Friday, July 17th, 2020

So often we are quick to judge and put others in boxes - especially if we do not know them well, and particularly if we don’t really like them.  This is what the pharisees do today: “His disciples were hungry and began to pick ears of corn and eat them. The Pharisees noticed it and said to him, ‘Look, your disciples are doing something that is forbidden on the sabbath.’”  The first problem with the pharisees is their fundamental attitude of heart: their whole purpose in this interaction is to trap Jesus, send him to court, and kill him.  Whether the disciples are hungry or not, or whether Jesus and the disciples are allowed to wander through the fields on the sabbath appreciating, even tasting, the beauty of creation, is totally irrelevant to them.  So they miss the whole point of the law - and they miss the beauty of what is happening too.  Such a tiny narrow view of their brothers.  Let’s take opportunity to slow down before opening our mouth to have a go at someone today, and consider and appreciate their good, and what they are living, first.