One serious accusation leveled against Jesus is his utter disregard for Sabbath law. The Pharisees are scandalized that he allows his disciples to pick grains and to shell them with their hands on a Sabbath.

On several other instances, Jesus is also questioned by his critics for healing the sick on the Sabbath. The Pharisees focus on actions or activities to be avoided on the rest day and have forgotten the very intention or purpose of Sabbath rest.

In very practical terms, our day of rest enables us to pause from our labor and to relax our mind and body after working for six days. It is the day to move away from the stress of daily work, to remind ourselves that we are not a machine or a slave in the entire production process. Being the ultimate creation made by God, human beings are undeniably the crown of God’s creation.

We need the Sabbath rest to help us make this truth sink in our mind and heart. Our fast-paced living and the endless demand of work can confuse us about our self-worth and identity as God’s crown of creation.

The other reason for Sabbath rest is to give due honor to God our Creator. He himself rested after having created the universe in six days. When God included the Sabbath in the Ten Commandments, he is actually enjoining all of us to embrace the very life of God, an incessant creative fruitfulness punctuated by rest and repose.

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.”