This passage (Mark 3.1-6) focuses on a conflict between Jesus and the Pharisees concerning behaviour that is acceptable on the Sabbath. Tom Wright says that Jesus brings a radical challenge to the religious leaders by breaking Sabbath rules to show God's kingdom - bringing healing love. This highlights Jesus as the true Israel, a new temple, and a powerful King whose actions expose the blindness of those who prioritize law over people, setting the stage for conflict and revealing the core purpose of his mission to establish God's reign.
The whole point of the commandment - celebrating God's creation and redemption, past, present and future - had been lost sight of. The rule mattered more than the reality. Jesus' verdict on that was that it constituted 'hard-heartedness' - one of the regular charges that the prophets levelled against law-breaking Israelites in days gone by. Like the wilderness generation under Moses, his contemporaries were unable to see and celebrate what God was actually doing in front of their noses. So he puts the question in its starkest terms, in words dripping with irony: is it legal to do good on the sabbath, or only to do evil? Is it legal to make people alive, or only to kill them? If the sabbath speaks of creation and redemption, the answer is obvious - and if the current interpretation of the rules says otherwise, so much the worse for the current interpretation of the rules.
I think we have an example of a similar hardheartedness before us this week as US President Donald Trump has said he no longer feels obliged to think only of peace after he was not awarded the Nobel Peace Prize last year. In a message to Norway's Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre, Trump blamed the country for not giving him the prize. Trump wrote: "Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper' for the US."
However, we should never simply point the finger at others without remembering that there are also fingers pointing back at us. So, also need to ask whether there are ways in which the church today can get so blinded by its commitment to what appear necessary rules that it fails to see God's healing and restorative work breaking through?
Thankfully, we continue to have marvellous examples around us of those who give and give again to others regardless of cost and time. The stories told in the Call the Midwife books and TV series are based on selfless and sacrificial real-life experiences of nuns and nurses in the East End from the 1950’s through the 1960’s.
Series 9 and Episode 5 begins with the following opening diary monologue: There are moments when the world seems to pause in its perpetual spinning: when the minutes hang suspended as life begins, or ends. The Sisters of Nonnatus House were guardians of the threshold. A wise word, a gentle glance, the first or last murmur of blessing - they brought wisdom, they brought comfort, they brought love. They were witnesses to all that mattered: struggle, loss, triumph, ties of blood. Other people's lives were their life, and in their service, they gave all they had... all that they were. They did not stop to count the cost, for this was their mission, their calling, their joy.
Then, at the end, we hear: The wise will always learn, the generous will always find they have more to give. Thus, we cross the threshold into freedom, and to progress, and to embracing all that's new. The world shifts around us and we shape ourselves to fit: imperfect and beautiful, wounded and thriving, delicate, invincible, forever moving on. Time is not the tide, it moves in only one direction. Go forth with courage and in hope. Change is not lost - we must run with it, dance with it, give it all we have.
Other people's lives were their life, and in their service, they gave all they had... all that they were. They did not stop to count the cost, for this was their mission, their calling, their joy. This is what people like Trump do not understand and cannot experience as a result. Rather than his transactional rules-based approach which says if I do X then I will receive Y and, if not, I will no longer do X, the sisters of Nonnatus House did not stop to count the cost because, like Jesus, compassion and peace was their overarching goal, not something that was transactional or something to be earnt.
As a result, in Series 8 and Episode 4, we hear these words, which are based on what we learn from Jesus’ words and actions:
"Love is never the only answer. But it is always the best, the simplest, the one most likely to withstand the test of time. Love is the beginning. It should be the final word."
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