Word to the Wise
Saturday, September 3, 2022 - Saturday in the 22th Week in Ordinary Time
[1 Cor 4:6b-15 and Luke 6:1-5]While Jesus was going through a field of grain on a sabbath, his disciple were picking the heads of grain, rubbing them in their hands, and eating them. Some Pharisees said, "Why are you doing what is unlawful on the sabbath?" Jesus said to them in reply, "Have you not read what David did when he and those who were with him were hungry? How he went into the house of God, took the bread of offering, which only the priests could lawfully eat, ate of it, and shared it with his companions?" Then he said to them, "The Son of Man is lord of the sabbath." [Luke]
SEPTEMBER 3 ST. GREGORY THE GREAT, pope and doctor of the church
There is no question that Jesus' actions and teachings earned him the antagonism of the Pharisees and scribes long before he set foot in Jerusalem to undergo his passion, death and resurrection. To them he was dangerous not only by what they considered a casual attitude about kosher observance but also because he called them to account for the way they manipulated the law to their own benefit while insisting on strict observance on the part of others. Not every Pharisee or scribe was this way, but a significant enough number were affected so that they began to plot against Jesus early in his ministry. [Mark 3:6]
The Pharisees arose during the rebellion against the Greek-oriented rulers before the Roman conquest. 1 and 2 Maccabees in the Old Testament give us some of that history. The Pharisees stood as the gold standard of Jewish identity against the pagan practices of the Greek-oriented rulers. When those rulers were vanquished the Pharisees were in a position to have a great influence on the daily life of ordinary Jews. Strict adherence to the Torah (the Mosaic Law in the first five books of the Old Testament) was their goal. By eating and drinking with "unclean" people like tax collectors, and by doing things on the sabbath that were interpreted as "work" (healing and harvesting), Jesus was considered a violater of the law. Since he was attracting large crowds, he was a threat to the Pharisees' whole way of life and authority! By proclaiming himself as "Lord of the sabbath," he would be considered as making himself equal to God - blasphemy in the eyes of the Pharisees and therefore deserving death.
All of this might seem to be history were it not for the fact that "pharisee-ism" can occur in any kind of society where one group declares themselves as the only "true" members. When the rules and regulations they uphold conflict with fundamental human needs and dignity, they opt for observance at all costs. Some of these observances may have lost their purpose long ago! Jesus accused the Pharisees of his time of disregarding God's commandment in favor of clinging to human traditions. [Mark 7:8]. In today's gospel scripture, we have an example of the problem. However, it is also a modern problem that appears in our own Catholic tradition. St. Thomas Aquinas reminds us that too much regulation can cause people to lose heart. Love of God and neighbor must come first and all rules and regulations must be evaluated in the light of those two commandments. AMEN