Author: Wesley White

And they watched Jesus closely, to see if he would cure the man on the Sabbath, so that they might have a charge to bring against him.

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we know our enemies
better than ourselves
no not better better
but predictable better
they are consistent
in their mean ways
while we always have
a virtuous reason
for changing for the better
we see them approach
and can see it in their eye
disruption dismay disorder
they can’t help themselves
so we wait and watch
with a constancy
all our own
giving no option
and no quarter

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As suspected, it is not just Jesus and a man with a withered “hand”. This is our own story as well. We are not alone. That done in secret will be revealed. Opponents will gladly give us enough rope to hang ourself.

In this public setting, the “they” who are paying attention cannot be limited to opponents. Even supporters will have a reason to be interested in what is going to happen and how it will play out.

One of the things that keeps everyone intrigued is that it is difficult to keep up with Jesus. His itinerary and agenda behind that still appear rather arbitrary, unscripted, and chaotic. His is not a straight-line, connect-the-dots, approach.

The Pharisees have a home-field advantage in the synagogue. After all, their interpretation of Mosaic Law does fulfill a significant community function—refereeing religious boundaries. Jesus has already been warned (2:24) to watch what he does on the Sabbath because humans do not have authority or ability to change Sabbath rules intended even for G*D. Will the warning have Jesus step-down or will it trigger him to stretch the meaning of Sabbath one more time? Will a game between Jesus and the Pharisees come to an end with a Pharisee victory? Will there be a walk-off home run by Jesus?

Word will likely soon be travelling through the community that there is about to be a fight. Even those not initially present will sense that something is up and come running to see the car-wreck, the show-down. Since the last military action by Romans or resistance by the Zealots, this has got to be what will be talked about in the market for days or weeks. To be able to chime in about what you saw and heard will be important for a claim to fame.

The plot thickens, breath is held, lines prepared—Action!

On another occasion Jesus went in to a synagogue, where there was a man whose hand was withered.

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holy places fill with hopeless cases
they hold in carefully constructed niches
reasons to disbelieve hope’s percentages

there are times when no choice
comes to a choice between
some version of holy and suicide

should we decide to continue
all our withered hopes and dreams
contract to the limits of holiness

in the dark we freeze from rebelling
accept our wilderness lot
active waiting settles into memory

withered hand and heart
disrupted dreams and desire
tamed by candle and chant

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“Again” Jesus comes to a synagogue. Mark’s writing style wants us to pile more one synagogue and Sabbath experience on top of previous times. This helps prepare us for a next visit.

Even though being in a synagogue on a Sabbath is expected behavior, it appears that Jesus is intentionally participating in religio-political theatre as we run through a familiar pattern of challenge and response. His choice of location to initiate a confrontation with a variety of traditions is telling.

A withered hand is likely to be connected to a withered wrist. By extension the whole arm could be withered or a whole life. Our tendency to take one physical flaw and blow it out of proportion is legendary. Simply listen to a teen have their life destroyed by a pimple.

A further connection is with Israel which has withered under the onslaught of Empire (Rome) or any land under physical or economic occupation by any external or internal Empire down to the present. If we consider the Temple in Jerusalem as a hand that has withered and can no longer be raised in prayer of praise or supplication, these healings do have a political component and not just a personal one.

There are community consequences for only having one hand, only being half there. Culturally there is a private hand and public hand and when both functions have to be done by only one hand, suspicions arise that make everyone uncomfortable.

In two short lines a scene is set and we begin to anticipate its unfolding. At the same time, Mark’s style of jumping and returning does keep us engaged. How will it resolve this time?

so the Son of Man is lord even of the Sabbath.”

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Sabbath designation takes place
in real time and space

flies on a body measure death
in real life and breath

Lords of each regularly come and go
riding high and ending low

Sabbaths and flies can be honored
on their own terms not on order

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The traditional translation here is “Son of Man” rather than “Human One”. It is that “One” added to “Human” that makes it difficult to deal with this many years after the writing.

We can stick with the Human language with humans having mastery or decision-making power regarding sabbath and its implementation.

We can move toward Son of Man and Human One as variants on apocalyptic imagery of Daniel and Revelation with a much larger-than-life reference.

