Homily 39 — Matthew 12, verses 1 to 8

“At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath day; and his disciples were hungry, and began to pluck the ears of grain and to eat.” [a]

But Luke says, “On a double Sabbath.” What, then, is a double Sabbath? It is when the rest from work is twofold: the rest of the regular Sabbath, and the rest of another feast falling on the same day. For they call every rest from work a sabbath.

But why did he, who foreknew everything, not lead them away from this, unless it was his will that the Sabbath should be broken? It was indeed his will, but not simply and without more. That is why he never breaks it without a cause, but always gives reasonable grounds, so that he might bring the law to an end and at the same time not startle them. There are times, though, when he even sets it aside outright, without any such circumstances: as when he anoints the blind man’s eyes with the clay, and when he says, “My Father is working until now, and I am working.” He does it the one way to glorify his own Father, and the other way to deal gently with the weakness of the Jews. It is this second thing he is working at here, putting forward the demands of nature as a plea — although in the case of admitted sins, that could of course never be an excuse. The murderer may not plead his anger, nor the adulterer his lust, nor anyone any other excuse. But here, by mentioning their hunger, he freed them from all blame.

But you, I beg you, admire the disciples: how completely they master themselves, how they take no account of the things of the body, but treat the table of the flesh as a secondary matter. Though they have to struggle with constant hunger, even so they do not withdraw. For unless hunger had pressed them hard, they would not have done even this much. What, then, do the Pharisees do? “When they saw it,” it says, “they said to him, ‘Look, your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath day.’”

Here, it is true, they speak without much heat (though heat would surely have been in keeping with them). They are not violently provoked; they simply find fault. But when he stretched out the withered hand and healed it, they were so enraged that they even plotted together to kill and destroy him. Where nothing great and noble is done, they stay calm; but where they see anyone made well, they grow savage and fret themselves, and no one is so unbearable as they are. Such enemies are they of people’s salvation.

How, then, does Jesus defend his disciples? “Have you not read,” he says, “what David did in the temple, when he was hungry, he and all who were with him? How he entered the house of God and ate the showbread, which it was not lawful for him to eat, nor for those who were with him, but only for the priests?” So, when he pleads for his disciples, he brings forward David; when he pleads for himself, it is the Father.

And notice the rebuke in the way he puts it: “Have you not read what David did?” For that prophet’s glory was great indeed — so great that Peter too, pleading with the Jews later on, spoke like this: “Let me speak freely to you about the patriarch David, that he both died and was buried.” But why does he not call David by his title, either here or later on? Perhaps because he himself was descended from him. Now if they had been fair-minded people, he would have turned what he said to the disciples’ suffering from hunger. But detestable and inhuman as they were, he recounts a piece of history to them instead.

But Mark says, “In the days of Abiathar the high priest.” He is not saying anything contrary to the history; he implies that the man had two names. And he adds that “he gave to him,” showing that in this too David had a strong defense, since the priest himself allowed him — and not only allowed him, but even served him. Do not tell me that David was a prophet. Even so it was not lawful; the privilege belonged to the priests. That is why he added, “but only for the priests.” Though he were a prophet ten thousand times over, still he was not a priest. And even if he himself was a prophet, those who were with him were not, and we know that he gave to them too.

“What, then? Were they all on a level with David?” Why talk to me of rank, where there appears to be a breaking of the law, even if it comes from the pressure of nature? In fact, in this way too he has cleared them of the charges all the more completely, since the greater man is found to have done the same thing.

“And what does this have to do with the question? It was not the Sabbath, surely, that he broke.” What you are pointing to is the greater thing, and the very thing that most shows Christ’s wisdom: he lets the Sabbath go and brings in another example, greater than the Sabbath. For it is not at all the same thing to break in on a day as to touch that holy table, which no one was allowed to touch. The Sabbath has been broken, and often — or rather, it is broken continually, both by circumcision and by many other works; and at Jericho too one can see the same thing happen. But this other thing happened only that once. So he more than wins the victory. How is it, then, that no one blamed David, though there was another charge still heavier than this one — the murder of the priests, which had its start in this? But he does not mention it, since he keeps himself to the subject at hand.

