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Morning Meditation
October 22, 2025
Reading: Matthew 12:1-8
At that time Jesus went through the cornfields on the sabbath; his disciples were hungry, and they began to pluck heads of grain and to eat. When the Pharisees saw it, they said to him, ‘Look, your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the sabbath.’ He said to them, ‘Have you not read what David did when he and his companions were hungry? He entered the house of God and ate the bread of the Presence, which it was not lawful for him or his companions to eat, but only for the priests. Or have you not read in the law that on the sabbath the priests in the temple break the sabbath and yet are guiltless? I tell you, something greater than the temple is here. But if you had known what this means, “I desire mercy and not sacrifice”, you would not have condemned the guiltless. For the Son of Man is lord of the sabbath.’
He left that place and entered their synagogue; a man was there with a withered hand, and they asked him, ‘Is it lawful to cure on the sabbath?’ so that they might accuse him. He said to them, ‘Suppose one of you has only one sheep and it falls into a pit on the sabbath; will you not lay hold of it and lift it out? How much more valuable is a human being than a sheep! So it is lawful to do good on the sabbath.’ Then he said to the man, ‘Stretch out your hand.’ He stretched it out, and it was restored, as sound as the other. But the Pharisees went out and conspired against him, how to destroy him.
Meditation-Rebecca Northington
In the last couple of weeks in RYG Bible Breakfast we have been talking about Paul’s letter to the Romans. It has been fascinating to walk through this text with teenagers and leaders in their twenties. Each week we tend to wrestle with the tension between ‘works righteousness’ versus ‘righteousness by faith,’ and the argument we believe Paul is making for faith in Christ as the necessary activity to allow us to be justified, or declared just in God’s sight, with the understanding that none of us are without sin.
One of the leaders last week asked, "If it is not the works that will grant us righteousness, what then is our motivation to do good? If it is not about following the law, and we don’t talk about the threat of hell, why be good at all?” It is a fair question and one that I touched on in my last meditation. Dostoyevsky’s Grand Inquisitor gives his answer to this question when he throws Jesus in jail and condemns him to death. In summary the Grand Inquisitor says humans must believe it is all about following the law, doing the work to get into heaven/to receive God’s righteousness/the fulfillment of God’s promise. The Grand Inquisitor believes humans are too weak and greedy to use their free will towards God’s purpose, and that they need human laws to keep them in line. But is this what Jesus is telling us?
In this passage from Matthew, I believe Jesus is saying just the opposite. Jesus is calling for “mercy and not sacrifice,” inner compassion over outward religious performance. Jesus is reminding the Pharisees that treating others with love and empathy is more important than the law, and this expression of love is what God hopes all of us experience from him, and what we should offer one another - separate from any laws that man has written down. {Yes, laws offer direct guidance. Understanding God’s hope for us is certainly more challenging, but also more rewarding}
My response to the RYG leader last week was to ask the group to consider how we are affected when we choose love: how does it make you feel to do good for others, to forgive, to share, to help, to love? I believe when we orient our hearts and souls to the good of God and one another we are also healed. A relationship with God should be defined by love and mercy, not by fear and punishment. Is this easy? No. Is it black and white, with specific directives? No. Our relationship with God demands deeper thought, deeper consideration and discernment; we must invite God into every decision, with thoughtfulness and love.
Fundamentalist Christians coming out of “deconstruction” speak about the dangers of a very rigid, law-based understanding of Christianity. Some are going into politics to combat what they see as the dangers of Christian Nationalism. Some are on podcasts and have YouTube channels, while others are developing retreats to offer mercy to those on the ladder climbing up behind them. Monte Mader is one of the more articulate speakers emerging from this movement, and speaks eloquently of Scripture and the dangers of misusing it. She was raised to be a “soldier to God,” and taught that her worth was in her submission and obedience. When she was 22 her fiancé’s sister showed up pregnant at age 12. It was her fiancé’s mother’s boyfriend who had been abusing the child since she was 9. The community circled the wagons and Monte was assigned the task of taking the child to pregnancy classes. It was at this moment, surrounded by teenage pregnant girls, that Monte began to challenge everything she had been taught. She began to challenge man’s law, and turned instead to the hope of God’s righteousness. She turned to Scripture with a fresh lens, and to the facts with an emboldened sense of purpose She chose mercy over ritual sacrifice, love over the law she had been taught.
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