Can I ask another? My Chief of Staff Leo McGarry insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2 clearly says he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself or is it okay to call the police?
By phrasing the question in a way that assumes the existence of a police force and a strong culture of individualism, the distance to ancient Israel is immediately highlighted. There the context would less be one of individuals monitoring other individuals but of a community committed to a communal rest day which explicitly includes every resident, whatever their status in society (Exod 20:10), all across the country (Lev 23:3). It is a responsibility laid on the community as a whole and infringements would be dealt with by the community.
That Leo McGarry would insist on working on the Sabbath is plausible. Powerful people often like to think of themselves as too important to stop working (although it is perhaps also true that those with power over others like to imagine that their underlings want to work all the extra hours expected of them). It is arguably especially important for people who are “in charge” to be reminded regularly that they are not ultimately in charge of the world. Readiness to stop working is an acknowledgement that the flourishing of our world does not ultimately depend on my input. Designating the rest day as a holy day further underlines that it is the Holy One who is in charge of the world. Specifying the death penalty for breaking the Sabbath rest underlines the deadly seriousness of living as if oneself rather than YHWH is in charge. (Strictly speaking, exclusion from the community might perhaps have been another way of dealing with infringements once Israel was settled, given that the death penalty is only specified in the wilderness context.)
This holy day is given to a holy people. The incidents reported in Exod 32–34 have just highlighted the potential for sin to sabotage God’s presence. The warning in Exod 35:2 comes in the wake of all this, just as the book moves from the instructions for building God’s tabernacle to their implementation. Given that neither President Bartlet nor his Chief of Staff show any interest in God’s holy presence among his holy people, it seems altogether hypocritical for him to feign interest in keeping a holy day, let alone in punishing others who do not keep the Sabbath. Of course Bartlet only means to imply that those who consider male same-sex intercourse a taboo (“abomination”) must also put to death those who break the Sabbath (with he himself being interested in neither) but it is not clear why this should be so. It seems perfectly possible for someone who reads the Bible as God’s Word written to deduce from the specification of the death penalty the seriousness of a matter, as one might deduce from taboo/abomination language the non-negotiability of a matter, without believing for a minute that our contemporary communal life should be organised in strict accordance with laws and penalties specified to ancient Israel on route from Egypt to the promised land. The church has centuries of experience with this, never accepting that the only options are either (a) to pretend that we are ancient Israel bound to strict observance of all the old covenant law and stipulations, or (b) entirely free to ignore whatever we do not like about these old covenant law and stipulations. Given that Leo McGarry is not a member of the community addressed in this text, it is bearing false witness to claim that “Exodus 35:2 clearly says he should be put to death.”
No Christian is under obligation to execute punishments stipulated under the old covenant. But neither should any Christian ignore what the laws reveal about the character, values and purposes of God. This reminder about the importance of Sabbath rest just before the narrative of the building of the tabernacle (cf. 31:12-17 right at the end of the instructions for the tabernacle, characterising the Sabbath as “a sign between me and the people of Israel”) perhaps puts the large amount of detailed work that is now required into perspective. Acknowledging that God is in charge by taking a break from work every seven days is more important than building the tabernacle as quickly as possible.
Just as the Sabbath marks the climax of the specification section (see 31:12–17), so now it stands in the forefront of the execution section…The Sabbath as weekly day of rest takes precedence over even the urgent work of constructing the tabernacle as the dwelling place of YHWH among the Israelites. To observe the Sabbath is to participate in the perfection and completion of God’s own creative work. This is the essential context within which all human labor takes place.
William Johnstone, Exodus 1–40, SHBC (Macon, GA: Smyth & Helwys, 2014), 435–436
