In addition to teaching Mathematics and Physics, I also co-teach an IB subject called Theory of Knowledge or TOK for short. Briefly, TOK is simply a study of the ways in which we humans acquire and assimilate knowledge and the areas in which we do so. I deal with the ways of knowing of sense perception and language and the areas of knowledge of Mathematics, Natural Sciences and Ethics.

I am currently in the midst of sessions on Ethics and we ask ourselves all sorts of questions, from the most trivial ones to the most daunting. For example, “Under what circumstances it ok to break a traffic signal?” or “When is it ok to sacrifice the life of one person to save five others?” or “In what situations is it ok to lie?”

In much the same way, Jesus asks, “I ask you, which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to destroy it?” 

We Christians, Gentiles for the most part, can scarcely imagine the importance of the Sabbath. So let us go over a few Old Testament texts that deal with the Sabbath and Sabbath observance.

The Sabbath observance is commanded in Exodus 20, appearing as the fourth of the Ten Commandments. There, the Sabbath observance is linked closely to God’s rest during creation. Our weekly rest is based on God’s rest. So we can see that this is not something that the Jews could take lightly.

The fact that God considers the Sabbath special is underscored by the experience of the Israelites in the desert, where they were told not to gather food on the Sabbath, but to gather twice as much the day before. And the manna, that would normally rot on the second day, would stay fresh even during the Sabbath. For forty years the Israelites experienced this and this cemented in their collective consciousness the importance of observing the Sabbath.

In Exodus 31, the Sabbath is declared to be the sign between Yahweh and his people. We normally think only of circumcision as being a sign between Yahweh and the Israelites, but the Sabbath observance also was. Through it, the Israelites declared that they did not have to work all the time because Yahweh would provide for them. 

If you now get a weekend off from work, it is because of this. No other culture in the past ever had a weekly day off, instead working all seven days of the week.

Hence, in Ezekiel 20, failure to observe the Sabbath is linked to idolatry. This is because the true God, the one who designed us and created us, designed and created us for cycles that include rest. And because he did this, he provides for us during our rest. The false gods insist that we be anxious daily about what we will eat and what clothes we will wear. Hence, failure to observe the Sabbath is considered worship of false gods.

More than this, failure to observe the Sabbath carried with it the death penalty. We read specifically in Exodus 31.15 “Whoever does any work on the Sabbath day is to be put to death.”

In other words, this is no small observance that we are talking about. A parallel for us might be, “You must go to church on Sunday. Whoever does not go to church on a Sunday is to be put to death.” We’d all be dead by now!

In our passage, it is the Sabbath and Jesus and his disciples are going somewhere, walking through the fields. Some of his disciples pluck some kernels, remove the husks and eat the raw grain. Some of the Pharisees ask the disciples, “Why are you doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath?”

In case you are wondering why their question concerned what was unlawful on the Sabbath, the Old Testament commanded farmers not to reap the edges of their fields. This was so that the poor and the travelers could eat if they were hungry. So plucking grain from another person’s field in itself was not a problem.

But for me the really surprising thing is that the Pharisees were there at all. I mean, here were Jesus and his disciples probably having a private stroll and in the midst of a field they come across some Pharisees? Seems quite coincidental, doesn’t it? 

Not if you read the preceding part of Luke’s Gospel. This is the part we looked at last week. And there we see that the Pharisees had already found fault with some of Jesus’ practices.

Jesus pronounced forgiveness, ate with sinners and did not require his disciples to fast. The Pharisees were already realizing that Jesus had an unconventional approach. So quite likely they appointed some from their ranks to keep an eye on Jesus.

These spies were probably following Jesus and making notes of all his violations. But then came the shocker. Not only did Jesus not follow common practices, here he also seemed to have a lax attitude toward the Sabbath. And the Sabbath was not some trivial issue of the law. No! The identity of the Israelites was deeply linked with the Sabbath, as we have seen. How could Jesus allow this? So they question Jesus about it.

It is instructive to see how Jesus responds. He does not say that, under the new dispensation introduced by him, the Sabbath is obsolete. He does not say that what he is doing is not against the law.

Rather, he points to an incident in their history when David and his companions ate the showbread in the tabernacle. This was bread that was reserved only for the priests. 

Everyone else was expressly forbidden from eating it. Yet, simply because David and his companions were hungry, they ate that bread.

Was what David did wrong? If you looked at the commandment about the showbread, then yes. He was guilty of eating what was set aside for the priests. There is no way of denying that.

Yet, the Israelites had no problem with David’s later becoming king. He was one who had desecrated the showbread, yet no one said anything against him. No one objected to his becoming king later by pointing to this incident, even though this breach of the law is as severe as breaking the Sabbath. Why?

