"It happened that JESUS walked through the wheat fields on a Sabbath. HIS disciples were hungry and began to pick some heads of wheat and crush them to eat the grain. When the Pharisees noticed this, they said to JESUS, 'Look at YOUR disciples; they are doing what is prohibited on the Sabbath!'
JESUS answered, 'Have you not read what David did when he and his men were hungry? He went into the house of GOD, and they ate the bread offered to GOD, although neither he nor his men had the right to eat it, but only the priests. And have you not read in the Law that on the Sabbath the priests in the Temple break the Sabbath rest, yet they are not guilty?
I tell you, there is greater than the Temple here. If you really knew the meaning of the words: It is mercy I want, not sacrifice, you would not have condemned the innocent.
Besides the Son of Man is LORD of the Sabbath'." - Matthew 12:1-8
(This chapter records the conflicts of JESUS with the Pharisees regarding the Sabbath. Why does the Gospel make so much of these conflicts? Perhaps because at the time of JESUS the heavy load of religious obligations was a formidable obstacle for those searching for GOD. It may have been also because the Christians lost no time making new laws to which they gave an exaggerated importance. If JESUS deliberately violated the most sacred of the laws given by GOD to Moses, what about our ecclesiastical laws not guaranteed by the Word of GOD? In the name of man-made laws, adapted to a context that is not ours, Christian communities have at times been paralyzed and we let millions of people look for churches where they have the communities and pastors they have been deprived of.)
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