On a Sabbath, while he was going through the grainfields, his disciples plucked and ate some heads of grain, rubbing them in their hands. 2 But some of the Pharisees said, “Why are you doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath?” 3 And Jesus answered them, “Have you not read what David did when he was hungry, he and those who were with him: 4 how he entered the house of God and took and ate the bread of the Presence, which is not lawful for any but the priests to eat, and also gave it to those with him?” 5 And he said to them, “The Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath.” 6 On another Sabbath, he entered the synagogue and was teaching, and a man was there whose right hand was withered. 7 And the scribes and the Pharisees watched him, to see whether he would heal on the Sabbath, so that they might find a reason to accuse him. 8 But he knew their thoughts, and he said to the man with the withered hand, “Come and stand here.” And he rose and stood there. 9 And Jesus said to them, “I ask you, is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to destroy it?” 10 And after looking around at them all he said to him, “Stretch out your hand.” And he did so, and his hand was restored. 11 But they were filled with fury and discussed with one another what they might do to Jesus.
Recently I read this:
Writing about his own childhood in rural Georgia, the novelist Ferrol Sams described the deeply-ingrained tradition of being “raised right.” As he explained, the child who is “raised right” pleases his parents and other adults by adhering to moral conventions and social etiquette. A young person who is “raised right” emerges as an adult who obeys the laws, respects his neighbors, gives at least lip service to religious expectations, and stays away from scandal. The point is clear — this is what parents expect, the culture affirms, and many churches celebrate. But our communities are filled with people who have been “raised right” but are headed for hell.
The seduction of moralism is the essence of its power. We are so easily seduced into believing that we actually can gain all the approval we need by our behavior. Of course, in order to participate in this seduction, we must negotiate a moral code that defines acceptable behavior with innumerable loopholes. Most moralists would not claim to be without sin, but merely beyond scandal. That is considered sufficient.
Moralists can be categorized as both liberal and conservative. In each case, a specific set of moral concerns frames the moral expectation. As a generalization, it is often true that liberals focus on a set of moral expectations related to social ethics while conservatives tend to focus on personal ethics. The essence of moralism is apparent in both — the belief that we are better than someone else by means of proper behavior. The theological temptation of moralism is one many Christians and churches find it difficult to resist. The danger is that the church will communicate by both direct and indirect means that what God expects of sinful men and women is simple moral improvement.
In our text the example that is given, the illustration by which to show the contrast between these two competing views of belonging to God, comes to us with regard to the Sabbath Day.
The Sabbath day and its observance was one of the most sacred obligations to Jewish piety. Their traditions had added pages and pages of requirements as to what you could and couldn’t do if you were to be righteous in this regard.
The Sabbath day as God gave it was to be no such thing. It was something that marked out the Jew from the religions of the world. Other religions had temples, sacrifices, holy days, priests and religious gatherings. But the Sabbath was unique to God’s people. It was a special sign of God’s covenant with them. It spoke of the fact that they were, among all the people of the earth, favored in the sight of God.
However, the people were losing the meaning of the Sabbath under the sheer weight of Rabbinical law and tradition. It was almost impossible to know all the rules and regulations regarding the Sabbath unless you were a scholar of rabbinical law, there was just too much. And nothing was left to private judgment, and soon the Sabbath became nothing but a burden to be borne.
There were 39 areas of work explicitly forbidden on the Sabbath in the rabbinical regulations. And there is even an account in I Maccabees of the Apocrypha where the enemy attacked on the Sabbath and the people let themselves be slaughtered, men, women and children rather than defend themselves, for fighting was work. (RSR)
The Pharisees see the disciples plucking head of grain in someone’s field and all the alarms start going off. Now, to pluck grain in the field of another was not a violation of God’s law. In fact, in DT 23 it was actually a positive permission to do so. The problem was that they did this on the Sabbath which was considered by them, reaping and reaping on the Sabbath WAS one of the 39 area of work that the Rabbis had expressly forbidden.
Jesus comes to the defense of His disciples by reminding the questioners of David’s actions with regard to the showbread in the temple. Jesus is telling them that David broke with liturgical provision to provide food for his men and his actions were not condemned by God or Holy Scripture. We shouldn’t take Jesus to mean that the disciples were wrong in doing what they did, nor that they were starving as were David’s men, for they were not.
Rather, he is using an argument that may be drawn from Scripture against the wooden, wrong-headed thinking of the Pharisees. If they were right in their interpretation of the Sabbath law, then David was wrong to take the showbread for his men. (RSR)
Jesus then declares that He, the Son of Man, is the Lord of the Sabbath. He is the one who rightly interprets the Sabbath. He is the one who has authority to determine what the purpose and therefore appropriate activities are for the Holy Day. His behavior is THE guide not the regulations of men, piled upon each other ad nauseum. This is important to what follows. It was allowed by the Rabbis to heal on the Sabbath if life were in danger, but if life were not in danger, then it was a violation.
The man in our text with the shriveled hand had obviously been like this for a while and was not in danger of death. Jesus could have easily waited until the next day. So, we have a showdown, but one that is much bigger than an understanding of the Sabbath, it is a showdown with regard to the nature of what it means to live in the grace and mercy of God.
Jesus healed the man…he did good…he brought blessing…he brought life, and they hated him fiercely for it. This is the darkness, the blindness that is created by a false piety, by the embracing of man’s regulations and rules, that neither the Lord’s mercy and kindness to this man…nor his words of explanation, nor the supernatural power that they witnessed flow from him unto a hopeless, helpless man, had any impact to change their self-righteous hearts.
Our Lord’s message is not the message of the Pharisees. Jesus sets out to proclaim the truth of the gospel while setting men free from the bondage of the religious establishment.
Prayer: Father, I often make wrong judgments and lack discernment because I am bound by what I see and lack the spiritual sight to see correctly. Father, forgive me. In being bound to this world in this manner it is easy to lose perspective, hope, and joy. In these days of confusion and fear I pray that I would be able to see past what is seen and begin to discern Your hand and purposes in and through it all and then to give praise and honor to you with voice and life, through Jesus Christ my Lord, Amen.
Psalm 119X Before Thee Let My Cry Come Near