Conversation Points for Mark 2:23-3:6

Study Format:
1. Read passage aloud. What did you notice in the reading? What words or phrase caught your attention?
2. Read passage aloud a second time. What questions would you ask the text?
3. Read passage aloud a third time. What do you hear God calling you to do or be in response to this text?

Interesting Ideas to Consider:
• The passage begins with Jesus making “a way” (Gk hodos) through the field. The disciples were gleaning leftover grain, as is permitted in Deuteronomy 23:25, “If you go into your neighbor’s standing grain, you may pluck the ears with your hand, but you shall not put a sickle to your neighbor’s standing grain.” The problem for the Pharisees was the disciples were traveling and harvesting grain on the Sabbath. By the Pharisitic read of scripture, the disciples should have been eating food they had prepared ahead of time so they would not have to work on the Sabbath.
• Jesus referenced 1 Samuel 21:1-6, a story where David approached a temple priest requesting food for his soldiers. The priest only had loaves of bread that had been blessed, and thus were only to be eaten by a priest. But the priest gave the bread to David anyway, because his men needed it. So while breaking the letter of that law, the priest kept another law, the one which required him to show hospitality to travelers in need.
• Frequently in the Gospels we see Jesus acting as rabbi and interpreting texts for the disciples and others (here the Pharisees). Jesus was not interested in the law as an abstract set of rules, but rather how the law was to be lived out in the world.
• The law Jesus interpreted was from Deuteronomy 5:12-15 (the first reading for Sunday). In it, God established the first labor law, creating the weekend. The reason for Sabbath was to rest, and to allow everyone to rest. It was a way to live out the freedom from slavery.

Works Sourced:
Jacobson, Rolf, Karoline Lewis, and Matt Skinner. “#608 – Second Sunday after Pentecost.” Audio blog post. Sermon Brainwave. Working Preacher, 26 May 2018.

Perkins, Pheme. “The Gospel of Mark.” The New Interpreter’s Bible Volume VIII. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995.

Skinner, Matt. “Commentary on Mark 2:23-3:6.” Working Preacher. http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=3667. Accessed: 30 May 2018.