Luke 6:1-5: Sabbath breakers!

Religious battle lines often get drawn in what seems an arbitrary way, even a random way. Right now, the church is wrangling bitterly over issues of sexuality, while society looks on and wonders why we're making such a fuss. The rest of us have moved on - why can't you?

The religious people of Jesus' day decided to go to war with him over something different - the sabbath. One of the things that made (and makes) Jewish people distinctive is keeping the sabbath day holy. Years ago, I used to commute from South London back to home north of the river, and on a Friday night as I drove through Clapton, I would see dozens of Hasidic Jews, in their distinctive long black coats, broad hats and earlocks, scurrying about, trying to get home before sunset.

The sabbath begins when the sun goes down, and the Jews needed to be indoors by then. So they ran.

In Jesus' time, keeping the sabbath kept the Jews apart from the foreign Romans, who no doubt smiled at this eccentricity. Why make life hard for yourself, by forbidding every little action that might be construed as "work" on one day of the week? It seemed overkill. So when Jesus and his disciples were out for a walk, and the disciples idly picked some grain from the fields, rubbed it between their hands and ate it, up popped the pharisees and accused them of working - winnowing the grain on the sabbath.

How did Jesus reply? Did he side with the hated Gentiles, and tell them off for being stupid? Or did he maintain his Jewish credentials and accept the rap?

Whenever Jesus is presented with a binary situation like this, whenever his opponents try to manoeuvre him into a position where any thing he does will be wrong, he always seems to find a third way.

Today, Jesus quotes the example of David. Great King David, while he was on the run from the previous king, when God was clearly on his side and it was only a matter of time before he would be recognised as ruler, once broke the rules. He pretended to the priest that he was on a mission from King Saul, and that it was so urgent he'd set off without food or weapons. He effectively tricked the priest into feeding and arming him. Yet we read the story and commend David for quick thinking, we don't censure him for rule breaking.

The pharisees could easily have argued back. "Oh yeah, and who are you on the run from, then?" They could have asked whether Jesus had been anointed king. Perhaps wisely they didn't go there, because Jesus has been anointed by God, at his baptism. Not king, but Messiah. But then, Messiah means "anointed one" and anointing is what they did to kings then, not crowning. You could say that Jesus quoting David is implicitly asserting his authority.

Jesus finished with an extraordinary claim: "The Son of Man is Lord of the sabbath." Mark, in his telling of the story, adds another sentence which makes Jesus' argument clearer: "The Sabbath was made to meet the needs of people, and not people to meet the requirements of the Sabbath."

Religious rule keepers have got things the wrong way round, Rules are servants, not masters. And when you're in the presence of Jesus, you are in the presence of the master of everything, rules included.