As Jesus was passing through a field of grain on the sabbath,
his disciples began to make a path while picking the heads of grain.
The disciples were on the road and in need of food because they were in service of the mission of the Kingdom. The sabbath rest was not opposed to this mission, but could rather only be fulfilled by its completion. Only Jesus could restore the right relationship of humanity with God that could allow them to enter the true promise of the sabbath. Only he could bring the peace promised by the choirs of angels at his birth which was the true meaning of sabbath rest.
At this the Pharisees said to him,
“Look, why are they doing what is unlawful on the sabbath?”
The Pharisees were constrained to a superficial, hypercritical, and overly literal interpretation of the texts of Scripture. They had, apparently, no regard for context or intent. Their primary concern was to consider a particular passage in terms of all the ways it might be transgressed and then to be on the watch for every minor infraction. They seemed to view the sabbath in terms of a series of negatives without consider what those prohibitions were meant to protect. We can be like this too. It becomes especially egregious when we only turn the lens of criticism on others without looking inward.
He said to them,
“Have you never read what David did
when he was in need and he and his companions were hungry?
David too was on mission. He was meant to reign as king but was being pursued by Saul, just as Jesus was meant to reign as king, but was pursued by the Pharisees. David's mission was so important that it justified him being given the bread of offering which was normally reserved to priests. The Catholic Commentary of Sacred Scripture for Mark says it succinctly, "[t]hose who share in his divinely appointed mission are doing God’s work and therefore are granted a priestly dispensation from the sabbath regulations, just as David’s men had been granted a priestly privilege regarding the holy bread"¹. We can see from this statement that in virtue of his divine mission David had a priestly role, foreshadowing Jesus himself who would be perfectly priest, prophet, and king.
Then he said to them,
“The sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath.
That is why the Son of Man is lord even of the sabbath.
Jesus had a priestly privilege like David, but he was in fact someone greater even than David. David was permitted certain privileges for the sake of his kingdom. But Jesus was the one who perfectly understood the original intention behind the establishment of the sabbath, since he himself, with the Father, and the Spirit, established it. It was always meant to be ordered to relationship with himself. The sabbath was meant to be his gift of relationship and peace to man. Hence he and he alone could perfectly speak to what was permissible or not on the sabbath. And the sating of the hunger of disciples collaborating with him in his mission was, from that vantage point, perfectly fitting.
The Spirit rushed on David from the day he was anointed king. But there was never a time when Jesus was not filled with the Spirit. At his baptism this Spirit anointing was revealed to the world, but not begun. Therefore, since he was intended to be king from before the dawn of creation, let us give him our hearts, so that, in them too, his benevolent reign may triumph.
- Healy, Mary. Gospel of Mark, The (Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture) (p. 65). Baker Book Group - A. Kindle Edition.
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