be able to know and determine what was permissible or proscribed, clean or unclean. Their purity concerns magnified the agricultural rules and specified not only what might be eaten, but out of which vessel one might eat and with whom one might eat.
The Pharisees were also attentive to tithing foodstuffs, for this indicated what foods might be eaten in ritual cleanness. They shunned the unobservant and the wicked because they feared, with some justification, that their food had not been properly tithed or prepared. The upshot of their concern for holiness was their conviction that the sinner should be kept at arm’s length until disinfected by concrete repentance and the proper ceremonial rites.
Jesus’ bold outreach to sinners was something new and different. It was easy for the pious to construe this behavior as a violation of the instructions laid down throughout Scripture not to associate with evildoers. Did not the psalmist say: “Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers” (Ps 1:1)? A later rabbinic tradition takes this attitude to the extreme: The wise say, “Let not a man associate with sinners even to bring them near to the Torah” (Mekilta Amalek 3 to Ex. 18:1).
In other words, the Pharisees represented an attitude that approached sin from the preventive side. They wanted to make and enforce rules that would safeguard people from becoming impure and immoral. Jesus represented an attitude that approached sin from the creative side, seeking to reclaim the impure and immoral. One could argue that the Pharisees’ attitude toward the people was defined by Ezekiel 44, which lays down rules about who may enter the sanctuary and priestly service, consisting of closed gates and signs saying “No admission.” Jesus’ attitude was defined by Ezekiel 34, which describes the shepherd who seeks out the weak, the sick, and the lost sheep and feeds them in good pasture (34:4, 12, 16). Pharisaic piety required concrete evidence of repentance before it would permit contact with the flagrant sinner; Jesus did not. While the Pharisees may have looked down on sinners (Luke 18:18), Jesus looked for them (19:10). Meals defined social boundaries in terms of who was approvable and who was not. By eating with sinners Jesus gave them a concrete sign of God’s loving acceptance and conveyed that repentance comes by means of grace.
This episode reveals four things that are applicable today. (1) Sinners do not need to do something first to become worthy recipients of God’s love. They do not have to strive to become worthy and then apply with a glowing résumé to follow Jesus. One becomes worthy by responding to the call.
(2) By eating with sinners, Jesus does not condone sinful lifestyles but attests that these persons and their lifestyles can be transformed. Celsus, a vigorous pagan critic of Christianity in the late second century, was astounded that Christians deliberately appealed to sinners because he believed that it was impossible for people to undergo any radical moral transformation.23 These Christians were but following the pattern of their Lord, who conveyed God’s grace to sinners in ways that changed their lives. They were not to be snubbed or ignored no matter how vile or irredeemable they might seem. A self-righteous contempt for “sinners” does little to help them and may only compound their alienation and self-hatred.
(3) Jesus makes no distinction between persons and spurns the whole system of ranking and classifying people—to the disadvantage of the Pharisees, who worked so hard to attain their status of sanctity (see Phil. 3:5–6). Jesus does not set up a table open to full members only (as at Qumran) but one open to all possible guests, wherever they may be gathered: in his house (or a toll collectors’ house), in the desert on both sides of the lake, at the home of a leper, and in an upper room.
(4) Jesus does not fear being contaminated by lepers or sinners but instead contaminates them with God’s grace and power. He is not corrupted by sinners but transmits blessing on them. If the object of religious life is believed to be the preservation of purity, whether ritual or doctrinal, one tends to look at all others as potential polluters who will make one impure. Jesus rejects this perspective. He does not regard his holiness as something that needs to be safeguarded but as “God’s numinous transforming power,”24 which can turn tax collectors into disciples.
