Reflection of the WORD on the Sunday of October 10, 2021
WE NEED SHABBAT – Mark 10:17-22
As he was setting out on a journey, a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, "Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" Jesus said to him, "Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. You know the commandments: 'You shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; You shall not defraud; Honor your father and mother.'" He said to him, "Teacher, I have kept all these since my youth." Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, "You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me." When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions.
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We need the Shabbat. Why Shabbat is important? Because it is within the Ten Commandments. Either all the Ten Commandments are important or none of them. Shabbat is also a creation order, it is a primordial arrangement of God. It is surprising that among the commandments Jesus listed to the young man, the commandment regarding the Sabbath was not included.
The fourth commandment from the Ten Commandments, which ordinates the Shabbat by saying that you shall remember it to keep it holy, is a pivotal and a cornerstone commandment for Jews with no excuse and no exception. The commandment of the Shabbat was so profound and so central in the Jewish life and in the achieving of righteousness in order to merit the world to come, that it is inconceivable that Jesus left the Sabbath out of the commandments, those necessary to go to heaven, when he, as a Jew was talking to a Jew.
In the context of the gospels we know that Jesus stated explicitly that he has not come to convert gentiles but to outreach non-observing Jews to make them repent, as it is written that Jesus told the disciples that "I wasn't sent to anyone but the lost sheep of the house of Israel." (Mt:15:24)
If the keeping of the Shabbat was not mentioned in the Gospel of Mark, then this was an intentional editing. How do we know that the gospel of Mark was edited and recompiled? Almost all of the modern scholars agree that the gospel of Mark originally ended in chapter 16 with the verse 8.
What comes after in the gospel of Mark till the verse 20 is an interpolation from a later time by an anonymous editor, in order to make the gospel compatible with the Greek speaking gentile audience, and to make Mark have an ending similar to the gospel of Matthew, which similarly has an obvious later made interpolation of an anonymous editor. The editing occurred way after the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem and the exile of the Jesus following Jewish congregation, who fled Jerusalem.
Thus, the Gospels were recompiled to the ears of the Gentile converts beginning in Antiochia and elsewhere. The Shabbat was intentionally excluded as a commandment from the commandments required in the Gospel of Mark, however the intentional and reducing exclusion was not and it is not a cheating scandal.
In the original and contemporary congregation of Jerusalem, they all believed that Jesus was the Messiah, but otherwise everybody was Jewish and they rigorously kept the ordinances of the Shabbat, and all the other strict regulations of Judaism ordered by Moses.
Before the distraction of the temple and the city of Jerusalem, the Jesus following Jewish congregation was intact and was led by James the brother of Jesus. Anyone who wanted to join to this group as a gentile, was required to fully convert to Judaism, keeping kosher, going through the circumcision, keeping the Shabbat and all the other laws.
However, when Paul came to Jerusalem and appealed to the council of the Apostles, asserting, that in Antiochia of Syria, the overwhelming majority of the Jesus following congregation were Greek speaking gentiles, and it is just not practical, neither fair to force the Gentile followers of Jesus to become Jews, as well. The Apostolic council, headed by James the brother of Jesus, ruled that the joining Gentiles are not required to convert to Judaism, but they must keep the Seven Laws of Noah, that apply to all the sons of Noah aka to the whole human nation after the flood.
These seven commandments are the following: You shall not commit idolatry. You shall not commit blasphemy. You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not eat the flesh of a living animal. You must establish the courts of justice.
We can see that the Seven Laws of Noah does not contain the Commandment to keep the religious Shabbat, because it applies only to the Jews, the priestly nation of the Priests of the God of Israel. Although Jesus and all the Apostles and the original congregants were observing Jews, after the distraction of the Temple in 70 CE, mainstream Christianity gradually and overwhelmingly became Gentile and Greek speaking.
The Gospels mirror this historical change, that is why the finalized Gospels were written in Greek and not in Hebrew or Aramaic, their theology is profoundly Greek with some Jewish flavor, and that is why the Shabbat issue became a marginal one.
However, we know that Christians in the first three centuries celebrated both the Shabbat and the Sunday respectively, until the Roman emperors outlawed the Shabbat in the Imperial Christian Churches, aiming the complete separation of Christianity from Judaism. The Shabbat still survived as a concept and as a creation order, thanks to the Ten Commandments. And we desperately need it.
What is its concept? Remember the Shabbat and keep it holy, because God rested on the Seventh Day. Thus, by Moses, God commanded that people must not work at all on the Shabbat Day, neither the servants, neither the slaves, neither the strangers in the land, neither the animals. Which means, that God is the King over life. Earthly overlords and slaveholders must not have unrestrained power over the life of others. In a greedy world we live, it is a phenomenally important point. Life must be more than work and slavery.
In the ancient world slavery was the rule on the ground. Moses commanded that in every seventh year, in the Sabbatical year, all slaves must be freed, without any recompensation to the owners. This law is not only revolutionary, but it states the same thing, that God is the King over life, nobody should own an other human being. In a greedy world we live, when slavery is camouflaged, but still exists, this law is like a light of a beacon in the night.
In the world, where land ownership still dictates everything, Moses ordered, that the land must be distributed to the tribes and to the clans. For whatever reason somebody was forced to sell land, Moses ordered that in the Great Jubilee Year, after seven times seven years, in every fiftieth year the land must be returned to the original owner, to the original clan and tribe without any recompensation of the buyer, because God is the King over the land. Nobody can personally own the land, God is the only and real owner.
In a world, where private ownership is worshiped as an idol god, the Shabbat says that the Creator God owns the creation, and we owe God our everything.
Without the tenet of the Shabbat as a guidance, a lighthouse, a creation order to show the way, all directions on Earth lead to a dead end. May the Shabbat of the Lord lead us to the eternal life, as we pray in the name of Jesus, by the Holy Spirit,
AMEN.
