Lord of the Sabbath

¹ At that time Jesus went through the grain fields on the sabbath; his disciples were hungry, and they began to pluck heads of grain and to eat. ² But when the Pharisees saw it, they said to him, "Look, your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the sabbath." ³ He said to them, "Have you not read what David did, when he was hungry, and those who were with him: ⁴ how he entered the house of God and ate the bread of the Presence, which it was not lawful for him to eat nor for those who were with him, but only for the priests? ⁵ Or have you not read in the law how on the sabbath the priests in the temple profane the sabbath, and are guiltless? ⁶ I tell you, something greater than the temple is here. ⁷ And if you had known what this means, 'I desire mercy, and not sacrifice,' you would not have condemned the guiltless. ⁸ For the Son of man is lord of the sabbath."

Matt. 12:1-8

I love this small obscure passage that shares such an important message. The teachers of the law in his day had determined that these actions by his disciples contravened "their understanding" of what was appropriate on the Lord's day. Today, I hear such talk about what we do or don't do on Sunday mornings during worship. I believe that the point of this story is that God is more concerned about fulfilling a basic human need like hunger than he is about the technicalities of the Sabbath observance.

First, we need to understand that Jesus never broke the laws of God. He makes it very clear that the "Son of man is the lord of the Sabbath" in verse 8. What those who disapproved of his disciple's actions were objecting to was a violation of their interpretations of what they deemed to be the law. In other words, they had "added" to the law. These were man made rules that had become law to the religious establishment of his day. The same thing is true today. There are many things which believers bind upon people to observe in all churches which are not commanded by God, but are the result of customs within our culture which we have grown up with and are interpretations imposed by men. Learning to distinguish the difference is critical. This is the same answer that Peter and the apostles gave to the Sanhedrin in Acts 5:29:

"We must obey God rather than any human authority."

Second, Jesus answered the criticism of the Pharisees by quoting from the prophet Hosea. He told them if they had understood Hosea, they would NOT have objected! Hosea spoke for God when he said, "I desire mercy not sacrifice". The passage in Hosea ends with, "...and knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings". The significance of this statement of Jesus is far reaching in its application to our worship services today and to how we live our lives.

Third, what Jesus is proclaiming is that God is more interested in our being aware of and addressing human need than He is in our formal actions which we call worship. He is more interested in our recognition of His presence in our everyday life and interactions with people. This is much more important than anything we do with our hands that we call worship. In simple words, it means that one cannot acceptably worship God with our hands and our mouth if our minds and our hearts are not attuned to Him. We need to be more concerned with the plight of those who suffer in our daily walk. It is the story of the Good Samaritan. When one comes across a basic human need, one needs to act upon it. It is about God and NOT about us! Instead churches are full of self-absorbing people who are more worried about what songs we sing, or what we do between the hours of 9:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. on Sunday mornings. This may appeal to our desires and our feelings; but, we are not the ones to be pleased with worship.

Jesus is giving us a picture of the nature of God. The Bible says that God loved the world. What does this mean? The world in this case means the creatures God made and placed in this world. His love is not something that pleases Him or of which He is the proud possessor. It is the love of compassion and concern. It is the love of the Father who wants the best for his sons and daughters. This is not for the father; but, for His children. This is why mercy and grace, and being concerned for one's neighbor is more important than the naval gazing of the self absorbed. This is the message of Jesus who says "If you have seen me you have seen the Father".

I fear that all the discussions about public worship betrays the way we live our Christian life. We focus on creating services to satisfy our needs to feel religious and pander to our desire to be accepted by Him; but, we often miss the mark of what does God want? I believe the answer to that is that our Lord wants us to be more concerned with human need than pious words and religious pretense. Our daily lives need to be focused on a sincere desire to please Him and Him alone. Whenever we let our time at church become a ritual that represents our "religious life" allowing us to put God in the background in our day to day life, we have lost our way.