Narrative Lectionary Program Year – Jesus Lord of the Sabbath and Call of Disciples
Luke 6:1-16
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Furthering the Power of God’s Story – Narrative Lectionary Commentary
by Rev. Dr. Clint Schnekloth
Try to come up with a contemporary parallel to Jesus’ violation of the Sabbath. Can you? It’s probably important to do so. If we can’t, then we can hardly identify with the way in which his practices felt like a violation to those who witnessed them.
Let me offer a couple of possibilities. So first, imagine somebody walking into a grocery story on Black Friday and just walking out with the food, giving it away for free.
Perhaps imagine a doctor beginning to openly bandage a wound right in the middle of Christmas Eve worship service. Or a mother staying in worship and soothing a crying child while not leaving.
Or if we want to be even more literal, imagine a grocery store clerk selling wine on Sunday in a county with laws against such.
This pericope presents us with a real challenge: we inhabit a culture that is so inured to the violation of Sabbath-keeping, it’s difficult for us to even imagine parallel situations today.
Jesus practices on the Sabbath what we might call executive privilege. Remember Carl Schmitt’s thesis that modern political concepts are secularized religious concepts. So, when Jesus says that the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath, we might remember today that the president is Lord of Pardons. The president can issue executive orders.
After we consider this portion of the pericope, we get this very brief final description of the choosing of the twelve disciples. On one level, this is a simple list, and is designed as such. Luke is introducing the disciples by name here.
But intriguingly, Jesus spends the night praying to God before selecting these disciples. Many of us know from personal experience how important this is: the identification of and cultivation of leaders requires much prayer. And then even after we pray and trust God, the leaders will be diverse, and even some, like Judas, may still betray the mission.
That’s a whole other sermon.
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Exegetical Links
The Twelve Disciples, Mark Allan Powell
Sabbath and Work, The Theology of Work Project
Great Quotes
“Throughout human history, the apostles of purity, those who have claimed to possess a total explanation, have wrought havoc among mere mixed-up human beings.”
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Free Dramatic Reading For This Text (NRSV)
Readers: Narrator, Pharisees, Jesus
Narrator: One sabbath while Jesus was going through the grainfields, his disciples plucked some heads of grain, rubbed them in their hands, and ate them. But some of the Pharisees said,
Pharisees: Why are you doing what is not lawful on the sabbath?
Narrator: Jesus answered,
Jesus: Have you not read what David did when he and his companions were hungry? He 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?
Narrator: Then he said to them,
Jesus: The Son of Man is lord of the sabbath.
Narrator: On another sabbath he entered the synagogue and taught, and there was a man there whose right hand was withered. The scribes and the Pharisees watched him to see whether he would cure on the sabbath, so that they might find an accusation against him. Even though he knew what they were thinking, he said to the man who had the withered hand,
Jesus: Come and stand here.
Narrator: He got up and stood there. Then Jesus said to them,
Jesus: I ask you, is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the sabbath, to save life or to destroy it?
Narrator: After looking around at all of them, he said to him,
Jesus: Stretch out your hand.
Narrator: He did so, and his hand was restored. But they were filled with fury and discussed with one another what they might do to Jesus. Now during those days he went out to the mountain to pray; and he spent the night in prayer to God. And when day came, he called his disciples and chose twelve of them, whom he also named apostles: Simon, whom he named Peter, and his brother Andrew, and James, and John, and Philip, and Bartholomew, and Matthew, and Thomas, and James son of Alphaeus, and Simon, who was called the Zealot, and Judas son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor.