Then he said to them, "The sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the sabbath; so the Son of Man is lord even of the sabbath."

˜ Mark 2:27

In religious life, we have a saying: "Charity overrules the Rule." It means that sometimes we have to break our own strict Rule and Customary to follow the primary commandment of God to love our neighbor. If a visitor rings the doorbell when we're in chapel, I can go down to greet that person. If I am visiting someone in the hospital or comforting someone in grief, I am automatically excused from chapel. I am a rule follower, but it's nice to know that rules can be broken in the name of charity, our greatest grace.

In the Gospel text for today, the Pharisees disapprove of Jesus and his disciples for picking heads of grain on the sabbath, and in another incident, they watch him to see if he would heal a man on the sabbath. The Pharisees are committed to upholding the Law so that the Jewish people will be in a right relationship with God, who has commanded his chosen people to rest on the sabbath and refrain from doing any work.

Jesus, however, does not see feeding his disciples or healing a man as work. He sees these things as acts of mercy. He also becomes angry in the synagogue and asks, "Is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the sabbath, to save life or to kill?" (Mark 3:4). The Pharisees remain silent. In the grain fields, he tells them that the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath, which in modern parlance basically means "Hey, I'm God, so I made that rule. I know exactly how to interpret it, and you don't."

These incidents also point to a much broader meaning beyond these confrontations. Jesus flips the script, emphasizing the inner motivations of the heart over an outward adherence to the Law.

Reflect: What type of things get in the way of truly loving your neighbor?

This Lenten Meditation can be found at Episcopal Relief and Development