We can also see this term as a third-person reference to Jesus that separates him from regular humans as the Human human.

People with differing theological perspectives and ecclesial traditions will find this more divisive than unifying. An argument can quickly break out about High and Low Christology.

Here we acknowledge that the community following Jesus took liberties with their engagement of Hebraic language and traditions and interpreted Jesus messianically and apocalyptically.

Our preference is to use the translation from The Five Gospels:

The sabbath day was created for Adam and Eve,

not Adam and Eve for the sabbath day.

So, the son of Adam lords it even over the sabbath day.

While this better connects with the creation story it probably is a radical jump that Mark would balk at. Our excuse for Mark’s usage is that this is just a too-memorable couplet for an author to lose. Let’s chalk it up to a remembrance by Peter, once again speaking hyperbolically before considering the nuance.

Because you are reading slowly, aloud, this is an opportunity for Mark’s reader to respond by coming to a tentative resolution of their relationship with all that goes into an Israelite Sabbath and their willingness to hold tradition or an agreed upon discipline loosely.

Then Jesus added,  “The Sabbath was made for people, and not people for the Sabbath;

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sabbath is a sharing
a partnership
a time pause
an evaluation

sabbath stands outside
ready to receive
a perspective
a result

sabbath is found
by G*D for G*D
by us for us
by me for me

sabbath was not created
for purpose
for exploitation
for anything

sabbath is present
every seventh second
seventh decade
seventh era

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Around we go. This is a good place to remind ourselves of the mystery of speaking multiple languages. A Translator’s Handbook on the Gospel of Mark by Robert G. Bratcher and Eugene A. Nida reports:

Such aphoristic expressions as occur in this verse are almost always difficult to translate because of (1) their shortness (much is left implicit), (2) the double meanings of words involved (it is one thing to speak of man being ‘made’, but for ‘a sabbath to be made’ is often quite a different matter), and (3) the somewhat tenuous relationship to the context. In this instance the context assists materially in the understanding of the passage, but this is not always true, and even in this instance what is evident to the translator may not be equally clear to the reader.

The Handbook was copyrighted in the United Kingdom in 1961. Translation relies upon time as well as conventions. Here the spelling is “sabbath” which today’s spell-checkers automatically change to “Sabbath”. Such a small question of jots-and-tittles brings a different feel to the relationship of “Sabbath” and “humans”. In some ways it would be much easier to read if the capitalization were “sabbath” and “Humans”.

Now we are beginning to step into the whole divine human (θεῖος ἀνήρ – theios aner) or G*D Partner or theosis drive which doesn’t fit particularly well with Mark but was alive and well in his era and has advocates in this time.

Given all the connections to this point about healing, exorcism, and teaching that occur on an important religious day—Sabbath—this question of Human/sabbath relationship is one that does call out for clarification.

how he went into the house of God, in the time of Abiathar the high priest, and ate the consecrated bread, which only the priests are allowed to eat, and gave some to his comrades as well?”

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taken for me
taken for you

two distinct rationales
needing parsing and clarity
within a manipulative wilderness

left to their own devices
it won’t be long before you
is only a longer spelling of me
you taken me taker

hopefully hungering temptations
will be revealed
as variants on a theme

we are together in this
eucharistic partners

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The Jewish Annotated New Testament, edited by Amy-Jill Levine and Marc Zvi Brettler, reflects on this verse:

This typical controversy story involves a legal challenge, presented as petty and mean-spirited, and a pithy rejoinder that transcends the legal challenge to address the underlying human need. Before that response, however, the text includes a scriptural and legal argument: if David could supersede law to meet human needs, so could Jesus and his disciples. However Mark does not accurately follow the biblical text, 1 Sam 21.1–6, making the question—have you never read?—perhaps accidentally ironic. David acts alone in 1 Samuel, does not act from hunger, and does not enter the house of God to eat the bread of Presence. Further the priest is Ahimelech, not Abiathar. Pharisees would also not likely be out in the fields on the Sabbath to observe behavior, so the story, like other conflict stories in the Gospels, is likely created to define the identities of Jesus’ followers and their opponents.

Here is our opportunity to reflect on how easy it is to shave just a little bit off a story to further advance our over-investment in a particular perspective. It is small steps as these small slights to a common history that eventually lead to gaps too large to step back over.

