Good morning! It's good to be with you this morning.

As Brett mentioned earlier, this is the third Sunday in Lent. One of the things I appreciate about Lent is that it causes us, year after year to confront the core of the Christian faith. As we make the six week journey with Christ from Ash Wednesday to Easter celebration, the question is put before us (either directly or indirectly) of whether or not we believe Jesus is who and what he claimed. And then taking it a step further, do we trust Jesus enough to follow him all the way to the cross? (And what does “following Jesus to the cross” mean for us anyway today?)

The past six weeks we’ve been trying to better understand Jesus and what it means to follow him as we make our way through the Gospel according to Mark. So far we’ve gotten through a chapter and a half. It’s been amazing how action-packed it’s been. There’s been a lot of emphasis on the authority that Jesus is claiming and Jesus has shown remarkable authority and power through…

• calling people to be with him – and they’ve dropped everything to follow him
• defeating evil by healing people who were ill or possessed with demons
• restoring a leper to wholeness
• forgiving sins and helping a paralytic walk again
• dignifying those on the margins by eating/hanging out with them

Lives have been transformed in remarkable ways. You’d think that everyone would be pretty excited about this. We (or at least I) read it and say, what’s not to like? But we find in our scripture that not everyone was happy with Jesus’ way of doing things and what that implied for the ways they were doing things.

This is the third Sunday that we’ll read about Jesus coming into conflict with the religious authorities, the Pharisees. Last Sunday, Jeff asked what it was about Jesus that disturbed the Pharisees so deeply. In last week’s text, Jesus had referred to himself as a physician who had come to heal the sick. Jeff concluded was that since the Pharisees didn’t think they were sick, they wanted a messiah who was more like a judge who would draw a line in the sand and tell them that they were on the correct side of the line.

So, when Jesus said he was a physician, Jesus essentially had undercut the Pharisees’ theology regarding keeping oneself pure and not associating with the “unclean.” He challenged them to the core of their being, which made them intensely angry.

Today, we’ll reflect on yet another way that Jesus challenges the Pharisees to their core – which he does by treading on that which is sacred to them. And along the way we’ll see if there are ways we, too, are pushing Jesus away in our attempts to create a life, a “good” life for ourselves.

Reading: Mark 2: 18 – 3:6.

So we’ve got three stories – One about fasting; one about gathering and eating grain on the Sabbath; and one about healing a man with a withered hand, also on the Sabbath. All three stories are dealing with proper (or improper) behavior. In each one Jesus is breaking long-held rules. And because of Jesus’ behavior (and that of his disciples) Jesus’ ministry is coming under question.

In the first story Jesus and his disciples are not fasting like they are “supposed” to be, not like John’s disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees. The text says that “people” came to him. From the larger context we can say that these people were very likely Pharisees and their scribes.

Now, before we get too down on the Pharisees, we have to think for a minute about the situation. We can hardly blame the Pharisees for acting like they did. The behavior of Jesus and his disciples is going against what has been deeply engrained in their lives/culture. Fasting was a very common rite in Judaism with roots deep in the Old Testament. It was a sign of dedication to God which, in and of itself not a bad thing.

It’s a bit of a stretch for most of us today to relate to rules about fasting. For the most part, our society is not big on adhering to rules. We don’t like (even fear) disciplining other people's children. As long as people don’t get hurt, we tolerate a lot.

But while we might not be that strict with rules (at least not outside our immediate families), a lot of us still have patterns that have gotten engrained in our brains. Very often this comes from the conditioning we received from our families when we were young. For some it might be keeping to schedules, keeping things neat – or just as important to some is to play things by ear and to not worry about cleaning up.

For me, something engrained into my being that drives me to distraction - is the proper use of grammar. When I was growing up my parents were always correcting our grammar, saying it would help us with future job interviews and that sort of thing.

I’ll never forget the time (I still can’t believe I did this). It was when I was in seminary. I was listening to a dear friend talk about a recent break-up with a guy she was dating. She was devastated and was lying on her back on her bed and processing why they had decided to break up.

She kept saying things like “this was hard for John and I” and “such and such happened with John and I." She wasn’t using object pronouns after the prepositions. Finally, I couldn’t stand it any longer, and I said… “Sarah, it’s John and me.” She shot up in her bed and cried, “What?! John and you?!” And I lamely replied, “No, not John and me… it’s just grammatically…uh, never mind…”

I’d say that in that instance following the rules got a little bit in the way of showing God’s love to someone (That would be an example of the “vice versa” part of the title of this sermon). So, and I was very glad that my committee for preparation wasn't there, or they wouldn't have wanted me.

