Right Now! Right Now!
Gotcha! We may as well admit we live in an era of “gotcha.”
And not in the positive sense of, “Oh, I get where you’re going with this!” But
rather, in the sense of, “Ha! Finally caught you. It’s all out in the open now!
You’re going down this time!”
Just this week two women, two commediennes, Roseanne Barr
and Samantha Bee, stepped in it and have been seriously “gotchaed”. The world
decreed, “You cannot behave this way, at least not in public.” And like the
traffic slow down that results from drivers wanting to see what’s happening on
the other side of the highway, causing no real impediment to reaching your
destination, but just some peculiar human desire to closely observe someone
else’s misfortune, we all watch on cable networks or twitter or memes on Facebook
or whatever other “platform” of choice so as not to miss one ounce of whatever
“gotcha” is on display today; whether on the left, on the right, or right down
the middle. We may as well admit it: we are fascinated, entertained and even
hoping for someone or other to be taken down in a “gotcha” moment.
In chapters 2 and 3 of Mark’s Gospel there’s a whole lotta
“gotcha” going on. Authorities monitoring Jesus’ behavior are obviously
threatened. There’s a new authority in town and he does not seem to play by the
rules. Which in the context of first century Israel is cause for serious
consideration since Roman Rule already has everyone walking on eggshells. Any
minor infraction of Roman Rule results in reprisals against not only
individuals, but can be meted out against the entire community of Israel. Then
there are Israel’s rules for themselves, with their own authorities making sure
people don’t raise the attention of Rome while also not breaking any of the
Rules of the Covenant. It’s all very complicated. Always has been. But the
Jewish authorities in Jesus’ day, by and large had the well-intentioned safety
of the whole community as their concern. The examples of the Empire’s brutality
are too numerous to number, and lined the roadways, the Via Romana, with
troublemakers hanging on Roman crosses.
A primary example: Sabbath. Shabbat. This was God’s gift to
the slaves God had liberated from bondage in Egypt - a day off. Slaves work
24/7 and never get a day off. God said, enough of that. Even I need a break
once a week, so do you. You are my
people, my beloved community. Take a regular day-off. Do not work for one whole
day. In chapter 2 of Mark it is Shabbat. Jesus and his friends are passing
through a field helping themselves to some grain. Now this was in a sense
prescribed in God’s shrewd economic plan outlined in Torah: farmers were to
leave the corners of fields un-harvested as well as two rows along the roadside
so that strangers passing through, resident aliens, foreigners and others
without resources such as widows and orphans, could gather a little grain to
make a cake or a cracker for the day’s provision. The authorities, who consider
this plucking of grain to be work, observe this behavior of Jesus and his band
of merry men and call, “Gotcha! You are not to do work on Shabbat! Tell them to
stop.”
Now we may as well observe that it is highly unlikely that
the very authorities tasked with keeping Shabbat and other observances in their
proper lanes would themselves be out and about exerting themselves to witness
this grain plucking, but that is beside the point. The point of the story
appears, in part, to uphold a long standing rabbinic saying: The Sabbath is
given for you; not you to the Sabbath (b.Yoma 85b). Jesus reminds them of how
once upon a time David ate the Bread of the Presence from the Temple on Shabbat
(never mind that Mark gets all the details of the story mixed up). He then
reminds them of their own wisdom re Shabbat, and moves on. Moral of the story:
Don’t play Gotcha with Jesus. He can play Gotcha too!
Then comes the rest of the story. Chapter three begins,
“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 cry, ‘Gotcha!’” And he said
to the man who had the withered hand, “Come forward.” Then he said to the
assembled crowd, “Is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the sabbath, to save
life or to kill?” But they were silent. No one answered him. 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 authorities withdraw to plot and scheme a more successful Gotcha moment.
Note, Jesus “does” nothing. The man stretches out his hand.
The minimalist composer John Adams wrote a piece of music
called Christian Zeal and Activity. It is a ten minute stretched out slow,
meditative orchestration of the tune for Onward Christian Soldiers. The score
instructs the conductor to place "sonic found objects" into the composition.
