The Danger of Putting Rules Above Relationships!

Jesus Is Lord of the Sabbath

12 At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry and began to pick some heads of grain and eat them. 2 When the Pharisees saw this, they said to him, “Look! Your disciples are doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath.”

3 He answered, “Haven’t you read what David did when he and his companions were hungry? 4 He entered the house of God, and he and his companions ate the consecrated bread—which was not lawful for them to do, but only for the priests. 5 Or haven’t you read in the Law that the priests on Sabbath duty in the temple desecrate the Sabbath and yet are innocent? 6 I tell you that something greater than the temple is here. 7 If you had known what these words mean, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice,’[a]you would not have condemned the innocent. 8 For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.”

9 Going on from that place, he went into their synagogue, 10 and a man with a shriveled hand was there. Looking for a reason to bring charges against Jesus, they asked him, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?”

11 He said to them, “If any of you has a sheep and it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will you not take hold of it and lift it out? 12 How much more valuable is a person than a sheep! Therefore it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.”

13 Then he said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” So he stretched it out and it was completely restored, just as sound as the other. 14 But the Pharisees went out and plotted how they might kill Jesus.

In this first section of Matthew 12, Jesus points out the hypocrisy of the Pharisees and the danger of legalism,where laws and rituals are put above people.  The Pharisees had 39 categories of things that were unlawful to do on the Sabbath.  They took what God had given as a gift to free people from work and brought them back into slavery.

The first example is the disciples ate some of the food from the grainfields because were they were hungry.   Literally the disciples were rubbing the grain between their hands to get food to eat.  They were not harvesting the field to make a profit, which was the spirit of the Sabbath law. The Pharisees were not concerned about the disciples hunger, but proving Jesus wrong.  The completely missed the spirit of the law which was about rest and setting time apart to worship the Lord.

In the second example, a person with a withered hand enters the temple on the Sabbath.  Again the Pharisees try to trick Jesus to see if he will do "work" and heal the man. According to THEIR rules one could only heal on the Sabbath if someone's life was in danger.  Again we see how distorted they were in taking God's law and missing the spirit of the law.  Can you imagine someone walking into church who needed help and the pastor saying, "Can't you see we are in worship can you please wait outside!"

After Jesus did this they were furious because he had clearly pointed out how far afield they were from the true purpose of the law.  Plain and simple the Pharisees had put their laws and rules above people's needs.  The danger of any institution is when it develops so many laws and policies that they completely forget their true purpose, why they wert into business in the first place.

The church does the same thing when its rules and regulations have priority over sharing the Gospel with those in need and meeting the felt needs of the people around it.  It would be like if a person walked in the church and the pastor said, "I am too busy to see this person as I am working on a spreadsheet regarding the membership decline in our congregation." Another example might be that people go to church just as another thing to mark off the check list.  They don't with have any real desire to worship God, hear from God or have an openness to change their lives as a result of the message they hear that day.  

At the end of the day the purpose of the laws God gave people were life giving.  They were meant to draw people closer to him and each other.  When Jesus came the religious leaders had moved far from God's true intention for the law.  We are in danger of the same thing today when we put the institution of the church above the people it serves.  This is summed up from the verse from Micah 6 where the prophet says, "I desire mercy not sacrifice".