Sunday Worship Service March 17, 2024

Call to Worship Hosea 6:6
Hymn JBC # 232 On the cross of Calvary
The Lord’s Prayer
Hymn JBC # 227 Up Calv’ry’s mountain
Offering
Scripture Luke 6:1~11
Prayer
Sermon “What is unlawful on the Sabbath”
Prayer
Hymn JBC # 230 On a hill far away stood an old rugged cross
Doxology JBC # 674
Benediction
Postlude

In today's Bible passage, Jesus and his disciples go through a grain (wheat) field on the Sabbath (Jewish Sabbath: Saturday).
　There the disciples, probably hungry, picked ears of wheat, rubbed them with their hands, and ate them. (Perhaps Jesus ate them too.)
　The wheat field surely belonged to someone else. However, Jesus' disciples plucked the ears of wheat, rubbed them, and ate them.
　It was permitted by the Biblical law. The Old Testament book of ‘Deuteronomy’, chapter 23, verses 25~26 (24~25 NIV), states the following.

24 If you enter your neighbor’s vineyard, you may eat all the grapes you want, but do not put any in your basket. 25 If you enter your neighbor’s grainfield, you may pick kernels (*edible parts) with your hands, but you must not put a sickle (*a farming tool to cut the grain effectively) to their standing grain.

This is the commandment that when one is truly hungry, he may take the produce of another's (neighbor's) field and eat it. This is God's commandment that the owner of the field must also be willing to help his hungry neighbor.
　However, that commandment in Deuteronomy forbids taking the crop beyond truly satisfying the hunger, saying, "You shall not put it in a basket (to store it) " and "You shall not use a sickle (to cut it more than needed quantity)”.
　The commandment reminds us that we are all guilty of covetousness (greedy, excessive desire), of wanting more than we need, and that we are all capable of the sin of "coveting" more than we need.

　　Having said that, God has decreed that none of us should be short of the food we really need, the food we need to live, and that it is the duty of the community to strive to prevent that from happening.
　　However, there were some people who saw Jesus' disciples passing through the wheat field and taking wheat and eating it. And they condemned the disciples and questioned them.
　The Pharisees, who were strictly interpreting the biblical law, asked Jesus' disciples, who were taking wheat and eating it, "Why do you do what you should not do on the Sabbath?"
　That day was the Sabbath. The Sabbath was a commandment established by God and strictly enjoined (ordered) by Him to be kept by the Israelites from generation to generation.

　In the Old Testament book of ‘Exodus’, God tells Moses the words of the Ten Commandments. In the Ten Commandments, the law about the Sabbath is recorded as follows.
(Exodus 20:8~11)
8 “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns. 11 For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

　　Among the Ten Commandments, the commandment concerning the Sabbath is relatively large in quantity and detailed as so described.
　Those called the Pharisees and the teachers of the laws, in order to strictly observe the commandment, defined what (what kind of action) constituted "labor".
　It is said the rules also included a "distance allowed to be walked in a day”. It is said that the distance was about one kilometer, and any distance beyond that was considered "labor”.
The act of plucking the ears of wheat and rubbing them to extract the berries was also considered a labor as "harvesting work".

　The Pharisees asked, " Why are you doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath?"
　They said, "You are violating the law by not keeping the Sabbath!" and thus they accused Jesus and His disciples.
　What is happening here? What is happening here, it seems to me, is a lack of empathy for the other person.
　Jesus' disciples should have been familiar with the Sabbath commandment. Jesus had already taught the Word of God to many, and his reputation as a teacher (and healer of the sick) was widely known.

　There is no way that Jesus and his disciples could have been unaware of the important Sabbath commandment and the interpretation of its application. Jesus and his disciples must have known that the normal "harvest" was a labor which the Sabbath forbids.
　If so, the fact that Jesus' disciples still took the wheat and ate it there means that they were so seriously hungry.
　The Pharisees needed to see Jesus' disciples and their hunger and feel compassion (empathy) for them before they accused them asking "Why are you doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath?"
　I often judge people based on their appearance, on the surface, and often judge them in my mind.

Not trying to understand the person's situation, but instead I just dismiss him or her as "they are different from me" only on the surface.
Letter to the Hebrews Ch.13 verse 3 says as follows.
Continue to remember those in prison as if you were together with them in prison, and those who are mistreated as if you yourselves were suffering.
　 We would never know what it is like to be “in prison” or "mistreated" unless we also have truly experienced such a thing.
　Still, we should be able to use our imagination to wonder what would happen to people if they were placed in such an environment.
　It is my hope that by exercising our imagination with compassion, we will not make sin that is to judge other people so easily.

　I hope and pray that we will not judge a person only by surface, and that we will try to put ourselves in his or her shoes as much as possible, without losing the heart (that God has given to us) of caring for others.
　Jesus responds to the Pharisees' question by referring to an event concerning David as depicted in the Old Testament book of ‘Samuel’ 21.
　David had been chosen by the prophet Samuel to be the next king after Saul. However, David was envied by Saul and even had his life threatened by Saul, so David fled.
　Then David goes to a priest named Ahimelech and asks Ahimelech to give him food.
There was only consecrated (specially portioned) bread. Consecrated bread was something that only the priests were allowed to eat.
However, David even lied that he had been sent by the king and he obtained the bread, which in principle only the priests were allowed to eat.

　The Bible does not encourage lying. But David was in a life-or-death situation, and the rule that only priests are allowed to eat consecrated bread loses its validity before the life of one man, David.
　Today's story from verse 6 also concerns what is and is not allowed on the Sabbath. Jesus was teaching in a synagogue. There was one man whose right hand was shriveled, meaning his right hand was paralyzed from some cause.

　The person's right hand paralyzed was not a condition where his life was in danger if it were not treated right away. Therefore, healing the person on the Sabbath was considered a non-emergency medical procedure, a kind of "labor.
　There, the teachers of the laws and Pharisees were waiting intently to see if Jesus would heal the man with the shriveled right hand.
　If Jesus healed the man, they were going to accuse him, saying, "You are performing a labor of a non-urgent act of healing on the Sabbath, a violation of the law!" and they would accuse him.
　Indeed, on the face of it, the person's symptoms may not have been life-threatening if not fixed now.
　But what were the thoughts of the person whose right hand was shriveled, and how was he feeling at that time? How much suffering had he had to go through before that moment?
　Jesus still urges us through the Bible to try to imagine those things and try to sympathize with them.

　Jesus saw the man's suffering and thought that the man had to be healed right away at that time, and so Jesus, the Son of God, healed him there.
Let’s confirm the words of Jesus in verses 5 and 9.
“The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.”
“I ask you, which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to destroy it?”

　“What is lawful or unlawful on the Sabbath?"~ when the only thing that matter is whether or not religious rules are observed, the original grace and joy of the Sabbath will be lost from it
Today's passage’s theme is about "commandments" or “religious rules”, and what is it to keep those.
The common image people have of religion may be "a life bound by various rules”.
　“You have to go to worship services every week”, “you have to give offering”, “you have to read the Bible”, etc., etc., etc.
　However, the believer who is connected to Jesus Christ can live a life of freedom based on the joy of being made a child of God through Christ, rather than a life of "I have to this or that".

　We can say that a believer in Christ is one who can live in free in anything. Let us remember again how fortunate we are as believers who have received freedom in Christ and can live in it.
　　Both the Sabbath and God's other various blessings are for us to obtain through them God's love, mercy, and salvation of life.
　We desire to live out our faith in the grace of Sabbath we receive from God, and we desire to live and enjoy the grace of the true Sabbath from God.