A part of the wrestling here is with the limits of irony and sarcasm. An appeal to the ironic is a relatively common way of avoiding an apology or saying, “I’m sorry”. Is all, including sarcasm, fair in a game of religious differences? Is this really a zero-sum game that calls for a deep fundamentalism at the heart of every religious tradition?

Honor consensual reality before taking advantage of it.

“Have you never read,” answered Jesus,  “what David did when he was in need and hungry, he and his companions –

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too often caught
reactive
yesterday’s gift forgotten
blind
today danger looms
ultimate
blockading perspective
vanity
it’s my responsibility
recycled

memory
remembers to share
opening
intersecting pathways
creative
depths and movements
future
possibilities available now
options
caught and applied

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“Said” is too neutral a word in this scene, Consider something closer to “retorted” or “responded in kind”.

If Jesus has not recently been on retreat it would be understandable that he is using arrogant rhetoric intended to end an argument before it can be lost. It would be expected that any Pharisee worth their salt would know all the stories about David. The reader might also be expected to know any David reference.

From this it is not unreasonable to see a glint in Jesus’ eye as he readies his return trap.

This anticipatory sparkle continues a long history of a question/counter-question form of argumentation among the Rabbis. Such back-and-forth questions as these offer a possibility to put us on track to reason together. Unfortunately, this same process can also be condescending rather than honest and deepen divides.

It will be important to be scrupulous in picking and choosing what, out of a common pot, is going to be focused upon. When we are coming from different perspectives but want to claim ourselves as the primary interpreter of history, we are but a step away from revisionism in its most difficult sense. So it is that differing Orders were formed within Roman Catholicism; a multitude of Lutheran Reformations reformed away from one another; United Methodists are using differing strands of their Wesleyan heritage to find yet another way to split apart. Without agreement on various pictures of an elephant by blind-men, we dissect the soul out of life. Simply naming David, like naming Jesus, does not give any assurance that we are talking about the same David or Jesus or Torah or Muḥammad or ….

“Look!” the Pharisees said to him, “why are they doing what is not allowed on the Sabbath?” 

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wise opponents keep us guessing
once they asked me about you
now they ask you about me
a little explanation hems us in
one rationale now will resurface
in another setting to further accuse
the only strength we have
is in knowing what every slave
knows about their master
blame is based on perception and whim
every corner of ritual must be defended
slave-phobia can never be admitted
since blame and misrepresentation
are expected every day from any angle
know a larger frame of belovedness
here there is no law against sharing
no injunction to representative purity
only a hard tension of virtue and community

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“Blemish” is an ancient transactional game similar to finding someone to blame before we are held to blame. We look for someone’s weakness or distance from a given mean of behavior.

Having identified what their wrong is, puts us in a good position from which we can protect our own wrongness. So we have a notice of action quickly turned into an accusation.

With the crop ripe enough for harvest, it is easy to see the disciples as reaping and eating rather than gleaning, after a harvest, or finding a gum-like chewing substitute. Seeing wrong at work is particularly easy after having several run-ins with Jesus. Obviously there is some malice aforethought going on here.

Rather than follow the same game-plan as before—running directly at Jesus—it is time to try a triangling ploy of tacking at the disciples. This is an easy one to catch when it is happening to someone else, but when surprised we can easily slip into excuse mode rather than to find the main thread of the distress and address it.

To be called to be an announcer of good news is as dramatic as a call to leave the familiarity of Egypt for a land of one’s own. This exodus is a wilderness journey and manna (at hand food) is directly tied to Sabbath. Later restrictions on what was or was not acceptable on Sabbath began to take precedence over earlier understandings. So we have now later versus earlier understandings of Sabbath/Food connections. This same dynamic is present in every argument.

One Sabbath, as Jesus was walking through the cornfields, his disciples began to pick the ears of wheat as they went along.

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trooping through a wheat field
brings a single-file slowness
or a broad swath of destruction

with slowness sets in hunger
by the end of a line the best is gone
intended or not foraging widens

should the field owner arrive
there is certain conflict ahead
but then it’s Sabbath and they can’t

with no surveillance cameras in sight
we should be good to go on what seems right
and that is settled by those with the light

gleaning is a gateway action
to turn inequality to revolution
eat or don’t eat at your peril

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What makes for a proper fast has been looked at and now we turn to the other side—what makes for proper eating.

