Yoke Conflict
At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath; his disciples were hungry, and they began to pluck heads of grain and to eat. But when the Pharisees saw it, they said to him, "Look, your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath." Matt. 12:1, 2, RSV.
It didn't take long for yoke conflict to arise between Jesus and the Pharisees. In fact, it jumps in in the next verse after Jesus invited His followers to take His yoke, "for my yoke is easy, and my burden is light" (Matt. 11:30, RSV). The occasion for conflict finds Him and the disciples walking through a grainfield, with the disciples not only picking some of the grain but rubbing it between their palms so as to separate the kernels from the chaff. At that point the ever-present Pharisees cry out, "Look, your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the sabbath."
In our day we might think they were upset because the disciples had taken grain that did not belong to them. But that was not the problem. In fact, in gathering and eating the grain as they passed through a field they were doing what the law of Moses explicitly allowed. Deuteronomy 23:25 tells us that it was permissible to pick a neighbor's grain with the hand but not with a sickle.
The problem was that the disciples did it on the Sabbath. Such was an act of harvesting, and harvesting was defined as work, and work on the Sabbath was sin. But they were not only harvesting; as they rubbed the grains in their hands they were also threshing. And threshing also represented a forbidden Sabbath activity. Then, of course, the Pharisees could also accuse them of traveling. Their tradition considered walking more than 1,999 paces to be taking a journey and thus a breach of the Sabbath.
The Pharisees may have expected Jesus immediately to put a stop to such unlawful activity, although they undoubtedly had a sneaking suspicion that He would not do so. Rather, to their surprise, He met them on their own ground by retelling a story from 1 Samuel 21:1-6, in which David in his hunger broke the letter of the law but God blessed him anyway.
Several truths flow out of that episode. One is that human need always takes precedence over the letter of the law. The second is that "the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath" (Matt. 12:8, NIV) and certainly knew what He meant when He gave the law in the first place.
In the end the story leaves us with a question. What is my approach to God's law? Do I see it as a blessing or an unbearable yoke?
At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath; his disciples were hungry, and they began to pluck heads of grain and to eat. But when the Pharisees saw it, they said to him, "Look, your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath." Matt. 12:1, 2, RSV.
It didn't take long for yoke conflict to arise between Jesus and the Pharisees. In fact, it jumps in in the next verse after Jesus invited His followers to take His yoke, "for my yoke is easy, and my burden is light" (Matt. 11:30, RSV). The occasion for conflict finds Him and the disciples walking through a grainfield, with the disciples not only picking some of the grain but rubbing it between their palms so as to separate the kernels from the chaff. At that point the ever-present Pharisees cry out, "Look, your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the sabbath."
In our day we might think they were upset because the disciples had taken grain that did not belong to them. But that was not the problem. In fact, in gathering and eating the grain as they passed through a field they were doing what the law of Moses explicitly allowed. Deuteronomy 23:25 tells us that it was permissible to pick a neighbor's grain with the hand but not with a sickle.
The problem was that the disciples did it on the Sabbath. Such was an act of harvesting, and harvesting was defined as work, and work on the Sabbath was sin. But they were not only harvesting; as they rubbed the grains in their hands they were also threshing. And threshing also represented a forbidden Sabbath activity. Then, of course, the Pharisees could also accuse them of traveling. Their tradition considered walking more than 1,999 paces to be taking a journey and thus a breach of the Sabbath.
The Pharisees may have expected Jesus immediately to put a stop to such unlawful activity, although they undoubtedly had a sneaking suspicion that He would not do so. Rather, to their surprise, He met them on their own ground by retelling a story from 1 Samuel 21:1-6, in which David in his hunger broke the letter of the law but God blessed him anyway.
Several truths flow out of that episode. One is that human need always takes precedence over the letter of the law. The second is that "the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath" (Matt. 12:8, NIV) and certainly knew what He meant when He gave the law in the first place.
In the end the story leaves us with a question. What is my approach to God's law? Do I see it as a blessing or an unbearable yoke?
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