Worship Helps for Pentecost 2

The Disciples Eat Wheat on the Sabbath

Artist: James Tissot

Worship Theme: Sadly, in Jesus’ day religious Jewish men (Pharisees) managed to turn even God’s day of rest, Saturday, into a “work day.” Today too, made-up rules and distractions keep Christians from their proper focus. God’s main message to us sinners is not about us or rituals to which we must conform, it is about Christ himself. Relying on what Christ did in our place instead of our own good works empowers our service to God.

Old Testament: 1 Samuel 21:1-6  

David came to Ahimelek the priest at Nob. When he came to meet David, Ahimelek was trembling with fear, and he said to David, “Why are you alone? Why isn’t there anyone with you?”

²David said to Ahimelek the priest, “The king sent me on a mission and told me, ‘Don’t let anyone know anything about where I am sending you or about your orders.’ I have instructed the young men to wait for me at a certain place. ³So what do you have on hand? Please give me five loaves of bread, or whatever is available.”

⁴The priest answered David, “I do not have any ordinary bread, but there is holy bread—I can give it to you only if your young men have kept themselves away from women.”

⁵David answered the priest, “Yes indeed, women have been kept away from us just as they have been on previous occasions. Whenever I go out on a mission, the bodies of the young men are kept holy even if it is only an ordinary journey. How much more then shall their bodies be holy today?”

⁶So the priest gave him holy bread, because there was no bread there except for the Bread of the Presence which had been removed from the presence of the Lord and replaced with hot bread.

1. What did Ahimelech the priest give David when he and his band of warriors were on the run?

2. Why, probably, did Ahimelech do this?

Epistle: Colossians 2:13–17  

¹³Even when you were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ by forgiving us all our trespasses. ¹⁴God erased the record of our debt brought against us by his legal demands. This record stood against us, but he took it away by nailing it to the cross. ¹⁵After disarming the rulers and authorities, he made a public display of them by triumphing over them in Christ.

¹⁶Therefore, do not let anyone judge you in regard to food or drink, or in regard to a festival or a New Moon or a Sabbath day. ¹⁷These are a shadow of the things that were coming, but the body belongs to Christ.

3. Since by his death in our place Jesus erased all the debts we owed God and disarmed all demonic powers and authorities, what should we not let anyone do?

4. All of God’s Old Testament laws about Jewish worship, purity, and the like were only shadows of the things that were to come. Where is the reality found?

Gospel: Mark 2:23–28  

²³Once on a Sabbath day, Jesus was passing through the grain fields, and his disciples began to pick heads of grain as they walked along. ²⁴The Pharisees said to him, “Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath day?”

²⁵He replied to them, “Have you never read what David did when he was in need and hungry (he and his companions)? ²⁶He entered the house of God in the time of Abiathar the high priest and ate the Bread of the Presence, which is not lawful for anyone to eat, except for the priests. He also gave some to his companions.”

²⁷Then Jesus said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. ²⁸So the Son of Man is the Lord even of the Sabbath.”

5. What activity of the disciples were the Pharisees condemning?

6. How did Jesus respond to the Pharisees?

Answers:

1. Ahimelech made an exception to the normal way things would have worked. He gave David and his men five loaves of consecrated bread – bread that had been set aside for special use in worshipping the Lord.

2. Ahimelech made an exception because without the bread David and his men might have starved to death. Emergencies may call for special measures.

3. We should not let anyone judge us by what we eat or drink or by when we worship. Saturdays are not better than Sundays. Sundays are not the day God commanded us to set aside for him. Old Testament ceremonial laws no longer bind us.

4. The reality is found in Christ. For instance; from Moses to Christ, Jewish people had to rest every Saturday. That was a shadow of the real rest for our souls Christ gives us.

5. The Pharisees condemned Jesus’ disciples grabbing grain and eating it on Saturday, the Sabbath (day of rest). With the picky rules those men had added to the Old Testament, they turned such harvesting-by-hand into a violation of God’s order to rest.

6. Jesus responded with the story of David and Ahimelech, re-explaining what the Sabbath was all about and saying that he himself was Lord of the Sabbath (a shocking statement). With the illustration of David, Jesus showed that human need overrides religious ritualism. The Sabbath law was not made to enslave man, but to give rest – physical and spiritually. Jesus’ forgiveness for sinners was the spiritual rest that the Old Testament Sabbath had foreshadowed.

A reading from the Book of Concord for Pentecost 2

John 8:36 says, “If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.”  Therefore, by reason we cannot be freed from sins and merit forgiveness of sins.  In John 3:5, it is written, “Unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.”  But if it is necessary to be born again of the Holy Spirit, the righteousness of reason does not justify us before God and does not fulfill the Law.  Romans 3:23 says “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”  They totally lack the wisdom and righteousness of God, which acknowledges and glorifies God.

Romans 8:7–8 says, “The mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot.  Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.”   These testimonies are so clear that, they do not need a keen understanding, but only an attentive hearer.  If the carnal mind is hostile against God, the flesh certainly does not love God.  If it cannot be subject to God’s Law, it cannot love God.  If the carnal mind is hostile against God, the flesh sins, even when we do outward civil works.  If it cannot be subject to God’s Law, it certainly sins even when it has deeds that are excellent and praiseworthy according to human judgment...  But the human heart without the Holy Spirit either feels secure and despises God’s judgment, or in punishment flees from God and hates Him when He judges. – Apology of the Augsburg Confession, Article IV, Justification, paragraphs 31-34