Next he refutes the charge in another way as well. At first he brought in David, using the greatness of the person to bring down their pride. Then, once he had stopped their mouths and put down their boasting, he adds the refutation that fits the case more closely. And what is it? [j]

“Do you not know that in the temple the priests profane the Sabbath and are blameless?” “In that other case,” he says, “the emergency loosened the law; but here it is loosened with no emergency at all.” Yet he did not refute them this way at once. He did it first by way of concession, and only afterward by pressing his argument home. For it was fitting to put the stronger proof last, though of course the first argument also had its own proper weight.

Do not tell me that pointing to someone else who commits the same sin does not clear a person of blame. When the one who does a thing incurs no blame, the act he dared to do becomes a precedent that others may plead.

Still he was not satisfied with this. He adds something more decisive, saying that the act is no sin at all. And this above all was the mark of a glorious victory: to show the law setting itself aside, and doing so in two ways — first by the place, then by the Sabbath. Or rather, in three ways: the work that is done is twofold, and along with it goes another point, that it is done by the priests; and, what is more, it is not even counted as a charge. “For they,” he says, “are blameless.” Do you see how many points he has set down? The place, for he says, “in the temple”; the persons, for they are “the priests”; the time, for he says, “the Sabbath”; the act itself, for “they profane” — he did not say “they break,” but the heavier word, “they profane”; and that they not only escape punishment but are free even from blame: “for they,” he says, “are blameless.”

“So do not count this like the earlier case,” he says. “That was done only once, and not by a priest, and out of necessity, which is why they deserved to be excused. But this is done every Sabbath, and by priests, and in the temple, and according to the law. So again it is not by favor but by law that they are cleared of the charges. When I spoke this way, I was not blaming them at all, nor was I letting them off out of indulgence; I spoke on the principle of justice.” He seems, indeed, to be defending the priests, but it is his disciples he is clearing of the faults charged against them. For when he says, “Those are blameless,” he means, “Much more are these.”

“But they are not priests.” No — they are greater than priests. For the Lord of the temple himself is here: the reality, not the type. That is why he also said, “But I tell you that in this place is one greater than the temple.” Yet great as the sayings they heard were, they made no reply, for people’s salvation was not what they were after.

Then, because this would seem harsh to his hearers, he quickly draws a veil over it and gives his words a gentle turn, as before — though even so he speaks with a rebuke: “But if you had known what this means, ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the blameless.” Do you see how he again bends his words toward gentleness, and yet shows them once more to be beyond the reach of gentleness? “You would not have condemned,” he says, “the blameless.” Earlier he drew the same conclusion from what is said about the priests, in the words “they are blameless.” Here he states it on his own authority — or rather, this too comes from the law, for he was quoting a saying of a prophet.

After this he gives yet another reason. “For the Son of Man,” he says, “is Lord of the Sabbath day,” speaking of himself. But Mark reports that he said this of our common human nature as well, for he said, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” [n]

Why, then, was the man who was gathering sticks punished? Because if the laws were to be despised right at the beginning, they would of course hardly be kept afterward.

For at the start the Sabbath did bring many great benefits. It made them gentle toward those of their household, and humane. It taught them God’s providence and his work of creation, as Ezekiel says. It trained them little by little to keep away from wickedness, and inclined them to pay attention to the things of the Spirit.

If, when he was giving the law of the Sabbath, he had said, “Do your good works on the Sabbath, but do not do the evil ones,” they could not have borne it. So he held them back from all works alike: “You must do nothing at all,” he says. And even so they were not kept in order. Yet in the very act of giving the law of the Sabbath he himself hinted darkly, even there, that he wanted them to refrain only from evil works, when he said, “You must do no work, except what is to be done for your life.” And in the temple, too, everything went on, and with more effort, and double labor. So even by the shadow itself he was quietly opening the truth to them.

