Don't you dare spit on the Sabbath!
"Come to me all who are heavy burdened and I will give you rest, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light."
Religion can be detrimental to your health. Are you surprised to read that here? Let me explain. I make a clear distinction between Christianity and religion. Religion, as I define it, is a man made system of trying to please God. It is like a trained dog jumping through hoops hoping to be rewarded with some yummy treat. Ultimately, the desire is to be rewarded with eternal life. Christianity, however, is based on something completely different. It is the notion that we simply couldn't jump high enough and that that is not what God had in mind in the first place.
In the movie The Mission, which takes place in South America during the Spanish and Portuguese conquests of that continent, Robert De Niro plays a hot-blooded slave trader, named Mendoza, who kills his brother in a sword duel for a woman. In remorse, he joins the priesthood, which leads him to travel with the priests to a remote mission, deep in the jungle. The trail to the mission requires a dangerous climb along side a waterfall to the top of a high cliff. Mendoza's journey is impeded by a bundle of a hundred pounds or more of junk, which he has been dragging behind him as a means of serving penance for his crime. Finally, as it becomes clear that the attempted ascent may well mean the death of Mendoza, one of the Jesuits draws a sword and hacks the cords binding De Niro to his bundle of penance. Mendoza cannot accept this release, though and retrieves the bundle. It is only once he reaches the top and is amongst the native people he once hunted and enslaved, that one of them comes and cuts the cords which tie him to his guilt. The untethered bundle careens down the side of the cliff. It is a wonderfully symbolic scene, as the weight drops away, freeing the character of his self imposed burden. Mendoza crumples to the ground, sobbing as he is comforted by the forgiving native who has set him free in forgiveness. I love this scene. I honestly don't remember much of the rest of the movie, but this scene has stuck with me.
I love the image of the junk we drag around with us, sin and guilt and various burdens, being cut loose and dropping away from us, setting us free.
"Come to me all who are heavy burdened and I will give you rest, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light."
Religiosity was rampant at the time that Jesus walked the earth, the religious leaders had added rule after rule after rule to the Levitical law. What started out as 10 Commandments had burgeoned to thousands of bloated rules. The rationale behind the rules was to "build a fence" around each of the laws to insure that a person was prevented from going close to breaking the original law. But after the first fence was built, it became the focal point of obedience and so it was assumed that another fence should be built around that to keep from violating that law. This continued to the point of absurdity, to the point that spitting in the dirt on the Sabbath was forbidden. Why?
One of the Ten Commandments God originally gave to Moses for the Israelites involved the idea of taking a rest on the Sabbath, just as in Genesis it tells of God creating the universe in 6 days and resting on the 7th. So how is it that spitting had been forbidden? The commandment prohibited working on the Sabbath. Farming is considered work. When one spits into dry, dusty soil, the surface of the dirt is disturbed. A crater is formed with a raised rim, like when a meteor hits the moon. However, what they saw in this was the similarity to a furrow. Furrows are a bi-product of plowing, a part of farming. Farming was work. Work was forbidden on the Sabbath, hence: Spitting into the dirt on the Sabbath was forbidden. Try to imagine living under such conditions. Consider how miserable it would be on this supposed day of rest to have to concern yourself with whether or not the tiniest aspects of your daily routine would be considered a violation of the laws of your faith. The Sabbath was no longer a day of rest, it was a burden of ridiculous proportions.
It was this sort of religious thinking that inspired Jesus to say: "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." (Matthew 11:28-30)
Rest for your souls. Jesus came to bring rest for our souls. The leaders were more concerned with policing the rules (their traditions) than with the purposes of God.
At that time Jesus went through the grain fields on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry and began to pick some heads of grain and eat them. When the Pharisees saw this, they said to him, "Look! Your disciples are doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath." He answered, "Haven't you read what David did when he and his companions were hungry? He entered the house of God, and he and his companions ate the consecrated bread--which was not lawful for them to do, but only for the priests. Or haven't you read in the Law that on the Sabbath the priests in the temple desecrate the day and yet are innocent? I tell you that one greater than the temple is here. If you had known what these words mean, `I desire mercy, not sacrifice,' you would not have condemned the innocent. For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath." (Matthew 12:1-8)
This problem of misplaced priorities didn't end with the leaders, the Pharisees, of ancient Israel. Christian leaders can fall into the same pit when they lose sight of the heart of the gospel and become too concerned with traditions and outward appearances. Appearances can be deceiving. Traditions may have meaning, but should never become measures of spirituality. Our motivation should never be to be seen by others. Sometimes symbols supplant substance. Wearing a large cross is not more spiritual than wearing a small cross or simply no cross at all. Jesus made the comparison of two men who prayed. One was a Pharisee, one of the religious elite; the other a tax gatherer (for Rome), which meant a traitor to the nation.
"Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: `God, I thank you that I am not like other men--robbers, evildoers, adulterers--or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.' "But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, `God, have mercy on me, a sinner.' "I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted." (Luke 18:11-14)
Again and again throughout the gospels, Jesus' harshest words were reserved for those who thought of themselves as religious, who practiced outward signs of devotion to God, but who missed the core of God's plan. They neglected to show mercy and love. These are the outward signs that people should see.
Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples: "The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat. So you must obey them and do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach. They tie up heavy loads and put them on men's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them. "Everything they do is done for men to see: They make their phylacteries wide and the tassels on their garments long; they love the place of honor at banquets and the most important seats in the synagogues; they love to be greeted in the marketplaces and to have men call them `Rabbi.' (Matthew 23:1-7)
Do as they say, not as they do. The teachers and Pharisees were in places of authority, but they did not practice what they preached. They burdened the people with the extra laws, the fences. In this they created burdens for the common man and woman.
Don't let anyone talk you into taking on the heavy weights of religiosity. Jesus yoke is easy and his burden is light. If you're heavily burdened, you must be yoked with the wrong savior or at least have had leaders that don't understand the freedom that is in Christ. Slip on Jesus' yoke and experience the right one, the light one.
And if you need to, go ahead... spit on the Sabbath.
Kesha Klarensovich