GREAT THINGS ENTERPRISE
CLAUDE BLACK
Mark 2:24
Grain for Breakfast
It is hard to imagine what living on a continent with 350,000,000 other people would be like without some rules, or laws. But sometimes the laws become ludicrous; for example, in Arkansas it’s illegal to mispronounce “Arkansas” (it must be pronounced “Ar-kan-saw”); in Georgia, no one can carry an ice cream cone in their back pocket on Sunday; in Kentucky, it’s illegal for a woman to marry the same man more than three times; and in Oregon, drivers may not test their physical endurance while driving a car on a highway.
In New Testament Galilee, teachers of the law had formulated thousands of petty rules and regulations for the Sabbath. All work was forbidden on the Sabbath. Work was classified under thirty-nine different heads, four of which were reaping, winnowing, threshing, and preparing a meal.
St. Mark says that as Jesus and his disciples walked along on a Sabbath, the disciples pulled some heads of grain—likely wheat or barley—which was not forbidden. However, they needed to separate the kernel from the chaff by rubbing it in their hands and blowing the chaff away. “And the Pharisees said to him, ‘Look, why are they doing on the Sabbath what is not lawful?’” (2:24) The disciples violated a law by winnowing the wheat in their hands, which was defined as work. The Pharisees ignored the fact that the disciples were hungry and needed food. This is a case of a rule for a rule’s sake, not for the protection, promotion, or benefit of the individual, which, it seems, should be the core of all rule-making.
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