The first incident, therefore, depicts two contrary religious outlooks: one that draws strict boundaries, pigeonholes people, and excludes them from God’s grace and power, which is to be rejected; the other that throws open the doors to one and all. Unfortunately, it is the religious outlook of the Pharisees and not that of Jesus that has more often than not governed the attitudes of churches and church members throughout the ages. People are still scandalized by Jesus’ welcome of all sinners. To bridge the context one should let people see how much more they share the judgmental and growling attitudes of Jesus’ foes toward others than the loving and welcoming spirit of Jesus.
Fasting. The inquiry about fasting does not contain a mandate to fast nor does it forbid it. What Jesus taught about fasting was completely misunderstood in the Didache. It changed the days when fasting was required but retained the legalistic outlook: “Let not your fast be with the hypocrites, for they fast on Monday and Thursday, but do you fast on Wednesday and Friday” (Did. 8:1). The question about fasting in this scene of Mark allows Jesus to confirm obliquely that the new age had dawned with his arrival. He is the bridegroom who has come in fulfillment of the hopes of Israel. If that is the case, then it is clear that Jesus did not come simply to teach or reinforce standard rules of religious deportment. The rulebook was being overhauled.
The practice of voluntary fasting was associated with several ideas in Judaism,25 which, from Jesus’ perspective, were incompatible with the coming of the kingdom of God. Fasting was related to the fear of demons, and some thought that they could ward off demons by fasting. The binding of Satan by Jesus and his power to exorcise demons with a word made this unnecessary. Some used fasting as a meritorious act of self-renunciation, which ultimately was intended to impress or sway God in some way. That is, one fasted to try to get God to bestow some good that he might otherwise withhold. But how can one fast in the presence of God’s greatest gift to humankind? The ministry of Jesus makes it clear that one does not need to perform acts of self-mortification to gain favor with God or to manipulate God to do one’s bidding.26
Some fasted to atone for sins or to avert further calamity from falling on the nation.27 If fasting was used as means to prompt mercy (2 Sam. 12:22–23) or to attain forgiveness for sin, it was unnecessary. Jesus has released people from sin, healed diseases, and cast out demons without requiring any prior acts of devotion. Fasting that was done to humiliate oneself before God could also easily be perverted so that it exalted oneself before humans. Jesus rejects any religious behavior that is turned into a show to win the applause and admiration of others (Matt. 6:1–6, 16–18). If fasting is used as a badge of one’s piety (Luke 18:11–12), it is inappropriate at a feast filled with sinners.
Jesus does not exclude fasting altogether. Fasting was also connected to sorrow for the loss of a loved one,28 and the advent of the kingdom of God does not bring an end to mourning. Jesus’ own death will be a cause of sorrow, but his death and resurrection change the meaning of death. We are not to grieve like those without hope (1 Thess. 4:13). Consequently, the disciples of Jesus as a whole are not to be characterized by their mourning but by their joy, not only during his earthly ministry but today as well.
Christians are not to be weighed down by sadness, the burden of sin, or the dread of death. They are not to be killjoys, who frown on the convivial fellowship with tax collectors and sinners and who cannot lift their arms in praise. Christian spirituality is not a ball and chain that keeps the spirit from soaring. The exultation over the coming of the one who forgives sins and feasts with sinners and the glad expectation of the glory to come is to affect our mood and outlook on life. One need only check the references to joy in the New Testament to see how it pervades the experience of Christians, even in the direst of circumstances.
Keeping the Sabbath. The Sabbath controversies show how God’s purposes for humankind are frustrated when circumscribed by a bunch of rules from pettifogging religionists. God commands that the Sabbath be kept holy, so what is one to do? The negative framing of the answer, “You do not work,” raised another question, What precisely is to be classified as work? The Pharisees represented those who tended to amplify ways one could violate this command.