Adams’ own 1973 recording inserted a radio talk-show conversation about God.
Edo de Waart’s 1986 with the San Francisco Symphony inserted a mixed and
manipulated tape of a sermon on Jesus healing the man with the withered hand.
Overlayed on top of the sonorous music comes a scratchy recording that sounds
something like this:
I believe that , and I
believe that Jesus is present in this room by the holy spirit right now, right
now … Right here in this room, right now, right now! And he wants to meet every
need, right now … Now what’s wrong with a withered hand … Why would Jesus be
drawn to a withered hand? Healing all that were oppressed by the devil, I
believe that … Why would Jesus be drawn to the man with the withered hand,
right now, right now … And I believe that same Jesus is present by the holy
spirit right now, and he wants to meet every need right now, right now … And he
wants to meet every need … Why would Jesus be drawn to a withered hand of a man
that was in the synagogue? And I believe this story has a message for you and
me even down here in this year in which we live, right now, right now! Now
what’s wrong with a withered hand? Why would Jesus be drawn to a withered hand?
Now I believe Jesus not only healed this man in the synagogue with a withered
hand but has said “Take up your pallet and walk!” right now, right now … What’s
wrong with a withered hand? Well a withered hand cannot hold on to anything …
Jesus walked in. Jesus always moved by divine appointment and he had an
appointment … Someone had a withered hand and he’d, make it whole, right now,
right now …. Jesus is present in this room by the Holy Spirit … now what’s
wrong with a withered hand? Why would Jesus be drawn to a withered hand? A
withered hand cannot hold onto anything … Jesus is here right now, and Jesus
always moved with divine appointment.
And I believe this story has a message for you and me even down here in
this year in which we live, right now, right now!
Listening to the mesmerizing preaching as de Waart re-mixed
and realized it got me to thinking. Who is the man with the withered hand?
Those being left behind; those having trouble holding on to anything: the poor,
the unsupported LGBTQ community, women who are harrassed and violated, lives
and families destroyed by the opioid epidemic, immigrant families torn apart,
people fleeing violent war-torn and violence countries, homeless veterans, all
homeless people, teens with mental health problems, victims of gun violence. We
are all the man with the withered hand, trying desperately to hold on as we
watch a world that seems to be broken and falling apart right before our very
eyes; as there seems to be no moral compass on the horizon. We are all the man
with the withered hand trying to hold on to something, anything, in a world in
need of healing.
No doubt the story is meant to convey many things about the
source of ultimate authority, about such hubris as to think we know exactly
what God would want in any given moment, about how to best protect the
community of God’s people, and how to “properly” observe Shabbat. But if, as
the itinerant preacher in de Waart’s rendering of Christian Zeal and Activity
insists, there is a message for you and me even down here in this year in which
we live it very well may be just this: we desperately need some Sabbath time
ourselves, which does not mean going to church. For in church we do “liturgy;”
which translated means “work of the people.” Church is work. Church is doing.
Sabbath is Sabbath. Sabbath is not doing. And yet, we tend to believe we have
so many important things to be doing that we cannot afford to take one whole
day off a week when the truth is that we cannot afford not to!
More to the point, the time is now for a larger Sabbath, a
more far-reaching Shabbat, as individuals, as communities, as a nation, as the
world: We need a Sabbath from playing, watching, and reveling in so many
endless games of Gotcha. Right now, right now! Gotcha is just an evil waste of
our time drawing us away from living in the spirit of life and love - God’s
love. A love that seeks us and pursues us even when we are at work being our
worst selves trying to play Gotcha all the time. Playing Gotcha all the time
withers our hand and we lose our grip on our dignity and the dignity of our
society. A withered hand cannot hold on to anything. We need to stop, right
now, right now. Stop doing, stop being so clever, stop trying to revel in the
misfortune of others, stop Gotcha, stop doing and start Being. Right now, right
now, right now….
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