Natural religiosity is a way of relating to God based on sacrifice, rigid observance of rules, judging others, and external signs of holiness. For many people in Israel their relationship with God had degenerated into the external forms and minimalistic observance of laws through natural religiosity. I think we can say the same for many of today’s modern Christians.
Jesus’ actions were constantly turning upside down that rigid sense of Israel’s relationship with God where everything is reduced to observance of the law. Jesus called people to recenter their lives on God rather than the external observance of the law. At that time in Israel, one could not work on Saturday, the sabbath, the Lord’s Day. It was a day of rest. There were long writings and rules about what constituted work. Harvesting was considered work. Picking grain, as the disciples did that sabbath day, was considered work. Jesus was an itinerant preacher, and his disciples followed him along the road travelling from place to place. In today’s text it sounds like Jesus took a short cut across a field of grain and the disciple just pulled some heads off the grain stalks to munch on while walking along their way. Maybe they were traveling from one town to another or maybe just out for a walk on the sabbath day listening to Jesus’ teachings.
This was not an organized harvesting crew, just some people hungry from their long walk. Yet the Pharisees, those most educated in the religious tradition, the religious elite, point out that work and harvesting are not permitted on the sabbath. Jesus does not reprimand his disciples rather he reprimands the Pharisees for not understanding that the sabbath law was intended to build up the relationship of the people with God and the relationship amongst themselves. Their legal rigidity was distancing them from being part of a relaxing, rejuvenating walk in the country with the Savior. They missed the whole point of what was happening that day. They lost communion with Jesus and with the others there – they lost the Savior and the community in their lives. Their rigidity caused them to be judgmental and forced them to close their ears. They could not even recognize Jesus as the long-awaited Savior because of their rigid sense of the Law. The point of the sabbath law was to promote community and communion. Overall, the Pharisees lost out on just about everything that day.
Tradition and rules are very important in our relationship with God and with others. We must never lose sight of the fact that rules and tradition are meant to bring us closer together amongst ourselves and with God. They should not lead us to be judgmental. The Pharisees could not see the beauty and mercy of the Savior who was right in front of them nor the community being formed around the Savior.
The sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath.
That is why the Son of Man is lord even of the sabbath.
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