On a Sabbath, while he was going through the grainfields, his disciples plucked and ate some heads of grain, rubbing them in their hands. But some of the Pharisees said, “Why are you doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath?” Luke 5:38-6:2
Holiness is all about prayer and fasting, right? And scrupulous observance of holy days . . . right? It’s not about weddings and bridegrooms and more mundane matters like eating. Of course we have to eat, nobody denies that, but we have this thing called the Sabbath—ever hear of it, Jesus? With your reputation as a potential star rabbi let’s say we’re very surprised to see you allowing your disciples to harvest grain on the Lord’s day—
What’s that? They’re hungry? So what? They have six days to set aside a snack for the seventh, and if they don’t do that it won’t kill them to go without food for twenty-four hours. We Pharisees do it all the time—excellent discipline. And don’t bring up David, he’s irrelevant. It’s not like you’re another David, after all. If you can observe the most basic of the commandments—
What? “Lord of the Sabbath”? Lord of the . . . Who is this Son of Man? You don’t mean you, do you?
. . . We can’t keep up with this man. One minute he’s flaunting revered customs and the next he’s flaunting us. Right in the synagogue, did you hear? Elias was there, he with the paralyzed hand that wrecked his pottery business. Tough for him and his family, but they get their share of contributions from the treasury and besides, if Jesus had wanted to heal Elias he could have stuck around till sundown. But he had to make a case of it. A cast against us. Against the law, I mean, not just us. He’s against the law, and therefore—
Yes, Elias’s hand was cured. Of course it’s good for him, but he’s just one man. There’s something rather large at stake here, sonny, something bigger than parlor tricks and snack cravings on a Sabbath afternoon. It’s called righteousness, or getting right with the Blessed One, and that’s not easy to do, you know. It takes old-fashioned discipline and effort and listening to the right people. So my advice to you, Jacob ben-Alphaeus, is to stay close and mind your own business. No good will come of chasing after Jesus of Nazareth; he’s trouble.
Jacob? Jacob! Come back here!
All night he continued in prayer to God. And when day came, he called his disciples and chose from them twelve, whom he named apostles: Simon, . . . and Andrew his brother, and James and John, and Philip, and Bartholomew, an Matthew, and Thomas, and James the son of Alphaeus, and Simon the Jealot, and Judas the son of James, and Judas Iscariot . . . Luke 6:12-16
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