Session Two - Invitation to lunch in a cornfield

Hello and welcome to the second session of Bishop Joe's course 'Six invitations to Dinner with Jesus'. Press play above to watch and listen and/or you can read the script below...

Hello, I am Bishop Joe, and this is the second of the six invitations to dinner with Jesus from St Luke’s Gospel which we are reading together.

This one is an invitation to lunch. And it takes place in a cornfield. You can find it in Chapter 6.

One Sabbath while Jesus was going through some grain fields, his disciples plucked some heads of grain, rubbed them in their hands, and ate them. But some of the Pharisees said, “Why are you doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath?” Jesus answered, “Have you not read what David did when he and his companions were hungry? How he entered the house of God and took and ate the bread of the Presence, which it is not lawful for any but the priests to eat, and gave some to his companions?” Then he said to them, “The Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath.”

Well, so last time, we were invited to a fast. No food at all. Today, we’re invited to a fast-food restaurant. This is definitely ‘food on the go’.

I remember as a child being a bit disturbed by this story – it can feel to us like Jesus’ disciples are stealing the food. After all, the grain was in someone else’s field, wasn’t it? So, I wondered as a child, why doesn’t Jesus tell them to leave the grain alone?

But then as an adult, I discovered that the Law of Moses laid down that when you were passing through a grainfield you were free to pluck corn from the field and eat it, so long as you plucked it with your hands, and don’t get serious and take a sickle to it. You can find the law in Deuteronomy Chapter 23, verse 25, if you want to look it up for yourself.

So, when Jesus’ disciples pluck the grain and eat it, that wasn’t a crime in itself. It’s the timing of the act that causes controversy.

The Pharisees complain that Jesus’ disciples are helping themselves to a snack on the Sabbath. That’s the problem.

Now, the Law of Moses lists all the forms of work which you must not do on the Sabbath, so that you are free to rest that day.

So for instance, you mustn’t reap, thresh, or winnow grain on the Sabbath. And these are the rules that the Pharisees claim Jesus’ disciples have broken. By picking the corn, they have reaped. By rubbing it in their hands, they have threshed. By discarding the husks, they have winnowed. The Pharisees, seeing Jesus’ disciples doing these things, ask why they are doing what is forbidden on the Sabbath.

In response, Jesus asks the Pharisees a question. That’s something Jesus does often: he often answers a question with another question.

But before we get to that, we might have some questions of our own to ask the Pharisees. Firstly (it occurs to me) how do they know that Jesus’ disciples did this? Perhaps they just happened to be following the disciples and noticed them snacking as they walked. Or perhaps – seems more likely to me – perhaps they were spying on the disciples, looking for some way to catch them out and accuse them.

Secondly, we might ask the Pharisees whether it’s really reasonable to equate what the disciples are doing– picking just a few grains of corn, rubbing them in your hands and eating them – to equate that with the hard work of harvesting, which is surely what the Law of Moses intends to forbid on the Sabbath?

And the interesting thing is that later Jewish tradition didn’t think that was reasonable. The Babylonian Talmud is quite happy with the sort of small-scale harvesting on the Sabbath that Jesus’ disciples engage in in our story. So – we can’t be sure – but it's plausible that the Pharisees in our story are applying a ridiculously strict standard to judge the behaviour of Jesus’ followers. Anything to make them look bad. 

OK, so these are plausible things Jesus might have said to the Pharisees. He might have asked them whether spying on other people to catch them out was a good thing to be doing. Or he might have asked them about laying heavy burdens on other people’s shoulders – being pedantic. It seems to me that these are the more obvious lines of defence.

But what makes this story so fascinating, is that Jesus doesn’t go for these lines of defence. Instead, Jesus chooses to tell a story found in the First Book of Samuel.

Jesus reminds the Pharisees of the time when a young David is travelling with a little group of followers. He has been anointed king but is waiting for God’s People to recognise him as king. He and his followers are hungry and so they eat the showbread in the temple – bread which it was lawful for only the priests to eat. But David claims the right to suspend this law, presumably on the grounds that he is the King of Israel.

So, Jesus’ argument seems to conclude, if it was okay for David to give the showbread to his hungry followers, then it’s also okay for me to allow my hungry followers to harvest on the Sabbath. Do you see how much Jesus is upping the ante here?

Jesus might have simply told the Pharisees not to spy on other people, or not to make a fuss about very little. But he didn’t. Jesus accepts the accusation that his disciples have stepped outside the stipulations of the Law of Moses, and that he has allowed them to do so. But he says he is permitted to do this because he is the new David – the expected Messiah who has come to save Israel. He is Lord of the Sabbath because God has appointed him Lord and King, of Israel.

We can learn from Jesus only if we give time each day to prayer and to listening to God’s Word in the Scriptures, only if we spend time with Him. And we can learn from him only if we let go of the notion that we have life figured out and allow our hearts and our minds to be taught by him. That is what it means to have Jesus as our Lord, our King.