Friday of the Fifteenth Week of Ordinary Time, July 21, 2023

Matthew 12, 1-8

Jesus was going through a field of grain on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry and began to pick the heads of grain and eat them. When the Pharisees saw this, they said to him, “See, your disciples are doing what is unlawful to do on the Sabbath.” He said to the them, “Have you not read what David did when he and his companions were hungry, how he went into the house of God and ate the bread of offering, which neither he nor his companions but only the priests could lawfully eat? Or have you not read in the law that on the Sabbath the priests serving in the Temple violate the Sabbath and are innocent? I say to you, something greater than the Temple is here. If you knew what this meant, I desire mercy, not sacrifice, you would not have condemned these innocent men. For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.”

“Jesus was going through a field of grain on the Sabbath.”  The Greek text has, At that time Jesus was going through a field, etc.  This tells us that this episode in the Lord’s life is not directly related to what St. Matthew has just written as happening and so we do not have a context which we must understand in order to know what is happening here.  Still, we can connect this with his teaching that he is meek and humble of heart, which Matthew records just before, for it fits his pattern of reporting a teaching of Jesus and then showing a deed that confirms and elucidates it.  Now the fact that Jesus “was going through a field of grain on the sabbath” reveals to us the Lord’s ceaseless drive to save us.  He could well have spent the day resting as all the other Jews did, but here he is making his way through an uneven field filled with standing grain on his way to or from a mission of mercy.  

“His disciples were hungry and began to pick the heads of grain and eat them.”  St. Luke gives the specific action which draws the ire of the Pharisees: “rubbing them in their hands”.  That is, it was not contrary to the Law to pick the heads of grain to eat them on the Sabbath, but it was if these were cooked or baked in some way.  However, these Pharisees may have interpreted the Law to their own liking so that even picking the heads of the grain broke the Law.

“See, your disciples are doing what is unlawful to do on the Sabbath.”  The Pharisees were ever on the watch to catch the Lord breaking the Law.  We see how keenly they felt threatened by him, and how much they hated him.

“Have you not read what David did when he and his companions were hungry?”  The Lord takes a poke at their pride, for the Pharisees were known to study the Scriptures very intensely and to debate each other over the smallest points.  He refers to 1 Samuel 21, 4-6, when David was in flight from Saul.  The Lord is confirming that reasons of emergency exceptions may be made to certain laws.  In our own time, serious illness relieves the obligation to attend Mass on Sunday.  “Or have you not read in the Law that on the Sabbath the priests serving in the Temple violate the Sabbath and are innocent?”  Again, the Lord takes aim at their pride, for in Numbers 28, 8 it is written that God commanded the priests: “On the Sabbath day you shall offer two lambs of a year old without blemish, and two tenths of flour tempered with oil in sacrifice, and the libations.”  The Pharisees may well have been taken aback by this Carpenter’s knowledge of the Law, especially pertaining to the priests.  Of course, he himself was the Author of the Law.  Here, the Lord points out that the Law itself provided for exceptions to its strict observance.  In speaking in this way the Lord Jesus challenged the place the Pharisees had assumed as the sole interpreters of the Law, and also showed them the intrinsic flaw in their system.

“I say to you, something greater than the Temple is here.”  This is an astounding claim the Lord Jesus makes, that he is greater than the Temple.  But what could be greater than the Temple?  Only the One worshipped in the Temple.

“I desire mercy, not sacrifice.”  Jesus quotes Hosea 6, 6.  The whole passage reads: “For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice: and the knowledge of God more than holocausts. But they, like Adam, have transgressed the covenant, there have they dealt treacherously against me.”  Quoting this, the Lord not only reminds the Pharisees of the true meaning of the Law, but also accuses them of not following it themselves.  

“For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.”  This revelation goes together with the one before it: “There is something greater than the Temple here, for the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.”  He is greater than the Temple for he is the One worshipped there; he is the Son of Man “who came from the clouds of heaven” (Daniel 7, 13); and he is the Lord of the Sabbath for he instituted the Sabbath at the beginning of the world.  And yet, he is meek and humble of heart for here he is disputing with his creatures as though they were his peers, and not to humiliate them but to bring them to true knowledge and repentance.

We might think of ourselves as the grain through which the Lord passes in his time on earth, in his time during our lives, and consider how blessed would we be if he were to brush up against us so that we were touched by him.