URC Daily Devotion Thursday 12th December 2024

St Luke 6: 1 – 5

One sabbath while Jesus was going through the cornfields, his disciples plucked some heads of grain, rubbed them in their hands, and ate them. But some of the Pharisees said, ‘Why are you doing what is not lawful on the sabbath?’  Jesus answered, ‘Have you not read what David did when he and his companions were hungry?  He entered the house of God and took and ate the bread of the Presence, which it is not lawful for any but the priests to eat, and gave some to his companions?’  Then he said to them, ‘The Son of Man is lord of the sabbath.’

Reflection

We live in an age when even good church folk, as I assume most people reading/hearing this might be, sit lightly to the concept of Shabbat that Jesus would have been brought up with. Many will in their lifetimes have experienced a revolution in what is generally acceptable on Sundays. As a child, Sunday afternoons (after Church and Sunday School of course) were for going for walks, visiting a museum or reading a good book and strictly not for playing out – even the swings in the park were chained up. When as a student I moved from Presbyterian Glasgow to Warwick, I was shocked to find the cinema open on a Sunday!

Whether such limited possibilities for activity were beneficial or not I hesitate to discuss. We just accepted them – although no doubt some resented the restrictions on their freedom. In our busy-busy, social media dominated society, the mental health benefits of being able to take time to just switch off are increasingly recognised.

It was the recognition that all, from the lowest to the highest, deserved rest and re-creation that led to the God-endorsed concept of Shabbat freedom from work. When they set out the 39 descriptors of what constituted work, the Jewish authorities had good intentions of helping the people to understand what they could and could not do to respect the law.

By the time that Jesus’ disciples contravened four of these definitions, the Pharisees had forgotten the intent of the rules and their own understanding that Shabbat was made for humanity, not humanity for Shabbat. Jesus’ challenge was that they had read the scriptures but not understood the meaning behind the Word. The minutiae had obliterated the generality.

In the URC we value good order. The intent is to be helpful. The intent must remain paramount.

Prayer

God of Shabbat,
when we hide behind rules, forgive us
when we fail to call out hypocrisy, forgive us
when we fail to use opportunities for re-creation, encourage us
Shalom, Amen

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