1 Samuel 3.1-10, Mark 2.23-3.6
The First Sunday of Trinity, 2 June 2024, Eldroth, Clapham
This year marks a notable anniversary in our country. It is thirty years since the Sunday Trading Act became law.
Before then, buying and selling on Sunday had been illegal, with some few exceptions. Since then, as we know, Sundays have been transformed from a nationwide day of rest to another working day, and shopping day, for large numbers of people.
Supporters of Sunday shopping argue that restricting opening hours is out of kilter with the 24/7 economy in goods and services that people have come to expect and rely on, that stores should be allowed to open when they like; that extending opening hours benefits the economy by creating thousands of jobs and generates millions in extra revenue. The old idea of Sunday being a day of rest has largely disappeared, they argue, with sporting and other events now also held on a Sunday.
Opponents of Sunday shopping see it as a symbol of the creeping commercialisation and secularisation of British society. Their concern is with protecting the special, spiritual nature of Sundays, churchgoers and all who want a different pace of life, focused on the family rather than mammon. They dispute the economic benefits of Sunday opening, claiming that it merely shifts trade from other days, and that its accommodation to the demands of the retail giants damages small businesses, and takes family time away from shop workers. [1]
Why talk about this in church on a Sunday? Well, our scriptures have a lot to say about the Sabbath and the politics of food. All the way from the episode over the manna in the wilderness, which was about feeding a hungry people; to Jesus turning over the tables of the temple traders, protesting the religious system’s exploitation of the poor for financial gain. In scripture a companion to the Sabbath is the Jubilee, which is a time of debt-forgiveness, when peasant farmers who have been bought out and evicted, are enabled to return to the homes and lands they had lost. In scripture, Sabbath and Jubilee show us that God’s economics is a divine economics of grace. [2]
And so to today’s gospel argument about Jesus defending his disciples when they plucked grain on the Sabbath, which had itself become something of an idol in the society of the day:
Sabbath practice was at the heart of First Century Palestinian life. The Jewish leaders forced people to serve the Sabbath as if the Sabbath itself were some sort of god. Those leaders who controlled the rules of the Sabbath were the ones who benefitted the most from them: and what began as a divine economy of grace designed to benefit all of God’s children was turned into an unjust economy of oppression which disproportionately benefitted the wealthy. Jesus confronts this idolatry with the simple saying, ‘The sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the sabbath; so the Son of Man is Lord even of the sabbath’. [3]
With his eyes ever open to how the powerful and wealthy exploit the disadvantaged poor, Jesus challenges the man-made rules of the Pharisees which stop a hungry person eating on the Sabbath. He uses an example they find hard to oppose: the story of what their revered king David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need of food - he broke the religious rules and ate the priestly bread.
Now, it can be argued that at the heart of our twenty-first century Western life is what is known as the 'free market,' which has been exalted to a semi-divine status. As if the market itself were some sort of a god, we are asked to serve its invisible workings, in faith that it will in turn bless us. Of course, it doesn’t; for the only ones who benefit from this 'free market' are the few whose wealth controls the rules. There is growing inequality in society: consider, for instance, the regrettable rise of foodbanks over the past twenty years. [4]
Can we see how the market has replaced the sabbath as a new religion of our time? How, rather than being disciples, we are now expected to be consumers, devoted to serving the needs of the voracious gods of capital? Our rituals, once around the bread and wine, are now around the Chip and Pin. The checkout has replaced the altar rail, the Amazon app has replaced the prayer book.
If we reshaped our gospel story for today then we might read that:
One Sunday Jesus and his disciples were walking through through the shopping precinct; and after some time his disciples found a space beneath an escalator, spread their coats on the floor, sat down, opened their bags, and began to eat and drink food they’d packed for themselves for the day. Three security guards soon appeared, and said to him, ‘Look, why are they doing what is not lawful in the shopping mall? They can only eat and drink food that they’ve bought here’. And he said to them,‘The market was made for humankind, and not humankind for the market; so the Son of Man is Lord even of the market.’
Now, if the Son of Man is Lord, even of the market, and our heart desires to serve that lord, then how could we be living on the Sabbath?
Could we make it solely a day of rest, a day entirely devoted our worship and nothing else? Not all of us can, of course, for among us are those who have to work, like our farmers, or those who have no option, like the thousands of shop workers and those in the service industries bound by the economic practices of our day. For these, the question may instead be, how can we build into each day, or each week, our own sort of sabbath practice of rest, prayer, recuperation, pause?
Or could we make the Sabbath a day of gentle protest against the idolatrous ways of the market? The one day when we resist the temptation to click our Amazon app; the one day we stop ourselves from shopping.
Inspired by Jesus’ rule-breaking disciples how about making it a day for going down to Bensons with your favourite quilt and taking a nap on one of their showroom beds? Or undercutting the supermarkets’ shrink-wrapped vegetable trade by tending your own veggie patch? Baking your own bread? Learning how to mend that broken toaster rather than chucking it out and buying a replacement? Those who are inclined to express our opinion might join the Keep Sunday Special campaign, which is a coalition of churches, small retailers and workers lobbying government to ensure our laws put the needs of people and communities before corporations. [5]
Learning from Jesus’ treatment of the Sabbath it becomes an opportunity for us to find new ways of - let’s call it - going to market; ways which help us sidestep consumerism for the sake of community and the good earth?
The bible’s Sabbath traditions must continue to inspire us to rest and pray; to centre ourselves before God, whilst also reflecting on how we respond to his call to join in his ongoing work of life and liberation for a world gone awry. [6]
Notes
[1] Open all hours? The arguments over Sunday trading. BBC, 7 July 2015.
[2] Paul Nuecterlein, Girardian Lectionary. Reflections: Year B, Proper 4b: Note on Ched Myers, with Marie Dennis, Joseph Nangle, Cynthia Moe-Lobeda, and Stuart Taylor, “Say to This Mountain': Mark’s Story of Discipleship, chapter 3, 'Jubilee!', pp. 22-30
[3] Paul Nuecterlein, Girardian Lectionary. Reflections: Year B, Proper 4b. Opening Comments: Elements of a New Reformation.
[4] Paul Nuecterlein, Girardian Lectionary. Reflections: Year B, Proper 4b. Opening Comments: Elements of a New Reformation.
[6] Paul Nuecterlein, Girardian Lectionary. Reflections: Year B, Proper 4b: Note on James Alison, Faith Beyond Resentment: Fragments Catholic and Gay, Chapter One, 'The Man Blind from Birth'.
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