This sermon was preached at St. Lydia's on Sunday, February 14, as part of our ongoing exploration of the book of Matthew. The text is Matthew 12:1-14. Read it here.
A little bit of context before we launch into this
story. The Pharisees are a group
of Jews who were known in Jesus’ time for their meticulous interpretation of
the law. Jesus is engaging in a
battle of the minds here, throwing scripture back at the Pharisees, trying to
beat them at their own game.
Second bit of context: there was a Jewish law that the poor
were allowed to eat grain from some one else’s field, and a law that you could
pull an animal from a pit on the Sabbath.
So these are the laws that the Pharisees are accusing Jesus of wrongly
interpreting, and he’s getting right in there and arguing back.
Finally, In order to get our heads wrapped around this text,
we have to wrap our heads around the Sabbath for Jews in this period. Everyone rested on the Sabbath, and
everyone ate. And when I say everyone,
I mean everyone. The Sabbath was a
day of justice, when slaves were given rest, and the hungry were fed. It was a day of honoring God, and it
was taken seriously.
It’s this connection between the Sabbath and justice for
God’s people that’s at the center of what happens between Jesus and the
Pharisees in the grain field, and later in the Synagogue. The law that allows the poor to eat
grain from the fields is another law that was put in place to make
justice. Jesus’ disciples have
left everything behind. They have
no jobs, and are depending on meals offered by others to live. They have nothing to eat. The law about eating grain is for
them.
When the Pharisees see what’s happening and criticize Jesus,
he quotes the prophet Hosea: For I [God] desire steadfast love and not
sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt-offerings.
So basically, focus on your ceremonies, your offerings, get
your worship right, God’s saying, but remember that we do these things because
of what fuels them: love of God, love of mercy, love of justice.
There’s a wonderful ironic subtext in this story:
The Pharisees are so concerned with Jesus keeping the
Sabbath. They’re so concerned with
the letter of the law, that they miss the reason the law was enacted: to feed
the hungry and give rest to the weary.
They monitor adherence to the law while missing its intent.
I’ve found that church is a place where it’s easy to get
confused about why we do what we do.
Sometimes in churches, we spend a lot of time fussing, and not too much
time loving. And it’s almost as if
the fact that we are church, in and of
itself, produces our incredible fussiness.
We measure the distance on either side of the altar candles
or fight about how many wreaths to put in the sanctuary, almost intentionally
using these details to distract us from the reason we’re really there – because
the reason we’re really there is actually incredibly terrifying. Actually loving, actually
living, actually knowing God…those things are big and scary. Fussing about the altar cloths…small
and controlable. It’s terrifyingly
easy to reduce the rituals that teach us to love each other into symbols that
remind us to how we used to love.
We share our sermons at St. Lydia’s, and I’d like to invite
you to respond to the text and what I’ve offered from your own experience.
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