Sermon Notes

We live in a highly competitive time. Advertisers are competing for your money, organizations are competing for your time, friends and family may be competing for your affection and the dogs and cats all want your lap.

Among the competition, there is one conflict I want to highlight in this mornings message, and that is competing authorities.

An authority is someone who gives you orders. When we were children, our parents filled that role. Teachers and coaches came later. Then we had bosses at work and spouses at home. Added in this mix for the Christian was the church, the Bible, and Jesus Christ. I separate the church from Jesus Christ because the church doesn’t always get it right. I separate the Bible from Jesus Christ because we don’t always get the Bible right.

We find that we face competing authorities. Jesus is saying to all of us, “Live for me, obey me.” But teens have people at school who don’t think it’s cool. A husband and wife can be divided in the home over issues of following Christ. On “Yahoo Questions” I found this post: “My wife wants to convert to Islam, and...?she is threatening to divorce me if I do not convert with her.....I do not want to, I am very happy being Christian....What should I do? She is serious about the converting, and serious about divorce....” Usually the stress is over lesser issues, but they are real, just the same.

Sometimes the competing authority is our parents. We would break their hearts if we followed what we see Jesus saying. Their voices resound in our heads.

Sometimes the competing authority is the church. We read what the Bible says, we know what our church has taught us, but we struggle, should we follow the teachings of our church or follow what Jesus says in the Bible?

Sometimes the competing authority is the Bible. We know one truth in the Bible and we come across another truth that doesn’t seem to fit. So we defend our one point against the other and unconsciously manipulate the scriptures so we don’t have to change, rather than letting the scriptures change us.

Jesus faced some Biblical scholars who had this conflict between the teachings of Jesus and the teaching of their religious tradition. He faced scholars who had a conflict between the teachings of Jesus and their own interpretation of the Bible. To these people, Jesus gives a compelling argument. Let’s follow this in Matthew 12:1-8.

First, let’s look at the setting for this story.

1 At that time Jesus went through the cornfields on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry and began to pick some ears of corn and eat them.

2 When the Pharisees saw this, they said to him, “Look! Your disciples are doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath.”

The area of controversy is going to be over this question: Were Jesus’ disciples doing what is lawful on the Sabbath? I emphasize the word “Jesus’” because this is an attack on Jesus. They are condemning him for allowing his disciples to pick corn on the Sabbath.

What does the law say about this?

First, let me give you the Pharisees’ side. They would take us to the book of Exodus for their claim that what Jesus is allowing is not legal. Exodus 34:21 is a good summary of many other verses that say about the same thing. 21 “Six days you shall labour, but on the seventh day you shall rest; even during the ploughing season and harvest you must rest. (Ex 34:21)

What is harvesting? When you harvest corn, what are you doing? Are you not picking ears of corn? What were the disciples doing? They were picking ears of corn. So the Pharisees would say that the disciples were breaking Old Testament law by picking ears of corn on the Sabbath. Open and shut case!

Second, let me give you Jesus’ answer.

His answer falls into several parts.

First, he argues this way, “David broke the law about eating and you approve of what he did.

3 He answered, “Haven’t you read what David did when he and his companions were hungry?

4 He entered the house of God, and he and his companions ate the consecrated bread--which was not lawful for them to do, but only for the priests.

What Jesus omits is that David did this on the Sabbath. Either he assumed that these religious leaders knew that or his focus is not on the Sabbath as much as it is on their justification of a law-breaker.

So why did they condone David, a non-priest, going into the temple and eating consecrated bread? The Pharisees thought it was ok because David and his men were going to die if they didn’t eat that bread. Their thought was that their lives held a higher value than obedience to this command.

But, and you can hear the wheels turning, Jesus’ disciples were not near death, so this doesn’t even fit into the same category!

Jesus now gives a second example.

5 Or haven’t you read in the Law that on the Sabbath the priests in the temple desecrate the day and yet are innocent?

I have had this question asked, “How can preachers keep the Sabbath if they have to work on that day?” I never had an answerer until now. The law said that the priests received an exemption. They could desecrate the day by working, yet be considered innocent. All the Pharisees agreed with this.

So where are we at in Jesus’ argument? First, people who ate forbidden food on the Sabbath were allowed to do so under certain circumstances. Second, some people who worked on the Sabbath were able to do so and still be innocent.

Who determines who gets the exemptions? Who determines the right definition of harvesting? The Pharisees said that picking corn of any quantity was harvesting. Jesus permitted the disciples to pick corn. Who is right?

Listen to Jesus’ answer.

6 I tell you that one greater than the temple is here.

Wait a minute. What can be greater than the temple? It is the place where God meets man. It is the place where sins are forgiven. It is the center of worship for the Jewish nation. What can be greater than the temple?

The answer: The God who dwells in the temple. Jesus is telling the Pharisees that he has the authority to interpret scripture. He has the authority to settle the question. His answer is more correct than the priests in the temple.

This whole debate comes down to a struggle between the Pharisees and Jesus over who has the greater authority. They had learned from their traditions, they had learned from their teachers. Jesus confronts them and says, “You have had it wrong. I am here to help you. I am here with a message from God for you: You don’t have it right.”

7 If you had known what these words mean, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the innocent.

What were the Pharisees missing? They had become legal experts rather than people experts. They knew the words, but they didn’t consider the people. They were all about sacrifice and not at all about mercy. All scripture is given to help us love God and to love one another. They thought they were loving God by blasting Jesus’ disciples. They were guilty of great sin in the Pharisees’ eyes.

But what does Jesus call them? Innocent. He uses the same word here in verse 7 as is used in verse 5 for the priests who work on the Sabbath. Both are innocent.

Why?

8 For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.”

If Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath, the boss of the Sabbath, the one who tells people what to do on the Sabbath, then are not the disciples innocent if they are doing what the Lord of the Sabbath told them to do? Isn’t his statement enough?

The Pharisees thought their tradition was more accurate than Jesus. They thought their own scholars were more believable that Jesus. They were listening to every voice but the voice of God, who stood before them clothed in flesh.

This is where we face our hardest battle. The battle is fought over conflicting testimonies. Often when we hear the voice of Jesus, we hear at an even louder pitch our families, or church, our background, our upbringing. We are entrenched in our traditions and as the song says, “We shall not be, we shall not be moved!”

Jesus is telling us, please listen to me. Be firm in your beliefs, but be open that your beliefs might not be firm. Jesus said if we build our lives on his teachings, we build on a rock. Anything else is sinking sand.

Which leads me to make the following suggestions:

1. Read your Bible. All we know about Jesus is found in the Bible.

2. Make sure that your beliefs are rooted in what the Bible teaches. Teachers, churches, friends, parents are all here to guide us. But above all of them is the Word of God. If you disagree with teachers, churches, friends, or parents, do so because you have a biblical reason for such an action.

3. Get to know Jesus. Don’t make it your goal in life to live right and avoid wrong. These are very important, but more important is to know God and Jesus Christ whom he has sent.

For Further Reflection