The Mishnah contains two tractates that address complex Sabbath regulations: Shabbat, which seeks to define what constitutes a burden, and Erubin, which seeks to define what constitutes a Sabbath resting place and how to expand it. In Mishnah Hagiga 1:8, it is admitted: “The rules about the sabbath, festal offerings and sacrilege are as mountains hanging by a hair, for Scripture is scanty and the rules many.” A midrash to Psalm 50:3 assumes that the closer one gets to God, the more exacting one needs to be in observing restrictions. The fondness for negatives and casuistry (for example, one could help someone in need only if he were in mortal danger or tie a knot only if it could be untied with one hand) is easily caricatured. One should also be aware that rabbinic literature is sprinkled with beautiful homilies about the joys and splendor of the Sabbath, which share a spiritual kinship with Jesus’ view.29 Church history reveals that the Pharisees did not have a corner on the market of harsh legalism.
For Jews in the time of Jesus, the Sabbath was more than just a matter of obedience to rules. Sabbath observance was regarded as a way to honor the holiness of Yahweh (Ex. 20:8–11; Deut. 5:12–15). It also marked the joyful entry into sacred time, the time of the beginning before human work. The Sabbath “was a sanctuary in time.”30 It was also regarded as a sign of Israel’s sanctification among all the nations. Its observance made Israel distinct as a nation, bolstered Jewish identity over against others, and served as a bulwark against assimilation to pagan culture.31 For Jews in the Diaspora, keeping the Sabbath was a profession of faith,32 a national identity marker. In Justin Martyr’s Dialogue with Trypho the Jew (sec. 10), Rabbi Trypho is amazed at the Christians’ way of life in the world. He says:
But this is what we are most at a loss about: that you professing to be pious, and supposing yourselves better than others, are not in any particular separated from them, and do not alter your mode of living from the nations, in that you observe no festivals or sabbaths, and do not have the rite of circumcision.
The Pharisees are inflamed here by Jesus’ disciples’ violation of Sabbath regulations; Jesus is grieved by their hardened hearts. To make his point with his religious critics, he is deliberately provocative in the second episode. He could just as easily have healed the man with the withered arm in privacy after the synagogue crowd had gone home. The aim is not to goad his opponents further but to confront them with two clashing views of how to be properly religious. He forces them to confront the real issue that is at stake: Is God for health or for death? If God is for health, how can he deplore the working of good in people’s lives even on a holy day? Which is more important, rules or people? Jesus stresses the universal aspect of the Sabbath (“the sabbath is made for humankind,” 2:27 NRSV) and ignores any other significance it might have.
The Pharisees’ approach treats ritual and institution as key. If the law contains any ambiguities, it must be made specific so that one may know precisely what must be done at all times and who is guilty of an infraction. Such an approach easily veers into a kind of slavery (Gal. 4:10; Col. 2:16)—religion for religion’s sake. And the pietist can become like an ill-taught piano student who plays all the right notes but fails to make music, like an actor in a B movie who woodenly recites a memorized script but who does not carry any conviction, or like a dancer who carefully counts the steps but never cuts loose to dance. A fondness for negatives and a long checklist of rules, particularly for other people,33 can make religious life a burdensome ordeal that never sings nor exults, and religious duties an obstacle course that weeds out weakling sinners.
The real danger of a rigid legalism is that it can delude one into thinking that God is satisfied when one is a stickler for religious details, even if one is merciless to others. It can turn the devout into Reverend Thwackums, the preacher whose name reveals his character in Henry Fielding’s novel, Tom Jones. Devotion to principle can outweigh concern for individuals and can become deadly in more ways than one, as the ensuing plot against Jesus reveals. Pascal said, “Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction” (Pensées, 894). Christians have been known to be no less devoted to what they believe is the truth and have been just as willing to bludgeon anyone who violates it.
