Matthew 12: 1-8

At that time Jesus went through the grain-fields on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry, and they began to pluck heads of grain and to eat. But when the Pharisees saw it, they said to him, “Look, your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath.” He said to them, “Have you not read what David did when he was hungry, and those who were with him: how he entered the house of God and ate the bread of the Presence, which it was not lawful for him to eat nor for those who were with him, but only for the priests? Or have you not read in the Law how on the Sabbath the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath and are guiltless? I tell you, something greater than the temple is here. And if you had known what this means, ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the guiltless. For the Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath.”

The difference between civil and natural law is that civil law is broken after the human lawmaker has spoken, but natural law is broken before the human lawmaker has spoken. We know not to park on the double yellow lines because human beings have created a framework within which that rule makes for a better flow of traffic, and safer roads. If nobody had made the rule, how should we have known it? But we know not to kill the traffic warden because God, who is merciful, even loves traffic wardens, so killing him would be wrong. Here is a story in which civil and natural law clash. Regulations are only regulations, but God's law is perfect, reviving the soul.

The Pharisees complained because they believed Jesus and his followers were setting aside the law about keeping the sabbath holy. Interestingly, their very objection showed the extent to which they themselves were unable to keep or even understand the law. Their pretext for argument with the disciples was to take issue with the "work" they did to gather the corn. 


The matter of controversy was not that Jesus' followers were stealing: in fact the provisions of the law allowed for taking corn by hand in someone's field, providing you did not gather it up into bags. (The reason the text specifically mentions that Jesus' followers were plucking the heads of grain to eat is that Matthew wants to make it clear that they were not in violation of the anti-theft laws outlined in Deuteronomy 23:24-25.) The bone of contention was "working on the Sabbath". But this was ridiculous. They were not working, but feeding themselves. How risible: to miss the whole point of the commandment about the sabbath - to miss the sheer kindness and goodness of it - by thinking of it as a mean-spirited edict from a mean-spirited god. The knowledge of God was far from them!

Jesus rebuked the Pharisees for two reasons: firstly because the scriptures made it clear that what the disciples were doing was absolutely in step with the law, and secondly because the scriptures made it clear that what the Pharisees wanted diminished God's law, reducing it to a set of petty regulations. Jesus cleared-up what was going on: the action of the disciples was motivated by hunger, not the desire to gain from labour. The action of the Pharisees was based on a grotesque assault on God's character.

When Jesus vindicated the innocence of his disciples he showed that God is the kind of God who, so far from being petty with regard to rules and regulations, wishes for hungry people to be fed. To God, mercy is more important than sacrifices. Indeed - God established the whole sacrificial system so it would point to the great mercy of God. The animals died so that people did not have to. In the end, of course, it would be Jesus - the God-man himself - who would exhibit the greatest mercy that has ever been shown, by becoming the most dreadful holy sacrifice. 

In the past, King David had set aside ritual in favour of his men because they were hungry. And similarly, since the bread of the presence was hot when replaced, it was necessarily hot on account of the work done in preparing it. So the rituals themselves called for a flexible attitude to work, or else they could not be fulfilled! Of course the priests were guiltless in the matter: they should have been guilty if they had been persnickety with the law, abusing it to justify disobedience. The priests never turned round and said "Sorry, God. No offering of bread today! Can't bake it without breaking your laws!" They recognised that it was more important to give God what He wanted than it was to find excuses based on a rigid and unintelligent reading of the law. The requirement to present hot bread at the altar clearly called for that kind of "work" on the Sabbath, so it supervened. The passage Jesus alluded to says that the priest gave David the holy bread, "for there was no bread there but the bread of the Presence, which is removed from before the Lord, to be replaced by hot bread on the day it is taken away."

In respect of the law, it is better to obey God than man. This is what it means that the Son of Man is the Lord of the Sabbath. When Jesus says that something greater than the temple is here, he means that in his kingdom, a surpassing glory has come - the glory of the Christ who gives peace, the ultimate mercy from the ultimate sacrifice. 

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Here are the scriptures that lead me into the above interpretation:


Hosea 6:4-6
What shall I do with you, O Ephraim?
What shall I do with you, O Judah?
Your love is ilike a morning cloud,
like the dew that goes early away.
Therefore I have hewn them by the prophets;
I have slain them by the words of my mouth,
and my judgment goes forth as the light.
For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice,
the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.


Deut 23:24-25
“If you go into your neighbor's vineyard, you may eat your fill of grapes, as many as you wish, but you shall not put any in your bag. If you go into your neighbor's standing grain, you may pluck the ears with your hand, but you shall not put a sickle to your neighbor's standing grain.


Exodus 20: 9-11
Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.


1 Samuel 21: 1-6
Then David came to Nob to Ahimelech the priest. And Ahimelech came to meet David trembling and said to him, “Why are you alone, and no one with you?” And David said to Ahimelech the priest, “The king has charged me with a matter and said to me, ‘Let no one know anything of the matter about which I send you, and with which I have charged you.’ I have made an appointment with the young men for such and such a place. Now then, what do you have on hand? Give me five loaves of bread, or whatever is here.” And the priest answered David, “I have no common bread on hand, but there is holy bread—if the young men have kept themselves from women.” And David answered the priest, “Truly women have been kept from us as always when I go on an expedition. The vessels of the young men are holy even when it is an ordinary journey. How much more today will their vessels be holy?” So the priest gave him the holy bread, for there was no bread there but the bread of the Presence, which is removed from before the Lord, to be replaced by hot bread on the day it is taken away.


Exodus 25:30
And you shall set the bread of the Presence on the table before me regularly.


Leviticus 24: 5-9
“You shall take fine flour and bake twelve loaves from it; two tenths of an ephah shall be in each loaf. And you shall set them in two piles, six in a pile, on the table of pure gold before the Lord. And you shall put pure frankincense on each pile, that it may go with the bread as a memorial portion as a food offering to the Lord. Every Sabbath day Aaron shall arrange it before the Lord regularly; it is from the people of Israel as a covenant forever. And it shall be for Aaron and his sons, and they shall eat it in a holy place, since it is for him a most holy portion out of the Lord's food offerings, a perpetual due.”




Numbers 28:9-10
On the Sabbath day, two male lambs a year old without blemish, and two tenths of an ephah of fine flour for a grain offering, mixed with oil, and its drink offering: this is the burnt offering of every Sabbath, besides the regular burnt offering and its drink offering.




1 Chronicles 9:32
Also some of their kinsmen of the Kohathites had charge of the showbread, to prepare it every Sabbath.


John 7: 22-23
Moses gave you circumcision (not that it is from Moses, but from the fathers), and you circumcise a man on the Sabbath. If on the Sabbath a man receives circumcision, so that the law of Moses may not be broken, are you angry with me because on the Sabbath I made a man's whole body well?


Haggai 2:9
The latter glory of this house shall be greater than the former, says the Lord of hosts. And in this place I will give peace, declares the Lord of hosts.


Malachi 3:1
Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me. And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple; and the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts.