Jesus and his adversaries are caught in a loop of one-upping each other in Mark 2:23-3:6. The Pharisees point out the work the disciples are doing on the sabbath. Gotcha Jesus! Jesus responds: the son of Man is lord even of the sabbath! I see your Gotcha, and I’ll raise you!

Many of us were taught to read Jesus’ interactions with the Pharisees as a series of Gotcha! moments. To hear Jesus’ questions in moments like this as nothing more than a case of one-upping his opponents. Jesus gets the final word as if that proves his righteousness and favor and reveals the hypocrisy of his opponents. We have been taught to demonize Pharisees as though they are some “others” that bear no resemblance to us. As though we have never sought to one-up others with our own Gotchas!

This way of reading the gospels is dangerous. It easily leads down a road where we think that God is on our side. And if God is on our side than surely God sides with our Gotchas – no matter how biased, hate-filled, or violent they may be.

Debie Thomas writes that the Pharisees in today’s gospel are stand ins for “all convictions, values, traditions, commitments, doctrines, absolutes, proclivities, preferences and essentialisms, no matter how cherished, noble, or well-intentioned that stand between us and compassion.” There’s an old saying: “we have met the Pharisees and they are us.”

In Mark’s gospel, Jesus’ ministry embodies healing, restoration and hope for all creation. Again and again, Jesus acts, as he does in today’s gospel, not simply to one-up his opponents, but to embrace the flourishing of ordinary human life for individuals.

As followers of Jesus and people of God, we are freed from the religious practices or behaviors that have become rigid and oppressive and keep us, or our neighbors, from experiencing the flourishing of life in Christ.

Jesus speaks to us from today’s gospel and says: “friends, where do you find yourself enslaved — not to Egypt, like our ancestors, but to ideologies, or behaviors or judgements of yourself or others?”

What would it look on the sabbath to lay this burden down at the foot of the cross? To remember that the lord of the sabbath longs for our rest and our liberation and longs for us to know a life that is about more than winning, and having the final word, or making a point. Jesus speaks to us from the gospel and longs for us to know that we are free. Free for love. Free for compassion. Free for abundance. Free for flourishing. Truly and simply free.