The Lord of the Sabbath

Homily for Friday of the Fifteenth Week in Ordinary Time

The incident of which we read into today’s Gospel text is an illustration of what Jesus had said in yesterday’s Gospel text. Jesus spoke his famous and oft-quoted words: “Come to me,” and “I will give you rest.”

Immediately after these familiar words, we hear the Pharisees complaining about his hungry disciples picking grain on a Sabbath. This is an example of how the Pharisees placed heavy burdens on the shoulders of others and did nothing to ease them. It was, in fact, recognized by the humane law of the Jews that the hungry were in their rights to take from another’s field. The Pharisees make a big deal about it being done on the Sabbath as if it were some kind of forbidden servile work. While Jesus honors and fulfills the law of Moses, he does not get disturbed by the prescriptions and refinements that people like the Pharisees have added to it – human precepts or traditions. They add harsh and inhumane demands as part of a misguided effort to be more religious.

St. Matthew, as if to illustrate the passage about his easy yolk and light burden, records the rebuke that  Jesus aimed at the Pharisees’ efforts to be strict and legalistic. What God asks, what he says, is not to pile up impossible and petty regulations, but compassion and concern for the burdens of others. “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.”

We can measure our devotion to God – if we must – not by how we add new external practices, but rather by how we grow in compassion. What God asks for and what God demonstrates is the personification of mercy and compassion in the person of Jesus.