Riffin' On Matthew 12 (Catechisms eroding within Environments)

Doug Leamy
Apr 15, 2023
6 min read

12 At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry and began to pick some heads of grain and eat them.2 When the Pharisees saw this, they said to him, “Look! Your disciples are doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath.”

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.5 Or haven’t you read in the Law that the priests on Sabbath duty in the temple desecrate the Sabbath and yet are innocent? 6 I tell you that something greater than the temple is here. 7 If you had known what these words mean, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice,’[a] you would not have condemned the innocent.8 For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.”

9 Going on from that place, he went into their synagogue, 10 and a man with a shriveled hand was there. Looking for a reason to bring charges against Jesus, they asked him, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?”

11 He said to them, “If any of you has a sheep and it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will you not take hold of it and lift it out? 12 How much more valuable is a person than a sheep! Therefore it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.”

13 Then he said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” So he stretched it out and it was completely restored, just as sound as the other. 14 But the Pharisees went out and plotted how they might kill Jesus. - Matthew 12

We’ve heard it spoken in many iterations- judgement, and the passing of, is solely in the wheelhouse of the Impeccable/Divine. Afterall, “sin”/ignorant action only occurs after a sort of judgement has taken place within individuals regarding the context at hand, and a rather wompy “judgement” or “mis-reading” of the context at hand (which, the context at hand, at the subatomic level, is merely God-infinite, something that can be represented within phenomena but is ultimately beyond phenomena) at that. It’s when individuals are in accord with nature, a vesicle for universal sensibility, for spirit, that they are making effective use of their capacity to judge, and for all intensive purposes, its their unconscious brain doing the actual leg work, and they are merely creating a resonance within their psyche using any of a various number of techniques.

We create social doctrines…rules and norms and the such…as acts of necessary discipline. Many think that we do it to survive…there have always been great leaders in society, some slyly quiet on the topic of God, some boasting outright occasions in which they visited with Him, who know why we actually do as much is sublime joy, so that the template for civilization/the social collective itself could be seen as a reflection of the heart of God/Jesus/You, incarnate. After all, in some non-comprehensive views of the universe, we may muse that, theoretically, it could’ve been different…that social dynamics didn’t need to be in utter service to what is best for us as creatures/the greater good…social dynamics could’ve been rigged up to lift up the evil/greedy and put down the just. Social dynamics must work for God.

Maybe God is the social dynamics. We, in our meat hunks that we call bodies, are like instruments in the pit, and he’s fiddling on all of us respectively.

We create social rules and norms to ensure that citizens eventually spiritually actualize. Along the way though this downslides to a secular, survival based framework…we have these things in place to ensure the continued successful survival of the human species, in the face of a cold and aloof natural kingdom that is adamant on consuming us.

And before too long…those of our own violating these codes…are seen as real threats to the collective in a way that most staunch Transcendentalists would have to insist is just the savagery of ignorance/a lack of proper spiritual maturity. I don’t mean to say you don’t create law and order but… we’ve made a spectacle of putting criminals and criminality on pedestals, drawing mythic takeaways that the facts of any particular case don’t substantiate.

“Well I woke up this morning and got myself a beer. The future’s uncertain and the end is always near.”

And before too long after this, you have men being ludicrous enough to yell at hungry travelers from outside the area for consuming bread “that isn’t theirs” when no one had offered them bread.

Which is a sin. You are to feed the hungry. Property…needs to exist. These people are supposed to realize that the property laws are about their collective, and that when its about fellow humans who are travelling with great and noble purpose… you are expected to surrender your property in that instance. They aren’t seeing property and wealth in terms of the larger scheme of God, and are only seeing it through the local lens of their nation state/habitual lives. You need to do both.

It gets complicated, but in a refreshing way. However, if that isn’t your jam, the simple paradigm of “I desire mercy, not sacrifice” helps clear up the muddled in what is admittedly a confusing situation. That sacrificial bread on the altar is for the hungry.

There are many readings to this one. Some could argue that if this religious collective wasn’t loving unconditionally…say for example these particular worshippers were saying that homosexuality was a sin…they totally deserve to have their sacrifice stolen. That is no sacrifice. You’re putting lipstick on a pig.

Might as well feed some hungry people. Still doesn’t fix that underlying issue of you guys not loving unconditionally… it implies you guys are really missing out. No matter what you think, the universe is going to dog you until you step out of your delusional patterns of worship.

There’s also a beautiful proximity in today’s passage between sacrifices at the altar…and the feeding of the hungry/healing of the ill. The real subtext is that even if those arranging the sacrifices have silly customs, or evil aspects to their being even that God the Father is actively eroding…their work is still absolutely in service. There’s just a touch of sarcasm in regards to how they are treated, and that’s just part of the “being enlightened” by God thing.

We also see a speedtrap in today’s passage. They gather near a group of people that need to be healed on a day in which healing is forbidden, so that they can catch Jesus healing a man, and begin a process of attempting to prosecute him for doing as much.

All laws concerning the Sabbath are a means to an end; they’re established to put us in deference respectfully to the Heart of God, so that the crops keeping coming in, and so that healings/wellbeing stays a likely option… you can’t really prosecute somebody for embodying that very End that the laws of the Sabbath were established to help us embody.

And yet that’s precisely what the laws of the Sabbath were used to do by the Pharisees in this passage. Everything is infinite when we consider context…the laws of the Sabbath are meant to be inextricable from the Spirit of the Good, and yet in a schemer’s hands they are a battle ax.

Which has historically been a huge issue. Religion has been used. Jesus and the narrative on him have undeniably been used by grifters in high positions in established nation states even. But before it begins to seem hopelessly complicated, I’d argue that instead it’s hopelessly simple. “I desire mercy”

Definitely “not sacrifice”. You won’t give one thing to get another. This isn’t a grim victory. It’ll be awesome, awe-inspiring, cascading rays of sunshine…

“It is lawful to do good”, on any day, at any moment, anywhere on Earth. Just listen to the elephant in the room, knowing the opulence of the Infinite.

“13 Then he said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” So he stretched it out and it was completely restored, just as sound as the other.”

As above, now, through ministry, so below. “Just as sound as the other”.

In fact, let that be the mantra going forward. You are just as sound, as the “other” in your life.