To read the texts click on the texts: 1 Sam 16:1-13; Mk 2:23-28
Today’s text is a pronouncement story. In such a story, the
saying of Jesus is of central importance. In this story, it appears at the end
where after Jesus pronounces that it was the Sabbath (rules and regulations)
that was made for the human person and not the other way around, he identifies
The Son of Man as Lord even of the Sabbath.
The Gospel of Mark does not explicate what the Pharisees are
complaining about. They surely could not be complaining that the disciples of
Jesus were stealing because they were plucking ears of corn, since Deut. 23:25
permitted a person to pluck ears of grain when he/she went into a neighbour’s
field. Luke 6:1 seems to indicate that the objection of the Pharisees was that
the disciples of Jesus were rubbing the heads of grain they had plucked in
their hands which could be considered as threshing and therefore work, which was
prohibited on the Sabbath (Exod 34:21). As he often does in his responses,
Jesus takes the objectors beyond the immediate objection to a higher level.
Here, he focuses not just on the question of work on the Sabbath or the
incident that is questioned, but beyond: to the Sabbath itself. The Sabbath is
at the service of the human person and not the human person at the service of
the Sabbath. In other words, human needs take precedence over any rules and
regulations. This must be the primary focus.
There are times in our lives when we treat rules as ends in
themselves. One reason why we do this is because we have an image of God as a
policeman who will catch and punish us if we do not follow the rules, as we
ought to. Another reason could be that we expect that God will be gracious to
us and bless us if we are faithful in flowing the rules. It is possible that
sometimes we are so focussed on following the rules that we believe God has set
for us that we might lose sight of human persons whose needs we must respond to
first.
It is also possible that sometimes we are so focussed on following the 'rules' that we believe the Church has set to 'restrict' us that we might lose faith in it and hence turn to other ways that seem to offer freedom from such restrictions.
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