Baccay

"At that time Jesus went through the grain-fields on the Sabbath. And His disciples were hungry, and began to pluck heads of grain and to eat. And when the Pharisees saw it, they said to Him, “Look, Your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath!” (Matthew 12:1,2).

[The action of the apostles was not contrary to biblical law (Deuteronomy 23:25), but to the 39 rabbinical additions to it, viz., the forbidden (Sabbath) works: "Sowing, plowing, reaping, binding sheaves, threshing, winnowing, sorting, grinding, sifting, kneading, baking, shearing wool, whitening it, combing it, dyeing it, spinning, weaving, making two loops, weaving two threads, separating two threads, tying [a knot], untying [a knot], sewing two stitches, tearing for the purpose of sewing two stitches, hunting a deer, slaughtering it, skinning it, salting it, curing its hide, scraping it, cutting it, writing two letters, erasing for the purpose of writing two letters, building, demolishing, extinguishing a flame, lighting a flame, striking with a hammer, carrying from one domain to another. These are the principal "

works. They number forty minus one" (Mishnah Shabbath 7:2).]

***

I read this morning about an interview with one of the oldest men in the America. Asked to what he attributed his longevity, he replied, "God, whiskey and good cigars. Some might find an incongruity there.

We do well to remember, however, that the Bible nowhere proscribes whiskey and cigars. It's wrong to get drunk because intoxication robs us of wisdom (Ephesians 5:18). And cigars stink up the house. But neither cigars nor alcohol are sinful in and of themselves. To prohibit them is to fall into the sin of the Pharisees because we have gone well beyond Jesus’ instruction and added our morality to His. 

Here is the basis for Christian behavior: Activities clearly proscribed by Jesus and his apostles are proscribed. Period. In all other areas we are free. There may be good reasons to avoid certain activities, but we must not add to Jesus' instructions and insist that our rules are His rules and thus are binding on us and others, for legalism, in a profound irony, leads us away from godly behavior. Jesus said, "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin but have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness" (Matthew 23:23). 

The scribes and Pharisees erred in that they followed their made-up rules and regulations scrupulously but missed the subtle and winsome righteousness the Law was intended to produce. "He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” (Micah 6:8).

George MacDonald tells a story in his novel Annals of a Quiet Neighborhood that makes the case far better than I. He writes of a young cleric who went out to acquaint himself with a parishioner, an elderly Scot named Rogers. He had seen the old man walking through the village, clouds of smoke billowing from his briar pipe, and so purchased a tin of tobacco for him and offered it to him as a gambit: 

“You smoke, don’t you, Rogers?” I said

 “Well, sir, I can’t deny it. It’s not much I spend on baccay, anyhow. Is it, dame?”

 “No, that it bean’t,” answered his wife.

 “You don’t think there’s any harm in smoking a pipe, sir?”

 “Not the least,” I answered, with emphasis.

 “You see, sir,” he went on, not giving me time to prove how far I was from thinking there was any harm in it, “you see, sir, sailors learns many ways they might be better without. I used to take my pan o’grog with the rest of them; but I give that up quite, ‘cause as how I don’t want it now.”

 “Cause as how,” interrupted his wife, “you spend the money on tea for me, instead. You wicked old man to tell stories!”

 “Well, I takes my share of the tea, old woman, and I’m sure it’s a deal better for me. But, to tell the truth, sir, I was a little troubled in my mind about the baccay, not knowing whether I ought to have it or not. For you see, the parson that’s gone didn’t like it, as I could tell when he came in at the door and me a-smokin.’ Not as he said anything; for, ye see, I was an old man, and I daresay that kep him quiet. But I did hear him blow up a young chap i’ the village he came upon with a pipe in his mouth. He did give him a thunderin’ broadside, to be sure! So I was in two minds whether I ought to be on with my pipe or not.”

 “And how did you settle the question, Rogers?”

 “Why, I followed my own old chart, sir.”

 “Quite right. One mustn’t mind too much what other people think.”

 “That’s not exactly what I mean, sir.”

 “What do you mean then? I should like to know.”

 “Well, sir, I mean that I said to myself, ‘Now, Old Rogers, what do you think the Lord would say about this here baccay business?’“

 “And what did you think He would say?”

 “Why, sir, I thought He would say, ‘Old Rogers, have yer baccay; only mind ye don’t grumble when you ‘ain’t got none.’”

 “And this is the man I thought I would be able to teach!” The young minister mused.

David Roper

1.12.19