Jesus’ approach gives the personal aspect priority. He does not first ask, “What are the rules and what do people think I should do?” but “Who needs to be helped?” He presumes that religion and its institutions are not ends in themselves. God gave the law for the benefit of humankind. Its intention is summed up in love for the neighbor, which is worth more than all the burnt sacrifices heaped together (see 12:32–33). One cannot interpret the law correctly unless one refers back to God’s intention in giving the law. Jesus’ teaching makes clear that Sabbath observance does not require that one be loveless or merciless simply to sustain its ceremonial provisions. He is not being cavalier with the law. As Willimon states it: “The clash with authority is not over the rules but over who rules.”34 On the contrary, Jesus consistently carries out the law when it conforms to God’s intentions (1:44; 3:4; 7:8–13; 10:3–9; 12:29–31). He asserts that his followers need not concern themselves about appearances of being irreligious or fear condemnation of the slightest transgression when they are carrying out their greater tasks for God, doing God’s will.
One should be cautious in using this passage to define what is permissible or impermissible for Christians on a Sunday. That is not its purpose. One needs to look elsewhere for such guidance. The controversies over the Sabbath are intended to affirm that Jesus is the Lord of the law and to expose the sinister wickedness of his opponents. The early Christians possibly used this teaching to attest that Jesus sets us free from the tyranny of the requirement to observe “special days and months and seasons and years” (Gal. 4:10), and many felt no obligation to keep the Sabbath.
As the Jews expanded the significance of the Sabbath day from its association with the mystery of creation and connected it to an event in history, God’s deliverance of Israel from Egypt, Christians changed the day to celebrate Christ’s resurrection (Rev. 1:10).35 They venerated an event36 and observed it not with rest but with worship. Paul acknowledges that differences existed among the Christians, however. “One man considers one day more sacred than another; another man considers every day alike” (Rom. 14:5). He insists that one not judge another in how one lives out one’s commitment to God. God loves and blesses both. One is without guilt if that person has thought through what he or she does (“each one should be fully convinced in his own mind,” 14:5), is not simply complying to external pressures, and intends to honor or give thanks to the Lord in what is done.
It is no wonder that Jesus’ attitude toward sinners, fasting, and the Sabbath was threatening to the pietists. It seems to leave little room for outward religious performance—their specialty. In taking these passages into our contemporary setting, we will find that the opposition has not changed. Many today will be no less upset if their sanctified prejudices and cherished customs are challenged.
Contemporary Significance
WHEN ONE LOOKS again at the scenes in this unit, one can ask the question: What does not belong in this picture? The answer becomes clear: categorizing and excluding sinners, fasting and gloom, and religious customs that obstruct doing good for others. What does belong is reaching out to sinners, joy, and helping others
Reaching out to sinners. Other religions are the result of a human search for God; Christianity presents itself as God’s search for humans—even those the world deems the most unworthy. The toll collectors and sinners are in as much need of healing and forgiveness as the leper and the paralytic. The surprise of the suddenness of Jesus’ call of Levi to follow him is magnified by the shock that he would call such a one as this.
This incident exposes a persistent tendency among God’s people throughout history to exclude and to write off others we classify as irredeemable. We are predisposed to believe that those chosen by God are those who are most like us, and we tend to forget that Jesus went to those who were despised and unclean to win them for God’s rule. William Carey met a similar resistance when he raised the question at the Minister’s Fraternal of the Northhampton Association in 1787 of whether the commission given to the disciples to go and make disciples of the nations was still binding. The infamous response of John Ryland Sr. was no: “Sit down, young man. You are an enthusiast! When God pleases to convert the heathen, He will do it without consulting you or me.” I have known many a young minister anxious to reach out to their community who were crushed by the stone wall of resistance to “these kind of people” by their church members.
Many Christians today do not recognize that they harbor the very same attitude as these first-century Pharisees. We sing “Amazing grace … that saved a wretch like me,” but we have in mind only our kind of wretches. It is too amazing for us that the same grace is extended to save those whom we believe truly deserve punishment. Outsiders, however, are quick to discern it. Ambrose Bierce, in his Devil’s Dictionary, defined an “evangelist” as “a bearer of good tidings, particularly (in a religious sense) such as assure us of our own salvation and the damnation of our neighbors.” Many still believe that everyone has his or her place and expect them to stay within accepted boundaries.