There are some things that are so entrenched in us, that they are really hard to let go of – and will cause us to behave in unfortunate ways! To this day I still struggle that and I sometimes I need to tell myself, “Chill out, Lynne Farisee Blessing!” That’s not to say the rules – grammar, fasting, keeping a Sabbath are wrong – but that they can get in the way of offering healing and hope.

So here we're having the Pharisees, and they 're having a hard time watching Jesus and his disciples not follow the deeply engrained practice of fasting. And they’re having a very hard time with Jesus’ popularity. They were looking for a leader who would free them, but who wouldn’t require them to let go of their beloved customs with which they were so comfortable. They wanted a messiah who would protect their tribe, their way of doing things. And Jesus seemed to be doing the opposite – violating their customs, letting in the unclean pagans....

We know about looking for a new leader. In this highly charged political season, we know a change of leadership is coming, (I have to be careful here!) we’re hearing a lot of opinions about what we want to see in our next president. A lot of people are hoping that the next leader will be our messiah; that our next leader will somehow create the kingdom that we desire, where we can live comfortably with whatever set of rules for living that we’ve established for our families, whatever we've deemed as important. It’s amazing how much passion and energy we’re seeing around this topic of what makes for a good leader for our country.

And people in each camp are looking for their opponents to make the slightest slip. Somewhat similarly, the Pharisees are looking for ways to catch Jesus (and his disciples). They want him to mess up so that they can discredit him. Jesus’ agenda is being carefully scrutinized.

Jesus’s agenda, in a nutshell, is about helping them – helping us -- embrace the new. Jesus is not so much concerned about people leaving the old but grabbing ahold of the new kingdom.

When asked why his disciples weren’t fasting, he responds first by saying “the wedding guests cannot fast while the bridegroom is with them, can they?” This analogy is a stark contrast to the disciples of John and the Pharisees who are fasting – a symbol of mourning. They’ve been living in exile mode, waiting to be freed from their Roman oppressors.

Jesus doesn’t promise a political victory. His freedom is in the eternal realm. They should be celebrating that he is there with them. He is inaugurating the new kingdom of God. And this new kingdom is marked by joy.

Then Jesus says: “No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old cloak; otherwise, the patch pulls away from it, the new from the old, and a worse tear is made. And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise, the wine will burst the skins, and the wine is lost, and so are the skins; but one puts new wine into fresh wineskins.”

Jesus is not putting a value judgment on the old. He’s just saying that fasting and wedding celebrations don’t go together. It’s not appropriate to fast while the bridegroom (which is a reference to himself, the messiah) is with them.

It would be kinda like listening to all the wonderful toasts that are being made at a wedding and then getting up to the microphone and correcting all the grammar (Susie, it’s really about Larry and me…). It's Not appropriate. It’s about Jesus being in their midst!

Jesus’ agenda was not to negate the rules/traditions, but to reinterpret them in light of his ministry. Jesus is trying to convey that he himself is the way to salvation, to freedom. He himself is the end of their exile. And this is reason to rejoice.

NT Wright is a highly respected theologian. Pastor Dan has referred to him a number of times and our staff is reading one of Wright’s books called The Challenge of Jesus. In it he writes:

"[Jesus is telling] them to give up their agenda and trust him for his way of being Israel, his way of bringing the kingdom… The key thing was that the inbreaking kingdom that Jesus was announcing created a new world, a new context, and he was challenging his hearers to become the new people that this new context demanded, the citizens of this new world. He was offering a challenge to his contemporaries to a way of life, a way of forgiveness and prayer, a way of jubilee, which they could practice in their own villages, right were they were."

That’s what the new wine and the need for new wineskins was about.

So moving on in our text we find the Pharisees’ anger just intensifying. In each instance. In vv. 23-28 Jesus gets in trouble with the Pharisees when his disciples gather and then eat grain on the Sabbath. To the Pharisees this goes way beyond a discussion of what is “appropriate or inappropriate.” What Jesus and his disciples are doing on the Sabbath is “illegal.”

It’s hard for our culture to relate to or understand the level of emotion that was connected to observing the Sabbath in Jesus’ day. And even to this day in some of the orthodox sections of Jerusalem. We are often so busy that it’s hard for us to set aside even one day of the week when we don’t work.

But for the Israelites, particularly the Pharisees who, as Jeff said last week, to their credit were the ones in their society who were really trying to do what they believed was the will of God. They were trying to follow the rules related to the Sabbath (there were 39 of them proscribed/banished tasks in the Mishnah). All this was crucial to their sense of self. so much so that even “good” things (like feeding the hungry, healing) were prohibited.

