I will ask you one thing: Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do evil, to save life or to destroy?

 Now it happened on the second Sabbath after the first that He went through the grainfields.  And His disciples plucked the heads of grain and ate them, rubbing them in their hands.  And some of the Pharisees said to them, "Why are you doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath?"  But Jesus answering them said, "Have you not even read this, what David did when he was hungry, he and those who were with him:  how he went into the house of God, took and ate the showbread, and also gave some to those with him, which is not lawful for any but the priests to eat?"  And He said to them, "The Son of Man is also Lord of the Sabbath."

Now it happened on another Sabbath, also, that He entered the synagogue and taught.  And a man was there whose right hand was withered.  So the scribes and Pharisees watched Him closely, whether He would heal on the Sabbath, that they might find an accusation against Him.  But He knew their thoughts, and said to the man who had the withered hand, "Arise and stand here."  And he arose and stood.  Then Jesus said to them, "I will ask you one thing:  Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do evil, to save life or to destroy?"  And when He had looked around at them all, He said to the man, "Stretch out your hand."  And he did so, and his hand was restored as whole as the other.  But they were filled with rage, and discussed with one another what they might do to Jesus. 

- Luke 6:1-11

Yesterday, we read that after Jesus healed a paralytic (also forgiving his sins, to the consternation of some Pharisees and their scribes), He went out and saw a tax collector named Levi, sitting at the tax office.  And He said to him, "Follow Me."  So he left all, rose up and followed Him.  Then Levi gave Him a great feast in his own house.  And there were a great number of tax collectors and others who sat down with them.  And their scribes and the Pharisees complained against His disciples, saying, "Why do You eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?"  Jesus answered and said to them, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.  I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance."   Then they said to Him, "Why do the disciples of John fast often and make prayers, and likewise those of the Pharisees, but Yours eat and drink?"  And He said to them, "Can you make the friends of the bridegroom fast while the bridegroom is with them?  But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them; then they will fast in those days."  Then He spoke a parable to them:  "No one puts a piece from a new garment on an old one; otherwise the new makes a tear, and also the piece that was taken out of the new does not match the old.  And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; or else the new wine will burst the wineskins and be spilled, and the wineskins will be ruined.  But new wine must be put into new wineskins, and both are preserved.  And no one, having drunk old wine, immediately desires new; for he says, 'The old is better.'"

 Now it happened on the second Sabbath after the first that He went through the grainfields.  And His disciples plucked the heads of grain and ate them, rubbing them in their hands.  And some of the Pharisees said to them, "Why are you doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath?"  But Jesus answering them said, "Have you not even read this, what David did when he was hungry, he and those who were with him:  how he went into the house of God, took and ate the showbread, and also gave some to those with him, which is not lawful for any but the priests to eat?"  And He said to them, "The Son of Man is also Lord of the Sabbath."    The second Sabbath after the first is a term that is used to mean a feast day that follows the normal Sabbath (a feast was also known as a Sabbath).  My study bible cites St. Ambrose, who writes that a second Sabbath is an image of the new covenant and the eternal resurrection.  The first Sabbath would be the Law, but the second Sabbath is the gospel that follows it.  Under the new covenant, the food which was not lawful for anyone bu the priests to eat is now freely given to all by the Lord of the Sabbath.  This was prefigured by David in giving the showbread to those with him.

Now it happened on another Sabbath, also, that He entered the synagogue and taught.  And a man was there whose right hand was withered.  So the scribes and Pharisees watched Him closely, whether He would heal on the Sabbath, that they might find an accusation against Him.  But He knew their thoughts, and said to the man who had the withered hand, "Arise and stand here."  And he arose and stood.  Then Jesus said to them, "I will ask you one thing:  Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do evil, to save life or to destroy?"  And when He had looked around at them all, He said to the man, "Stretch out your hand."  And he did so, and his hand was restored as whole as the other.  But they were filled with rage, and discussed with one another what they might do to Jesus.  The scribes and Pharisees had built up many traditions around the Law.  According to such, healing was considered work, and therefore wasn't permissible on the Sabbath.  Their way of serving God was to zealously keep such traditions.  But legalism of this sort overlooks sensitivity to God's mercy. 

Jesus "works" on a Sabbath, and we might say that so God works on a Sabbath.  We look at Jesus' response to such criticism in John's Gospel, and find He suggests the same:  "My Father has been working until now, and I have been working" (see John 5:16-17).  In the Gospels, Jesus does a lot of His "work" on Sabbaths.   He preaches in synagogues, and sometimes there are spontaneous events in which He "heals" (such as this one in Capernaum in which He cast out an unclean spirit).  What is a Sabbath for?  It's meant to be kept holy to God.  It's the day that God rested from work, so according to the Law all are meant to rest from work (Exodus 20:8-11).  But God's healing work doesn't rest; in fact the rest itself we take in God has its own "work" in us:  it's healing, restorative, spiritually nourishing.  There are all kinds of ways in which God works as we take rest in God.  The idea of rest itself is restorative and healing, necessary for the well-being of humankind.  To overlook the power of God on such a day isn't really such a strange thing if we consider human nature and behavior.  We can whittle down our concept of God to a kind of peripheral influence, or perhaps a great abstract, or merely an idea we rationalize.  We can use tools and methods developed for discernment or prayer and decide that they are useful merely for our own purposes and very worldly goals -- and in so doing, it is only the structure of the practice that becomes important, essential.  That is, it is the rules themselves that become the emphasis.   We forget about the work of God.  We overlook the God of mystery and awe, we lose a sense of God's power -- and at that time what naturally must follow is losing sight of God's mercy.  If you think about it, the entire Bible is filled with God's work and that work is essentially mercy.   It is grace.  When we lose sight of this spiritual substance, this true goal of all the practice of faith of communion with Creator, we all too easily become legalists, forgetting about the mysterious work of God that we don't set down rules for or limit.  We pay attention to the minutiae of tradition -- any tradition -- and forget that God's work finds its own way to us (see John 3:8).  It doesn't matter what sort of practice or tradition we're talking about; all "tradition" should help us to hallow a space and a time and make room for the paradox of the presence of a mysterious God we can't contain nor control, but in whom we trust.  Trust only comes from love and the power of what is good and merciful and healing.  I find that when we lose that, we becomes sticklers for the law, for the social rules, watchful of each other for the deviations that might break up the only thing we have left:  the tradition we've created.  Whatever way we honor God, whatever Sabbath we take, let it be with the space in mind we offer to God whose work is mercy, setting right and healing, the God of peace and joy who loves us and wants us more deeply in relationship.   This God may come to us in the "full silence" of prayer.  But then again, it's possible to make this an unbreakable rule, a limitation.  An imposed silence can crowd out our capacity to hear the great and paradoxical mercy of God.