Plucking corn

Matthew 12:1-8

         I was thinking about this passage with a special interest as the corn crop here on the island is in full swing. That song that says "There's a bright golden haze on the meadow" and "the corn is as high as an elephants eye" is exactly what comes to mind. Certainly the desire for corn on the cob and corn in so many delicious recipes comes to my mind.  I find it incomprehensible that anyone could proclaim a sin for plucking heads of grain. 

          Rules and rubrics. Restrictions to the salvation and love that God offers so freely, willingly and abundantly. It seems there was always someone who was willing to say you are not good, you are doing this wrong, here is yet another restriction on how you live and love.

         Jesus makes it clear, “I desire mercy and not sacrifice”. Jesus has said similar things before, what is easier to say 'you are healed' or 'you can't do that, it's a sin to heal on the Sabbath'. It seems the over arcing item of importance is mercy and love. Is that not why Jesus became man and died for us? Mercy for us? It's not that we deserve it for anything we have done but simply because God made us and He loves us. God simply does not want restrictions and sacrifices. God wants mercy, love, compassion and forgiveness. 

          I love when Brother Clarke comes to the Friary and he says Mass. Invariably when there are new people in the congregation, perhaps not schooled in all the 'proper ways' and proper responses, he reminds everyone that we are  at God's table and that they can't do anything wrong. The essence of why we are there, willingly and lovingly makes it so nothing we do is wrong. Not saying A-men instead of Ah-men or any other 'rule' or rubric that someone might place in our path of love, thanksgiving and worship.

          God desires mercy not sacrifice. Jesus willingly, lovingly and completely gave himself in the ultimate sacrifice for us and that is what matters. 

At that time Jesus went through the cornfields on the sabbath; his disciples were hungry, and they began to pluck heads of grain and to eat. When the Pharisees saw it, they said to him, ‘Look, your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the sabbath.’ He said to them, ‘Have you not read what David did when he and his companions were hungry? He entered the house of God and ate the bread of the Presence, which it was not lawful for him or his companions to eat, but only for the priests. Or have you not read in the law that on the sabbath the priests in the temple break the sabbath and yet are guiltless? I tell you, something greater than the temple is here. But if you had known what this means, “I desire mercy and not sacrifice”, you would not have condemned the guiltless. For the Son of Man is lord of the sabbath.’