I am aware of a student in seminary who worked as a mission pastor in a rent-by-the-week trailer park. Bringing the thirty or more children who participated in the Sunday school to functions at the sponsoring church met with jaundiced eye and a quick plan to make sure that the kids were segregated from the children of “regular” members. In another case, the outreach program of one church consisted of a community clambake, charging $30.00 per person. The get-together ensured, perhaps unconsciously, that only the right kind of people, who could afford a such a high-priced ticket, would show up and maybe join the congregation. The church wanted to reach out to others, but they only wanted to reach out to “good” prospects.
Modern parishioners would probably be no less agitated than the Pharisees if their pastor violated their unwritten social conventions. They might tolerate their pastor hanging out with the wrong crowd in honky-tonks if they were convinced that this was a fleeting bid to witness to them. It would be something else, however, if the pastor made a regular habit of it, or worse, invited the madam of the local brothel or the folks who gather every night at the tavern for Sunday dinner in the parsonage. It is one thing to go to them to witness to them; it is quite another to treat them as if they were in some way respectable and acceptable, persons whom God loves as much as the righteous (healthy) who need no repentance. It creates religious confusion so that one cannot distinguish the righteous from the unrighteous. It scares those who are convinced that society will crumble if these barriers are not maintained.
Yet this is precisely what Jesus did, and by so doing he makes it clear that one cannot win people with whom one is not willing to eat. Jesus’ preaching creates a new playing field. The old categories by which sinners are classified are breaking down with the advent of the kingdom of God in the ministry of Jesus. No longer are the righteous those who scrupulously obey traditions derived from their interpretation of the law. They have made out the test, graded it themselves, given themselves an A+, and flunked everybody else. The test is flunked by God and discarded. The issue now is whether one accepts or spurns the good news, follows or rejects Jesus. Jesus says that he has “not come to call the righteous, but sinners” (2:17). By the end of the Gospel it becomes plain that there were no righteous to call. All, including the inner circle of disciples, have fallen short of the glory of God.
The religiosity of the Pharisees is therefore something we must guard against. It is inward and upward and results in a narcissistic selfishness—God is only interested in us and not the likes of them. This stuffy attitude is captured in Dean Jonathan Swift’s ditty:
We are God’s chosen few
All others will be damned
There’s room enough in hell for you
We can’t have heaven crammed.
The direction of Jesus’ ministry is downward and outward and implies that the church must bring Jesus to people, not simply people to Jesus. This spirit was captured in the motto of John Wesley, who said, “The whole world is my parish.” Leonard observes that Wesley
moved out or was thrown out of the sedate and aristocratic Anglican churches of his day and “consented to be more vile,” proclaiming the gospel in highways and hedges. “Field preaching,” it was called, standing in English meadows and markets, on hillsides and in city squares with a gospel to and for the disenfranchised whom the “decent people” had written off as incapable of moral transformation or spiritual experience. Many from the poor and working classes believed and were changed and Wesley scandalized Anglicans by recruiting his first lay preachers from the lower classes.37
It is the spirit captured in a story told by Tony Campolo. He had flown into Honolulu and was unable to sleep, so he ventured into an all-night diner, where he overheard a group of prostitutes talking. One mentioned to her friends that the next day was her thirty-ninth birthday. Another replied scornfully, “What do you want? A birthday party?” She retreated into her defensive shell: “I’ve never had one in my whole life. Why should I expect one now?” It struck Campolo that it would be a good idea to conspire with the owner of the diner to throw her a surprise party the next night. A cake was baked, and all was prepared. The cries of “Happy Birthday!” from her small group of friends and this stranger left her stunned. She was shocked that anyone would go to this much trouble just for her. She asked if she could take the cake home and then left with her prize. When she left, Campolo offered to pray and prayed for her salvation, for her life to change, and for God to be good to her.