Dietary laws have been important in the life of Israel from Moses onward. When combined with Sabbath, the questions joined are heightened.

Those who have followed Mark so far know that travel is not only broadening but carries the danger of misinterpretation between differing traditions and perspectives. So we are ready for a fairly straight-forward event to escalate.

The synagogue is a familiar place for Jesus and his students to go on a Sabbath. Imagine that has been the case again. Suppose the Jesus cultus has been to do its usual work of teaching. They are returning to their place of lodging where a review of the day would likely happen.

Regardless of whether the disciples were intentionally confronting Sabbath rules through the ambiguous action of seed picking (was it just to have a little something to chew on or was attention drawn to picking and carrying grain home?) we have the set-up for one more distinction to be drawn between the prevalent religious understandings of the day and this group of announcers of another way.

Jesus’ followers are beginning to get a sense that there is no safe sanctuary, particularly on a weekly Sanctuary Day. No variant will go unaccused.

And no one ever puts new wine into old wine-skins; if they do, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the skins are lost. But new wine is put into fresh skins.”

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new wineskins for new wine
a rallying cry in every generation

the uniquenesses I bring
need a larger better context

while always true it doesn’t ask
whether the wine is brand new or branded new

how many new cereals and detergents
have come only to be replaced in turn

newness of wineskin doesn’t correlate
with appreciable difference in quality

if new wine is a fishing lure
what needs flexing in wineskins caught

lose old baggage
yoga-ize old sinews

in a journey through one wild life
start a new birthday in honor of an old anniversary

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Is this a contrast of fasting styles—that of John’s disciples or those of Pharisee followers?

With these being more similar than not, Jesus’ guidelines may be setting off a different comparison.

We are not only recognizing that there are sufficient differences between these two groups and Jesus, but we are returned to an announcement of good news. While no one else would pour new wine into old skins, Jesus does with healings/exorcisms and teachings that Saul Alinsky would appreciate, purposely pouring new wine into old skins until they break open.

One way this works is to be new wine poured into many old wineskins. They burst, spilling out this new wine all over the place—Evangelistic IEDs, as it were. This is also a way to think about John’s baptizing—sending repentive, converted, metamorphosed individuals from his symbolic wilderness back from the Jordan into the communities of Israel to work at changing the ethos of the people through fresh relationships with G*D and one another, as well as raising new resistance to an occupying Empire.

“No one ever sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment; if they do, the patch tears away from it – the new from the old – and a worse tear is made.

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fashions change over time
once patched clothes
were warned against
lest your patch fail
and you stand revealed

in an age of prosperity
we now pre-patch clothes
and otherwise destroy them
as a sign of our disregard
for signs of privilege

torn clothes no longer
speak to us of repentance
they speak volumes though
prestige flaunting patches
in front of their necessity

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This is not a continuation of the fasting conversation in the last couple of verses. If so we would be wrestling with how to fast from wine, even that reported to have begun as water.

Here we have more of the Christian community finding its privileged place. A distinction between old and new is part of the ancient tradition of conversion confirmation.

When we have invested the energy to leap to another quantum level it is important for us to justify that expenditure of power by attributing power to our new state and denigrating anything and everything about our old way of seeing life. Without this either-or why did we change?

This is probably an old Aramaic Almanac aphorism summarizing in an image what is being articulated in the midst of every schism. Our (with an emphasis on “our”) radical new understanding requires a privileged position and, if it can’t be in control, there can only be a conquering or a division from which we can battle their illegitimate, heretical, blasphemous wrongness.

As this is being written a schismatic rending of the old and new is being lived out in the life of The United Methodist Church over the issue of sexual orientation but under the guise of biblical interpretation. An interesting note: it is those who are bringing a new wine, an appreciation for the continuum of human identifier, who are the ones trying to hold the denomination together while those who would hold to prejudged older beliefs are bringing the schismatic action by setting up alternative structures and seeing an irreconcilable difference between themselves and those they have labeled as out-of-touch liberals and covenant breakers.

This issue will likely be clearer by the time this book is published.