We could imagine a whole plethora of reasons and would not know if we were closer to the truth simply because the text in 1 Samuel is sparse. More intriguing is the fact that Chronicles, which was written centuries after Samuel, and written with the purpose of solidifying the rule of David’s dynasty, does not mention this incident that happened only months before David became king. 

In case we think this is a one off incident, consider the fact that David’s most notorious sin, the violation of Bathsheba is not mentioned in Chronicles. In fact, while listing David’s children, Chronicles refers to Bathsheba, not with reference to her husband, Uriah, as in Samuel, but with reference to her father. And here too the name of her father is changed from Eliam to Ammiel – same syllables but in the wrong order.

In fact, most of the incidents that depict David in bad light are not to be found in Chronicles, but only in Samuel. And this leads me to believe that what David did in taking the showbread was considered to be wrong and hence omitted in Chronicles.

But if it was considered wrong, why did no one object? Simply because it takes great courage – like that shown by Nathan the prophet – to confront someone who has the power to take your life.

So when Jesus points to the incident about David, he does not justify what David did. Rather, he points to the fact that, though their ancestors knew that David had done wrong by taking the showbread, their ancestors had done nothing simply because David was then in a position of power.

And by implication he is accusing them of targeting him precisely because he does not have the power that David had. In other words, they would be silent if Jesus had had the power David had, but they are targeting him because he was powerless. Jesus is pointing at the duplicity of his accusers for they function not on the premise ‘breaking the law is wrong’ but on the premise ‘might makes right.’

But Jesus says, “The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.” Quite a few commentaries take this to mean that Jesus is indicating that he is above the law of the Sabbath. But that does not make sense of Jesus’ words in context. Why does he mention David’s transgression of the law and clearly state that David did what was unlawful to do? How does Jesus’ lordship over the Sabbath follow from David’s transgression? There is just no logical way it does.

But if Jesus is using the phrase ‘son of man’ as a circumlocution for all humans, then we see something different. He is saying, “Every human is lord of the Sabbath.” What does this mean?

He is saying that Abimelek, the priest at Nob, recognized a different principle when he allowed David and his followers to eat the showbread. Abimelek recognized that humans were not made to be slavishly obedient to laws. Rather, the law is instituted to be of service to humans. Abimelek recognized that this is an exceptional case, that David was not going to come regularly and ask to eat the showbread. He recognized that, since the law was given for the benefit of humans, in exceptional cases it could and should be set aside if that would benefit humans.

Jesus is saying that humans have the discretion of deciding, in exceptional cases, to set aside the requirements of the law if it would benefit others. In this way, every human is lord of the Sabbath.

And so we come to another Sabbath. A man comes to him with a shriveled hand. Luke tells us that the Pharisees were also there.

Before healing the man, Jesus asks a poignant question: “Which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to destroy it?”

The Pharisees were there to see if Jesus would heal the man and thereby break the prohibition of working on the Sabbath. From the earlier Sabbath exchange Jesus knew their intentions were to ensnare him and have grounds for calling him a lawbreaker. It is in this context that Jesus asks the question. And Luke places these two episodes in Jesus’ life together to tell the reader that they are about the same thing.

“Which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to destroy it?”

What Jesus is saying is that inaction is also action. There is no way of not doing something. By refusing to act to do good, we are acting to do evil. 

If we point an accusing finger at someone who breaks a law to help someone else we are doing evil. If we refuse to do good to someone because we refuse to break a law, then we are doing evil.

Would we lie or steal or forge documents or bribe officials if it would save someone else? This is a question I will be raising with my students this coming Wednesday. But I raise it here for us. Which of us would lie to save someone else? We perhaps did it in school to save a friend who had done something wrong! But now would we lie to save someone else?

Would we steal if it would save another person? Would we forge documents to protect a stranger? Would we use our earnings to induce officials to turn their gaze away from us as we lied and stole and forged?

What would we think of someone who did such a thing? What would we think of this liar, this thief, this forger, this encourager of corruption?

Is such a person following Jesus? Or is this person just deluded? Is this person just twisting Jesus’ words because it is convenient?

Corrie Ten Boom new that she was breaking all sorts of laws to protect the Jews during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. She was disobeying all sorts of laws. But she did it anyway. Why?

Because she understood what Jesus is saying here. There is no fence for us to sit on when it comes to facing evil in this world. We can act to overcome it or we can help evil by claiming we are doing what is legal and what is lawful.

Edmund Burke supposedly gave us the saying, “The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.” But what Jesus is saying is different. The German born, Jewish-American political philosopher Hannah Arendt said, “The sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be good or evil.” This is closer to what Jesus is saying. When facing evil, there is no middle ground, no fence of indecision to sit on. Because the only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good people to obey.