Then he said to them, "The sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the sabbath (Mark 2:27)

Lazy day, Sunday afternoon

Like to put my feet up, watch TV

Sunday roast is something good to eat

Must be lamb today ‘cause beef was last week

Today’s Heaven-sent and I’m feeling content

‘Cause I’ve worked all day long

Still it’s quite sad, tomorrow’s so bad

And I don’t feel too strong.

That’s the second Moody Blues song I’ve started a sermon with in my time here. It’s interesting that in the middle of this song about enjoying a Sunday afternoon, which otherwise lacks any reference to church or Christianity, Ray Thomas put in the words, “Today’s Heaven-sent”. And so it is.

In our Gospel passage this morning Mark brings two stories of Jesus together with a common meaning. In the one his followers pluck heads of grain in a cornfield and when the Pharisees see this they object on the basis that they are “doing work” on the Sabbath. In the second they are peeved because Jesus heals a man’s hand on the Sabbath. In both cases they think Jesus has transgressed one of the most important laws of the Torah: you don’t work on the Sabbath.

The trouble is, what constitutes ‘work’? Like a lot of apparently simple rules in the Ten Commandments this one grows and grows in the Torah as dozens of other rules built up to define what you could and couldn’t do. Could you haul an animal out of a hole? Could you cook food? Orthodox Jews take these rules seriously. The guy I trained with remembered being a boy in Glasgow before the war and making a few pennies going around the houses in the local Jewish community on a Saturday to light their fires because the rules were the rules and, even on a cold night in Scotland, you don’t work on the Sabbath.

An important point about what Jesus says and does in our reading is that he doesn’t abolish the Sabbath. Instead he cuts through all the rules that surround it and gives it fresh meaning. “The Sabbath was made for humanity, not humanity for the Sabbath.” The Sabbath, in Jesus’s terms, is meant to be a blessing, not a burden for believers. It is meant to be a simple gift from God to his creation, his children, not a rule book. I’m not sure we’ve always got that.

Especially in Scotland, perhaps, we’ve sometimes made Sunday a bit of a dreich, grim day. Back in the 17th Century elders of the Kirk would roam the streets in the hours after church - which would, itself, have lasted hours - peering in at people’s windows making sure they were reading their Bibles or were at prayer. Or fasting. In its way that’s every bit as “rule-driven” as what the Pharisees were uptight about. Within living memory, in parts of Scotland, they’d chain up the swings in parks for fear that children might play on a Sunday.  And it’s easy to make fun of that kind of attitude too. But there is, perhaps, something about the idea of keeping Sunday special and different from other days of the week that I think speaks of what the Sabbath is really for, and it is encapsulated in our text this morning; “The Sabbath was made for humanity.” 

Back during the 19th Century, you didn’t get a weekend as such. You worked ten to twelve hours a day, six days a week, often at machines that required you to work to their rhythm as if you were part of them. As if you were, in turn, a machine. And there were those who said that’s exactly what you were: machines of flesh and blood, running on food and hard-wired for labour. In Dickens’s great novel, “Hard Times” workers are described simply as “The Hands” as if they are not complete human beings at all.

That’s what we are, though. We are human beings and the point of having a day away from work is tor remind us of that. In a world that often defines us by the job we do, the Sabbath is a reminder that we are more than that. I am a teacher. I was told by a younger colleague that one of the lecturers was famous for his phrase, “You’re never not a teacher.” I had to disagree. I’m more than a teacher - way more. And so are all of you. We are all of us human beings, made in the image of God.

We are human beings, and our time here in church reflects that. We are children of God and we gather here in the presence of our Father. We are made in love, by love, for love. We are not simply ‘hands’ or ‘workers’ or ‘simply’ anything. We are wonderful, complex beings that have come into existence through the laws of nature God wrote into the universe he created: each of us unique and special. Each of us, however fitfully and weakly, reflecting the love of God into the world. Here, in this place, we take time to remember that - we take time to be human.

Of course, we’re not always great at reflecting the love of God into the world. We’re none of us perfect. We can all get caught up with the pressures and temptations of the world we live in. We can all let wounded feelings and a sense of pride lead us to be unforgiving or insensitive. We can all do stuff, say stuff, that we know we shouldn’t. We are, all of us, in need, sometimes, of forgiveness. We, all of us, need assurance, sometimes, that we are not bound by the pressures and temptations of the world and, through the Cross of Jesus Christ, we have that assurance. Let’s face it, we’re none of us perfect. That comes with being human and here, we take time to remember that. We take time to be human.

We take time to remember that we are not simply workers, or consumers, or hands. We are not simply biological machines. There is a spiritual dimension to humanity. There is something in human beings that drives us to reach for something beyond ourselves - we call that something God. There is something that drives us to seek meaning and purpose in our lives. There is something within us that seeks to transcend life itself and reach for ideas that go beyond the life we lead toward eternity and infinity and all those really big ideas we associate with God. That too comes with being human and here, in this place, we take time to be human.

We take time to remember that we are not driven solely by selfishness and greed; that we don’t necessarily buy into the notions of the world that life is about getting all you can for yourself; that it’s a dog-eat-dog world; that the strong get what they want and the weak go to the wall. Here we embrace compassion. Here we embrace our capacity to care for others; to see those who are going through hard times as our brothers and sisters; to set aside the labels and the divisions of race or culture or language that divide humanity and recognise that someone who’s hurting is hurting in exactly the way you or I hurt. That’s compassion, and it’s exactly what Jesus was getting at when he healed the guy’s hand in the synagogue. Compassion is one of the brilliant things about being human, and here we take time to be human.

And for the rest of today? Do whatever you want, but in whatever you do, rejoice in your humanity. Enjoy it. Take time to be human - because that’s what God made you to be.

Lord, you have made us as we are. As your children. As we rejoice in that, help us to fulfil our calling to be light to the world and salt to the Earth, as your Son taught us to be

Preached at Gretna:St. Andrews Parish church