Mk 2:23-28
23As [Jesus] was passing through a field of grain on the sabbath, his disciples began to make a path while picking the heads of grain. 24At this the Pharisees said to him, “Look, why are they doing what is unlawful on the sabbath?” 25He said to them, “Have you never read what David did when he was in need and he and his companions were hungry? 26How he went into the house of God when Abiathar was high priest and ate the bread of offering that only the priests could lawfully eat, and shared it with his companions?” 27Then he said to them, “The sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath. 28That is why the Son of Man is lord even of the sabbath.”
UNLAWFUL ON THE SABBATH: The Hebrew sabbat is connected with the root “SBT” which means to cease or to rest. Among ancient Mediterranean peoples, there was a day different from the rest of the days because it was special to the divinities. People ceased their normal activities on this “taboo” day. But in Israel, God’s rest after creation is the theological basis for man’s rest at the end of the week (Gn 2:1-3). Another reason is historical: the Sabbath is a day of rest for the Israelites, their animals and their slaves, because the Israelites, who themselves were once slaves in Egypt, should have compassion on those forced to labor (Dt 5:12-15).
To fence in and protect the sacredness of the Sabbath rest, the rabbis enumerated 39 types of work which were prohibited on this day, the third of which was reaping. Picking the heads of grain was considered reaping, and this violation is pointed out by the Pharisees to Jesus.
While prohibitions abounded, exceptions were also admitted, like the Temple duties (Mt 12:5), the unloosing of cattle (Lk 13:15), and other actions in which life was at stake. There were even rabbis who would agree with Jesus that “the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” Here Jesus objects to the strict Pharisaic interpretation, the mere material observance of the Sabbath that admits no exception. He interprets the law in humanitarian terms, according to human needs, as God would have it. God established the seventh day as a period of joy and refreshment. Pope John Paul II interprets the sacredness of the Sabbath: “The divine rest of the seventh day does not allude to an inactive God, but emphasizes the fullness of what has been accomplished. It speaks, as it were, of God’s lingering before the ‘very good’ work (Gn 1:31) which his hand has wrought, in order to cast upon it a gaze full of joyous delight” (Dies Domini, n 11).