Ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time/Proper 4 (B) — Mark 2:23–3:6

 

Byzantine mosaic

 

Does Jesus Still Thumb His Nose?

 

Two times at them he thumbed his nose,

Not meek and mild, this Jesus shows 

Religious  law is superseded

When graciousness for someone's needed;

The law to God does praise redound—

It's not the other way around!

Thus those who would refuse to bake

For couples gay now take the cake,

For in God's loving Parenthood

God set up laws for human good;

But time makes ancient good uncouth,

And those who stand abreast of truth

Will ask what Jesus might have said

Today, for he is risen from the dead!

His foll'wers find God's rule of love

The sole ingredient of God above. 

Scott L. Barton

("Time makes ancient good uncouth" and “keep abreast of truth” are from abolitionist James Russell Lowell's 18-stanzas poem, The Present Crisis. The lines were in Once to Every Man and Nation in the Pilgrim Hymnal [Congregational, 1958], and The Hymnal [Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A., 1933]. I see no reason why the hymn can't be sung today simply by changing "man" in the title and verses to "one.")

 

One sabbath [Jesus] was going through the grainfields; and as they made their way his disciples began to pluck heads of grain. The Pharisees said to him, “Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the sabbath?” And he said to them, “Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need of food? He entered the house of God, when Abiathar was high priest, and ate the bread of the Presence, which it is not lawful for any but the priests to eat, and he gave some to his companions.” Then he said to them, “The sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the sabbath; so the Son of Man is lord even of the sabbath.”

 

Again he entered the synagogue, and a man was there who had a withered hand. They watched him to see whether he would cure him on the sabbath, so that they might accuse him. And he said to the man who had the withered hand, “Come forward.” Then he said to them, “Is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the sabbath, to save life or to kill?” But they were silent. He looked around at them with anger; he was grieved at their hardness of heart and said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand was restored. The Pharisees went out and immediately conspired with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him.