REFLECTIONS TODAY

The Pharisees are strict observers of the law. They want that their interpretations be taken seriously. Absolutely, by hook or by crook, no one should violate the law. People are not higher than the law.
Jesus knows the law and its interpretations. But being a different person, he also knows when not to be strict about it. He justifies his disciples’ picking the heads of grain and rubbing them in their hands on a Sabbath by saying that they are hungry. They need to eat something. They still have a lot of work to do.
The argument of Jesus that ends the controversy is that “the Son of Man is lord of the sabbath” (v 5). Jesus is the Son of Man. He is the Lord of the Sabbath. In the eyes of Jesus and his Father, his disciples are not doing anything unlawful on the Sabbath because Jesus allows them to do so.
First Reading • Col 1:21-23
Brothers and sisters: You once were alienated and hostile in mind because of evil deeds; God has now reconciled you in the fleshly Body of Christ through his death, to present you holy, without blemish, and irreproachable before him, provided that you persevere in the faith, firmly grounded, stable, and not shifting from the hope of the Gospel that you heard, which has been preached to every creature under heaven, of which I, Paul, am a minister.
Gospel • Luke 6:1-5
While Jesus was going through a field of grain on a sabbath, his disciples 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.”
Source: “365 Days with the Lord 2023,” St. Paul’s, 7708 St. Paul Rd., SAV, Makati City (Phils.); Tel.: 632-895-9701; E-mail: [email protected]; Website: http://www.stpauls.ph.