Reply #86: Disagreeing with almost everyone on the thread I believe that Mark 2:27 is relevant

[grantcart]

Then he said to the, "The Sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the sabbath; so the Son of Man is lord eve of the sabbath."


When I was at Seminary my friends were studying for their ordination exams (I never intended to go into the local parish so I didn't bother). One of the sample questions was:


You are the pastor of a church and a young couple has lost their child during child birth. They are devistated. They want to have their child Baptized so he can go to heaven. What do you do?



Virtually all of us would have answered to try and counsel the couple on the meaning of Baptism and so on. We all would have gotten this question wrong and would have all flunked the exam on the basis of the one question.


The correct answer was to provide a symbolic Baptism for this family in the middle of their grief and not worry about being theologically correct. Pastoral love trumps theological theory.


The Sabbath is a symbol for the Law. The Law, in this case all of the instruction on Homosexuality, is superceded by a higher understanding of the reconciliation that "Son of Man" was bringing. It is in the perfect sacrifice of the Christ that Christian Truth is understood, not in the fallable applications of theory, even if they are written by Paul.

If two people want to commit their lives to God in a sanctified ceremony then the compelling interests of Pastoral love have to outweigh the imperfect understanding of the "Law", this is what is meant that "the Sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the Sabbath, so the Son of Man is lord even of the sabbath". Whatever prohibitions there were on homosexuality at the time they did not have a greater standing than the prohibitions of taking action on the Sabbath.