Once again, we see a new confrontation between Jesus and the Pharisees. The Pharisees were the strictest observers of the Law in the time of Jesus. One of the most important precepts was to respect the Sabbath rest. In today’s passage, Jesus’ disciples have “profaned” this law by picking the heads of grain and eating them because they were hungry.
When the Pharisees complained that Jesus’ disciples violated this rule, Jesus makes them see that they are in error. Jesus points it out because He does not want them to feel as though they are slaves of a deformed law, which in the beginning was created with good intentions. This law was created not to idolize work and not to abuse others by subjecting them to work without the right to rest. However, over time that law had lost its original meaning.
Jesus also highlights that the center of creation is the human race: everything was created out of love for man and woman. And He also points to the ultimate meaning of every law of Christianity, which is to grow in the love of God, in charity; because sacrifices are useless if there is no mercy.
The questions of the Pharisees are like those that we ourselves often do against other Christians, trying to restrict their freedom. Sometimes we feel we have a duty to correct others according to what we believe to be Christian obligations. Also, when within our Church we try to impose rigid norms, attached to the law but far from the mercy of God.
My dear sisters and brothers, the key to today’s message is in the word “MERCY”. God does not want us to be so attached to complying with laws and regulations if we put aside the good of the people for them. Jesus, as a good Jew, fulfilled His religious duties, but always puts the person above the law. Jesus always acts according to the experience He has of God as a loving Father and not as a harsh judge who only wants to punish those who transgress a law. Jesus tries to make mercy prevail over the blind observance of rules that no longer have anything to do with the objective of the Sabbath law.
Today we are invited not to be like the Pharisees who look at others without mercy and the first thing that comes to their minds is criticism. God NEVER looks at us like that. Let’s try to look with LOVE. Whenever we are in doubt about how to act on a case in which the norms seem important, let us remember the words of the prophet Hosea that Jesus quotes in today’s Gospel: “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.”