6 One Sabbath Jesus was going through the grainfields, and his disciples began to pick some heads of grain, rub them in their hands and eat the kernels. 2 Some of the Pharisees asked, “Why are you doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath?”
As Luke 6 opens, we see Jesus and his followers walking through a grain field. As they go, some of the followers take the heads of grain to eat along the way. Why is this an issue?
Well, the Pharisees (the ruling religious class of the time), feared Jesus for a number of reasons. First, it was in the air that the Messiah was coming, and many false Messiahs were rolling around Israel. But Jesus posed a larger problem for the Pharisees: he challenged their power like no other. The Pharisees, in effect, were afraid for their loss of power.
The Pharisees held power over the Jewish people for centuries. The word Pharisee means “separated one”. They lived that out, too. They did not believe in living amongst the people. They wielded the power of the religion over the people and were judge and jury for anyone who stepped outside the lines.
In the jewish faith, there are 613 laws that are to be adhered to. Many of them are derived from the book of Leviticus. These 613 laws govern how food is prepared, sexuality, business, and a variety of daily living items which, they believe, when applied to life, cause them to be in alliance with God. But amongst these laws, over the centuries, the Pharisees themselves inserted laws inside the law of God in order to help their congregants not to fall out of line. These are the d’rabbana, or laws that were enacted by the rabbis.
These are broken down into three different applications of the law. The first is called the Gezeirah. This is a law instituted by the rabbis to prevent people from accidentally violating a Torah mitzvah ( a law set up in the first 5 books of the bible). For instance, if the law is not to work on the Sabbath, the rabbi implemented a law that says you cannot pick up a hammer on the Sabbath, thus preventing you from working.
The second law is called a Takkahah. This is a law, unrelated to biblical law, but created for the public welfare. An example is the lighting of the Chanukah candles. Chanukah is a post-biblical holiday. But the ceremony is nonetheless important to Jews, and has become part of the practices of Judaism. The third is Minhag. This is a customary practice that was developed for worthy religious reasons, and thus, over time, has become customary.
So, what we have in the Pharisees is a group of leaders who have written into the bylaws of their religion many additional rules. What the Pharisees did was weigh down its congregation with an enormous amount of rules to live by, then chastised them when they weren’t able to follow them. This is important in the story, because the Pharisees aren’t after the truth. They are trying to prove Jesus’ ministry as a fraud. That is why they too are following Jesus, but at a distance, watching his every move, trying to discredit him while they search for the coming Messiah.
3 Jesus answered them, “Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry? 4 He entered the house of God, and taking the consecrated bread, he ate what is lawful only for priests to eat. And he also gave some to his companions.” 5 Then Jesus said to them, “The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.”
Jesus sites a moment in David’s story when he and his men, on the run from Saul, came to the temple and ate the consecrated bread there. It is found in 1 Samuel 21:1-6:
21 David went to Nob, to Ahimelek the priest. Ahimelek trembled when he met him, and asked, “Why are you alone? Why is no one with you?” 2 David answered Ahimelek the priest, “The king sent me on a mission and said to me, ‘No one is to know anything about the mission I am sending you on.’ As for my men, I have told them to meet me at a certain place. 3 Now then, what do you have on hand? Give me five loaves of bread, or whatever you can find.” 4 But the priest answered David, “I don’t have any ordinary bread on hand; however, there is some consecrated bread here—provided the men have kept themselves from women.” 5 David replied, “Indeed women have been kept from us, as usual whenever I set out. The men’s bodies are holy even on missions that are not holy. How much more so today!” 6 So the priest gave him the consecrated bread, since there was no bread there except the bread of the Presence that had been removed from before the Lord and replaced by hot bread on the day it was taken away.
In the story, David enters the house of God and is given the bread by the high priest. This is typically not done, for the consecrated bread was reserved for priests only. The point Jesus is making is this: if there is a need, the need overcomes the function. Would it be godly for the priest to refuse a hungry person a meal for what is reserved for himself?
What Jesus is doing here is calling out the hypocrisy of the Pharisees for their love of process and their forgetting of basic human need. Like his followers in the field, Jesus is saying that the need outweighs the tradition. And that the Pharisees cannot see this, for their hearts are about function, not about love.
When Jesus says he is Lord of the Sabbath, what he means is that his ministry is above any religious function. He has the authority over the Pharisee’s rules and traditions because he created the Sabbath. In other words, the creator is greater than the creation.
6 On another Sabbath he went into the synagogue and was teaching, and a man was there whose right hand was shriveled. 7 The Pharisees and the teachers of the law were looking for a reason to accuse Jesus, so they watched him closely to see if he would heal on the Sabbath. 8 But Jesus knew what they were thinking and said to the man with the shriveled hand, “Get up and stand in front of everyone.” So he got up and stood there. 9 Then Jesus said to them, “I ask you, which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to destroy it?” 10 He looked around at them all, and then said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He did so, and his hand was completely restored. 11 But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law were furious and began to discuss with one another what they might do to Jesus.
Again, on a different Sabbath, the Pharisees are looking for a way to discredit Jesus. Now, this is actually funny, because they are looking to see if Jesus will heal on the Sabbath. According to law, healing would be considered work. Here is the breakdown of “work” in Judaism:
Refer to making a garment Shearing wool Washing wool Beating wool Dyeing wool Spinning Weaving Making two loops Weaving two threads Separating two threads Tying Untying Sewing stitches Tearing
Refer to making leather Trapping Slaughtering Flaying Tanning Scraping hide Marking hides Cutting hide to shape Writing two or more letters Erasing two or more letters
Refer to making a structure Building Demolishing Extinguishing a fire Kindling a fire Putting the finishing touch on an object Transporting an object between a private domain and the public domain, or for a distance of 4 cubits within the public domain.
What it comes down to is activity. The Pharisees believed that the activity of healing would fall into work on the Sabbath, thus render Jesus incompatible with the work the Messiah would do. But the comedy in it is this: Jesus is supernaturally healing! They disregard that as they look for a way to trap him in their rules and regulations. Again, though, Jesus alerts them to the need for love above regulation. Like the second son in the Parable of the Lost Son (Luke 15:25-32), the older son lived in the father’s house, did everything the father requested, yet did not know the father’s heart. He did not understand why the father would welcome back the prodigal son, thus displaying a love for the rules, and a disregard for actual love.