This blog provides a meditation on the Episcopal daily readngs along with a headline from world news:
Syria shells village in Turkey
the village of Akcakale, shelled yesterday
Acts 21:27-36
Paul Arrested in the Temple
27 When the seven days were almost completed, the Jews from Asia, who had seen him in the temple, stirred up the whole crowd. They seized him,28shouting, ‘Fellow-Israelites, help! This is the man who is teaching everyone everywhere against our people, our law, and this place; more than that, he has actually brought Greeks into the temple and has defiled this holy place.’29For they had previously seen Trophimus the Ephesian with him in the city, and they supposed that Paul had brought him into the temple.30Then all the city was aroused, and the people rushed together. They seized Paul and dragged him out of the temple, and immediately the doors were shut.31While they were trying to kill him, word came to the tribune of the cohort that all Jerusalem was in an uproar.32Immediately he took soldiers and centurions and ran down to them. When they saw the tribune and the soldiers, they stopped beating Paul.33Then the tribune came, arrested him, and ordered him to be bound with two chains; he inquired who he was and what he had done.34Some in the crowd shouted one thing, some another; and as he could not learn the facts because of the uproar, he ordered him to be brought into the barracks.35When Paul* came to the steps, the violence of the mob was so great that he had to be carried by the soldiers.36The crowd that followed kept shouting, ‘Away with him!’
stone from temple-“no Gentiles may enter….”
In this episode where Luke may be drawing on a tradition of the Jerusalem Church, Paul is engulfed by the very same violent fanaticism which with Paul’s approval, overwhlemed Stephen in the early days of the church. Luke wants to highlight the mistaken nature of this zeal-Paul has not taken a Gentile into the Temple-as well as the role of the Imperial govrenment in preserving his life. The revolution which the ministry of Jesus, continuing through his apostles, will bring about in the Empire is a peaceful and orderly one, as opposed to the repeatedly violent rebellions of the Jewish nation. Those who presently find themselves caught between the oppression of a great power and the violence of opposition against it, can find strength in Luke’s picture of a tiny community growing in strength and influence by its courageous and peaceful witness.
Luke 6:1-11
The Question about the Sabbath
6One sabbath* while Jesus* was going through the cornfields, his disciples plucked some heads of grain, rubbed them in their hands, and ate them.2But some of the Pharisees said, ‘Why are you doing what is not lawful* on the sabbath?’3Jesus answered, ‘Have you not read what David did when he and his companions were hungry?4He entered the house of God and took and ate the bread of the Presence, which it is not lawful for any but the priests to eat, and gave some to his companions?’5Then he said to them, ‘The Son of Man is lord of the sabbath.’
The Man with a Withered Hand
6 On another sabbath he entered the synagogue and taught, and there was a man there whose right hand was withered.7The scribes and the Pharisees watched him to see whether he would cure on the sabbath, so that they might find an accusation against him.8Even though he knew what they were thinking, he said to the man who had the withered hand, ‘Come and stand here.’ He got up and stood there.9Then Jesus said to them, ‘I ask you, is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the sabbath, to save life or to destroy it?’10After looking around at all of them, he said to him, ‘Stretch out your hand.’ He did so, and his hand was restored.11But they were filled with fury and discussed with one another what they might do to Jesus.
shabbat-day of liberation
The Sabbath was and is one of the great expressions of Jewish faith. Even the creator has a day off, and so should all his creatures. Creatures are made for fellowship with each other and with God, not merely for labour. We shoud understand the concern of the Pharisees that Jesus might be teaching people to undervalue this gift. Nevertheless a concern which denounces people for picking, rubbing and eating grains of corn, condemns itself to ridicule. Jesus answer about David seems a little off the point as his disciples are not hungry like David’s men. Luke interprets Jesus as teaching that He, the Messiah, David’s great successor, can rule authoritatively about God’s gift.
The second story allows Luke to display Jesus’ interpretation: the Sabbath is (perhaps especially) for doing good. It is for rescuing and cherishing the gift of life. Of course he could have healed the man on the next day, but why ask him to wait when the sabbath is the day of liberation from burdens and the promise of God’s kingdom, the “last of days for which the first was made.” Jesus will not accept any interpretation of the Sabbath which is not oriented to the coming of God’s goodness on earth. This should always be at the forefront of the Church’s practice of the Sabbath, (Saturday)which should not be confused, as it has been, with the Lord’s Day (Sunday)
I believe the Christian Chrurch should celebrate both Sabbath and Lord’s day: the rest day when the necessity of labour is abolished and all creatures can share the Creator’s pleasure; and the day of resurrection when the Christian community breaks bread to sustain its life throughout the working week.
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