The prayer startled the owner, who asked antagonistically, “You never told me you were a preacher. What kind of church do you belong to?” He responded that he belonged to a church that threw birthday parties for prostitutes at 3:30 in the morning.38 The answer may meet with skepticism from outsiders: There is no church like that. It may meet with disdain from insiders: We would never do anything like that. But it parallels the kind of thing that Jesus did in reaching out to those who were lost and despised. “While we look for him among priests, he is among sinners. While we look for him among the free, he is a prisoner. While we look for him in glory, he is bleeding on the cross.”39
Thomas Long tells of staying in a motel in a large city and finding a notice posted on the elevator door: “Party tonight! Room 210. 8:00 P.M. Everyone invited!” He imagined the odd assortment of people who might show up—tired salesmen, bored vacationers, weary travelers, and the curious, all looking for a break in their individual tedium and a little festivity and not wanting to be left out of something exciting. But the sign was a hoax, a practical joke. He thought it was too bad.
For a brief moment, those of us staying at the motel were tantalized by the possibility that there just might be a party going on somewhere to which we were all invited—a party where it didn’t make much difference who we were when we walked in the door, or what motivated us to come; a party we could come to out of boredom, loneliness, curiosity, responsibility, eagerness to be in fellowship, or simply out of a desire to come and see what was happening; a party where it didn’t matter nearly as much what got us in the door, as what would happen to us after we arrived.40
This text announces that Jesus is willing to throw such a party, and it is not a hoax. Those who belong to his church should therefore be willing to do the same thing. Too often, however, the church is the one taking down the sign that invites one and all.
Joy versus gloom. Jesus’ ministry is associated more with table fellowship, even feeding huge crowds in the desert, than with ascetic fasting. The question about fasting forces us to question the purposes of our religious rites and observances. Fasting or any other religious discipline does not elicit God’s grace, forgiveness of sins, or acceptance. Any renunciation of the pleasures of earthly life as an attempt to gain favor with God or to achieve eternal life is to be rejected (see Col. 2:16–23). Any observance that we do simply to conform to external rules imposed upon us—fasting because it is a certain season—is to be rejected. The calendar is not to rule our religious devotion. Fasting is only meaningful when it arises from concerns so deep that food does not matter, not when it is dictated by some rule book. All spiritual exertion that aims only at setting ourselves apart from and above others is to be rejected.
If we fast to give to others (to put money into the Rice Bowl program to help hungry people, for example) or to try to free ourselves from our own self-centeredness, it is fine. In fact, fasting may help purge our souls of our consuming efforts to gratify ourselves all the time. One needs to remember, however, that one does not become a saint by fasting or by giving alms more than others or by any other activity that is associated with the Christian way of life. Only when these things are done with a heart filled with thankfulness for God’s goodness can we offer real praise to God.
We should be mindful that the incident recorded in Mark occurs in a context of a joyous celebration and feasting together with others. One can fast alone, but one cannot celebrate alone! One goal of our religious observances should be to make commitment to God attractive to others.
Keeping the Lord’s Day. Throughout the history of the church, Jesus’ criterion of compassion has been less influential in the observance of the Lord’s Day than the stern and rigid code that characterized the Pharisees’ opposition to Jesus. The dour religiosity that marked the observance of the Lord’s Day of a bygone era is depicted in Robert Graves’ poem “The Boy Out of Church”:
I do not love the Sabbath,
The soapsuds and the starch
The troops of solemn people
Who to salvation march.
Mr. Arthur Clennam, in Charles Dickens’s novel Little Dorrit, bitterly recalls how as a child he hated Sunday as the day when he was threatened with perdition. “He was marched to chapel by a picquet of teachers three times a day morally handcuffed to another boy, and when he would willingly have bartered two meals of indigestible sermon for another ounce or two of inferior mutton at his scanty dinner.… There was a legion of Sundays, all days of unserviceable bitterness and mortification….”