As in the previous story, Jesus does not deny that accusation that the Pharisees make, but he responds as though accepting their charge. In essence Jesus responds by saying that what David did in view of his calling and position, he did with and for his own, so Jesus did in view of his calling and position – and with and for his own. He chooses relationship over rules.

Jesus boldly proclaims: “the Sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the Sabbath: so the Son of Man is lord even of the Sabbath.” The Sabbath was designed to be “renewal for the road,” not a burden to bear.

Jesus, the Son of Man – as a human figure, he best knows human needs; as a divine figure, he has the authority to say how the Lord’s day should be used. So the Pharisees are being told that they are not in control, and it’s undoing them.

But what really pushes them over the edge happens in the next story. In the third story, Jesus upsets the Pharisees so much that they start plotting to destroy him. What is it about healing a man with a withered hand that upsets them so deeply?

When confronted about this by the Pharisees, Jesus asks them: “Is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the Sabbath, to save life or to kill?” The Pharisees were silent. I can just imagine them standing there and fuming. Once again Jesus didn’t enter into a long debate. He let his ministry speak for itself about what was right and wrong. And again he choose relationship over rules.

One of my seminary professors, the late Bob Guelich, wrote a commentary on Mark, and in it he says:

The opponents’ silence and their subsequent actions indicate they rejected the claims of Jesus’ ministry. Instead of arguing the point of legality, they found his claim to be a fundamental threat to their understanding of how God did and would work in history…

As one who called into question the very premises of their understanding of God’s action in history by his own claims and ministry, [Jesus] represented an ultimate threat. He could neither be tolerated nor easily dismissed. And so the Pharisees sought to remove him from the scene.

Guelich ends by saying:

Each controversy makes plain that the conflict grew out of Jesus’ authority that led him to do and allow that which burst the old wineskins.

The great irony in all this is that the Pharisees want to find freedom. They want the scriptures to be fulfilled. But they’ve become so entrenched in their systems that they can’t see that the scriptures are being fulfilled right in front of their faces. Their freedom is right there for the taking, and they can’t embrace it because it doesn’t fit into the forms that they’ve established. They are rejecting Jesus because it means they have a different understanding of what God thinks is important for them to be doing.

What does this mean for us? Most of us aren’t deeply entrenched in religious systems, but in our day-to-day lives I think we all can find some areas where we want to maintain control – to the point where being “right” is more important that the relationships that are affected. We get pretty passionate about what we think are the best ways to raise children, to go about our work, to vote, how to keep the house in order (or not).

We have our systems in which we get stuck – ones we create and ones that are created for and around us by others. My goodness, there are layers and layers of systems to deal with – family systems, systems in our workplaces, computer systems, school systems. It's very complicated.

I want to just quickly share with you from a provocative book I’m reading called The Shack by William Young. Eugene Peterson is quoted on the front cover: “This book has the potential to do for our generation what John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress did for his. It’s that good!”

And there’s a fascinating section about systems and power struggles. The main character (it's fiction) is having a conversation with God. God comments…

"Humans are so lost and damaged that to you it is almost incomprehensible that people could work or live together without someone being in charge…IIt’s one reason why experiencing true relationship is so difficult for you,” Jesus added.

"Once you have a hierarchy you need rules to protect and administer it, and then you need law and the enforcement of the rules, and you end up with some kind of chain of command or a system of order that destroys relationship rather than promotes it. You rarely see or experience relationship apart from power. Hierarchy imposes laws and rules and you end up missing the wonder of relationship that we intended for you."

(For those who are wanting to think about God in a fresh, new way, I recommend this book - maybe as a book study or something.)

Jesus’ challenge to the Pharisees is a big one for us today. But we can take hope that God’s power is great enough to transform our lives. As we loosen the grip on keeping control, on getting our way. And as we open our eyes and be more open to ways that God can use us to bring healing and wholeness to others, we’ll recognize the messiah who is in our midst – Jesus -- and get more glimpses into God’s eternal kingdom, which is free of pain, and eventually free of power struggles. And that gives us reason to rejoice.

Would you pray with me.

Lord God, create in us an expectancy for something new – an openness to embrace your new way. May our hearts and minds be like new wineskins, ready to receive the joys and challenges that come with being citizens of your new kingdom…

And Lord, we want to take a few moments now to silently confess to you the ways that our pride, our limited vision, our reluctance to let go of our turf… gets in the way of doing what’s best for others…