“Did Christ, then, abolish a thing so very useful?” Far from it. On the contrary, he raised it far higher. For it was time for them to be trained in everything by the higher rules. There was no need to tie the hands of one who had been set free from wickedness and given wings for every good work. There was no need for people to learn from it that God made all things. There was no need for it to make them gentle, when they are called to imitate God’s own love for humankind — for he says, “Be merciful, as your heavenly Father is.” There was no need for them to make one day a festival, when they are commanded to keep a feast all their life long: “For let us keep the feast,” it says, “not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.” In the same way, those who have the Lord of all himself living within them, and share with him in everything — by prayer, by offering, by the Scriptures, by almsgiving, and by having him within them — have no need to stand beside an ark and a golden altar. Tell me, then: why would anyone need a Sabbath who is always keeping the feast, whose way of life is in heaven?

So let us keep the feast continually and do nothing evil, for this is a feast. Let our spiritual concerns grow intense while our earthly ones give way. Let us rest a spiritual rest, holding our hands back from greed, and withdrawing our bodies from our needless and profitless labors — the kind the Hebrew people once endured in Egypt. [s]

For there is no difference between us who are gathering gold and those who were bound to the mud, working at those bricks, gathering stubble, and being beaten. Yes, even now the devil orders us to make bricks, as Pharaoh did then. For what else is gold but mud? And what else is silver but stubble? Like stubble, at least, it kindles the flame of desire; and like mud, gold defiles the one who owns it. That is why he sent us, not Moses from the wilderness, but his Son from heaven. If, then, after he has come, you stay in Egypt, you will suffer with the Egyptians. But if you leave that land and go up with the spiritual Israel, you will see all the miracles.

Yet not even this is enough for salvation. We must not only be delivered out of Egypt; we must also enter into the promise. For the Jews too, as Paul says, went through the Red Sea, and ate manna, and drank spiritual drink, and yet they all perished.

So that the same thing does not happen to us, let us not be sluggish or draw back. When you hear wicked spies even now bringing up an evil report against the narrow and hard way, and talking just as those spies did long ago, let our pattern be, not the crowd, but Joshua, and Caleb the son of Jephunneh. And do not give up until you have reached the promise and entered into heaven.

And do not think the journey is difficult. “For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God, much more, now that we are reconciled, will we be saved.” “But this way is narrow and hard.” Yes, but the earlier way, the one you have already come through, was not only narrow and hard, but impassable, and full of savage wild beasts. And just as there was no getting through the Red Sea unless that miracle had been worked, so neither could we, staying in our former life, have gone up into heaven. It could happen only by baptism coming in between. Now if the impossible has become possible, much more will the difficult become easy.

“But that was by grace alone.” Why, that is the very reason you have good cause to take heart. If, where it was grace alone, he worked with you, will he not much more be your helper where you also show hard-working deeds? If he saved you when you were doing nothing, will he not much more help you when you are working?

I was saying earlier that from the impossible things you ought to take courage about the difficult ones too. But now I add this: if we are watchful, they will not even be difficult. For notice: death has been trampled underfoot, the devil has fallen, the law of sin has been put out, the grace of the Spirit has been given, life has been drawn in to a short span, and the heavy burdens have been cut short.

And to convince you of this by what has actually happened, see how many have gone beyond Christ’s commands. Are you afraid of what is simply their measure? What plea will you have, then, when others are leaping past the limits and you are too lazy even for what is laid down? You, for example, we urge to give alms from what you have; but another has stripped himself of all his possessions. You we require to live chastely with your wife; but another has not so much as entered into marriage. You we beg not to be envious; but we find another who gives up even his own life out of love. You, again, we beg to be lenient in your judgments and not harsh toward those who sin; but another, even when struck, has turned the other cheek as well.

What, then, will we say, I ask you? What excuse will we make when we do not do even these things, and others go so far beyond us? They would not have gone beyond us unless the thing were very easy. For which one wastes away: the man who envies other people’s blessings, or the man who shares their pleasure and rejoices with them? Which one looks at everything with suspicion and constant trembling: the chaste man or the adulterer? Which one is cheered by good hopes: the man who plunders by violence, or the man who shows mercy and shares what is his with the needy?

Let us, then, keep these things in mind, and not grow sluggish in our race for virtue. Having stripped ourselves with all readiness for these glorious wrestling matches, let us labor for a little while, so that we may win the everlasting crowns that never perish. May we all attain them, by the grace and love for humankind of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be glory and might forever and ever. Amen.