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i’m about to show my age. i remember when i was a kid, the only establishments open for business on Sunday were restaurants and emergency services. The opening of the restaurants must have come about because everyone knows that good food—particularly the gospel bird—is essential for good fellowship and rest on the Lord’s Day. My family tells me that when i was a child, i would often say “Chicken on Sunday is what keeps you flying all week!” i’m not quite sure where that came from, but it gave a little boy a lot of laughs. I’m also not totally sure how it was that restaurants were the permissible business to be open, but someone somewhere had made that “pronouncement” and given them “special dispensation.” Chick-fil-A didn’t yet exist back then!

i can remember going to the cafeteria located at our local indoor shopping mall, and it was the only storefront open. People would walk around the mall’s interior after their Sunday dinner, looking in the windows of the seventy-plus closed storefronts. Sunday didn’t look like any other day of the week. It was set aside for going to church, staying at home, being with family, and resting. Those Sundays are fond memories of simpler days. Interestingly, that Sabbath rest was not just enjoyed by churchgoers; it was enjoyed by everyone across our nation. It was a weekly Sabbath for everyone (except for those who worked in the restaurants and emergency services). It was a “national” observance of a weekly Sabbath that thousands of years prior, God had given to one nation—the nation of Israel.

God gave the Sabbath to the people of Israel right after they came out of their bondage in Egypt.(1) The Sabbath was a gift from God, intended for the blessing of His people. It was given as an expression of freedom. But over time, religious leaders had turned this blessing from God into a crushing burden by heaping on traditions and restrictions that equated to nothing more than religious bondage. A day intended for rest and worship had become a day of confinement and duty. The religious leaders of the day had long since turned from leading the people to worship the Lord of the Sabbath, and had become the “Sabbath enforcers”—determining what could and could not be done on that day—and making sure that everyone abided by their mandates. It had changed from being a day of rest into a day filled with rules. In many respects, the Sabbath was no longer about worshiping the Father; rather, it was more about the religious leaders and obeying their rules.

On one particular day, as Jesus and His disciples were walking through a grainfield, the religious leaders accused Jesus and His disciples of an act of “Sabbath defiance.”(2) You may recall another kerfuffle Jesus stirred up by healing a crippled man at the Pool of Bethesda on the Sabbath.(3) Now, as they walked through the grainfield, His disciples were “wantonly disregarding the rules” by plucking off the heads of grain, rubbing them between their hands, and eating the grain.

Thus we see the clash—one that continues today—between the religious traditions of men and an authentic relationship with a Holy God. God is surely more concerned with bringing glory to His Name than He is with protecting religious tradition. The religious leaders had their priorities confused. So Jesus told them to get their priorities right: “The Sabbath was made to meet the needs of people, and not people to meet the requirements of the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is Lord, even over the Sabbath!”(4)

Was Jesus saying disregard the Sabbath? Of course not! He told them that He is Lord, even over the Sabbath. The Sabbath was created for the rest of man and the worship of God, not for the worship of Sabbath. Jesus was admonishing them to strip away everything they had added to the Word of God in their practices and expressions of worship—including the oppressive rules they had added to Sabbath!

However, the Pharisees are not the only ones who have developed traditions and placed them above the Word of God, whether it is about Sabbath, worship, or our day-to-day walk with the Master. We, too, have created our traditions and given them an exalted place in what it means to worship and be a follower of Christ. You see, those traditions demonstrated across our churches, such as what style of clothing is acceptable to wear when we gather to worship, what style of music is acceptable to sing in worship, how and how often we observe the Lord’s Supper, and on and on. And that’s just the beginning. On top of that, we have added programs and events and practices that have become such a part of our lives that we would consider it heresy to strip them away. And that’s not just true of long-standing traditional churches; it’s also true of more recently planted churches that have also developed newly formed traditions and practices that are dangerously close to eclipsing the very gospel itself.

As missionaries prepare to be sent overseas as church planters, an important part of their training is to help them strip away from their idea of “church” every element that we in the West have added—from the place that we worship, to the way it is appointed, to the order and style of our worship, and so on. We need to be careful that we don’t add anything that would prevent people from “plucking” the grain of the gospel and feeding on His Word, and worshiping our Lord authentically with their whole heart, soul and mind.

We must turn our walk from being about what we are against to Who we are for—from being about a list of do’s and don’ts, to being followers of Jesus and lovers of our neighbors.

As you walk with the Master today, be sure to pluck some grain off the stalks if you’re hungry—physically, emotionally, or spiritually. Also, make sure you don’t set any rules or elevate any traditions that keep others who are hungering or thirsting for our Father from doing the same.

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You can read about the accusation of the Pharisees in the second chapter of the Gospel of Mark.

This post is taken from chapter 21 of my book, Walking With The Master. For more information about the book, click here.

(1)  Exodus 16:29-30

(2)  Excerpt from Mark 2:23-28 (NLT))

One Sabbath day as Jesus was walking through some grainfields, His disciples began

breaking off heads of grain to eat. But the Pharisees said to Jesus,

“Look, why are they breaking the law by harvesting grain on the Sabbath?”

…Then Jesus said to them, “The Sabbath was made to meet the needs of people, and not people to meet the requirements of the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is Lord, even over the Sabbath!”

(3)  John 5:1-10

(4)  Mark 2:27-28 (NLT)

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