***
Gospel: Mark 2: 23-28
As Jesus was passing through a field of grain on the sabbath,
his disciples began to make a path while picking the heads of grain.
At this the Pharisees said to him,
“Look, why are they doing what is unlawful on the sabbath?”
He said to them,
“Have you never read what David did
when he was in need and he and his companions were hungry?
How he went into the house of God when Abiathar was high priest
and ate the bread of offering that only the priests could lawfully eat,
and shared it with his companions?”
Then he said to them,
“The sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath.
That is why the Son of Man is lord even of the sabbath.”
The Gospel of the Lord.
***
***
There’s only one group of people whom Jesus cannot stomach:
It isn’t sinners, tax collectors, or prostitutes. He forgave them all.
The only ones Jesus condemns are the religious authorities of his day. Specifically, those who were hard of heart. He calls them everything from hypocrites to “whitewashed tombs,” clean on the outside but filthy within.
They were obsessed with rules, convinced that if they followed all 613 commandments (many of which they made themselves), then they would be pleasing to God.
But what good is it to avoid eating grain on the Sabbath, as we hear in today’s Gospel, if you hate your neighbor and avoid charity?
***
Like the Jews in Jesus’ day, Catholics also follow a series of rules.
We attend Mass on Sundays. We say our prayers. We avoid eating meat on Fridays during Lent.
But if we avoid being charitable – or if we hate our neighbors, including people who are different from us or who disagree with us – then following these rules means little.
***
This is true religion: loving God by serving your neighbor.
As Saint John tells us, “Whoever does not love a brother or sister whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.”
Think of a neighbor. And find a way to love them.
That will be pleasing to God.
***