That austerity is in little evidence today as Sunday blue laws are repealed throughout the nation. Advertisers tell us that weekends are made for different brands of beer or sports events, and many take advantage of a wide variety of diversions during the weekend. What they miss is a time of spiritual renewal. We live in a world that knows only itself and the scores of our modern-day circus games but that does not know God. While some have connected a neglect of the Sabbath or the Lord’s Day to the collapse of vibrant Christianity in some nations, the church experienced remarkable growth in the first centuries when there was no legal day of rest; Christians had to worship before or after work. We do not need to reestablish a rigorous observance like Nehemiah, who stationed soldiers over the city gates to enforce obedience (Neh. 13:15–22). We do not need to impose a slavish obedience to Sabbath laws on a world that does not honor God even though it would be beneficial, cutting down on pollution, restoring a sense of rhythm to life, and giving people a chance to catch their breath. We do need, however, to recapture Jesus’ liberating vision of the Sabbath (Lord’s Day) as a gift (2:27) and as a time for doing good (3:4).
The Christian Sunday began as a day of worship, celebrating the historical event of the resurrection of Jesus, the foundation of our faith (1 Cor. 15:17). It became, like the Sabbath, a day of rest. A day of rest is a gift. Philo, a prominent and learned member of the Jewish community in Alexandria in the first century, defended the Jews’ custom of not working on the Sabbath. He argued that it was not because of any indolence on their part. The object was
to give man relaxation from continuous and unending toil and by refreshing their bodies with a regularly calculated system of remissions to send them out renewed to their old activities. For a breathing spell enables not merely ordinary people but athletes also to collect their strength with a stronger force behind them to undertake promptly and patiently each of the tasks set before them.41
In this century, Abraham Heschel profoundly expresses this value of the Sabbath for our technological age. It is a day when we can celebrate “time rather than space.” Our modern technological society can boast of our conquest of space, but we have not conquered the “essential ingredient of existence”: time. It is the realm of existence where “the goal is not to have but to be, not to own but to give, not to control but to share, not to subdue but to be in accord.”42 Many spend all their lives acquiring material possessions but shrink from sacred moments. Everyone needs a time to be able to lay aside the feverish pursuit of success, trying to “wring profit from the earth” or to amass more goods. Heschel concludes:
Six days a week we live under the tyranny of things of space; on the Sabbath we try to become attuned to holiness in time. It is a day on which we are called upon to share in what is eternal in time, to turn from the results of creation to the mystery of creation; from the world of creation to the creation of the world.43
In our culture we have lost this gift of a day when we can reconnect with the holy and recharge our spiritual batteries. Our daily struggles may produce economic triumphs but can make our lives a spiritual wasteland. Lily Tomlin said the trouble with the rat race is that even if you win, you are still a rat. We need time for ennobling our souls and must enjoy this gift. One must be cautious, however. The incident recorded in Mark reveals how a gift can be nullified by rules that saddle others with additional burdens rather than unchaining them from their load.
The strict observance of the Sabbath served to distinguish Jews from Gentiles in their world. Christians are also not to be conformed to the world around them, and observing a day of worship and rest is one way they distinguish themselves from others and give witness to their faith. Instead of heeding the calls to bow down to the gods of materialism or to play with their pile of recreational toys, Christians set aside time to worship their God and celebrate their faith.44
The observance of days and seasons is not to be the sole element that distinguishes Christians from others. What Jesus affirms is that the Sabbath is for doing good. Jesus never criticizes the law that requires the Sabbath to be treated as holy. He simply affirms that the Sabbath can become an occasion to do good rather than simply a time to refrain from work. The criterion is mercy, not ritual. The question then is not whether something is or is not allowed, but whether or not what we do helps or hinders those who are in need. To do evil is always prohibited, regardless of the day of the week. To do good is always required, regardless of the day of the week.45 Christians should be distinguished by their doing good. As one outsider observed about the early church: “See how these Christians love each other!”