Why are they doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath? In these early chapters of Mark, it seems Jesus and the religious leaders cannot help getting into a confrontation. Anything that Jesus does provokes the religious sensitivity of the religious leaders. In the account we read today, the disagreement revolves around the Sabbath (what can be done or not done on the Sabbath). Jesus and his disciples were either going to, or coming from a place of worship (it was on a Sabbath). And as they made their way through a field of corn, the disciples started to pick the heads of grain (whether they were hungry and intended to eat the grain, or whether they were simply gleaning and bring the grain home, we are not told). To the religious leaders, what the disciples were doing violated the sacredness of the holy Sabbath since they were doing something that was unlawful. It was an assertion with which Jesus did not agree. To him, what the disciples did was in no way a violation of the Sabbath.
In the Genesis account of creation, God establishes the Sabbath rest as a celebration of the work of creation (cf. Gen 2:2ff). God declares the Sabbath holy and forbids any kind of laborious activity on that day (cf. Exodus 20:8-11). While there can be a debate as to what pertains to a laborious activity (and hence what can be permitted on a Sabbath), the one thing that is undebatable is that God established the Sabbath as a celebration of life. God delighted in all that God had created because it was all good (cf. Gen1: 31a). It would be too literal to attribute the Sabbath to God wanting to rest because God was tired. It would also be absurd to attribute the Sabbath to God celebrating the end of creation, for we all know that God continues to create even today.
The Sabbath rest is a celebration of life. It is a time God expects us to sit back and join God in celebrating the beauty of creation even as we become co-creators with God. Anything, therefore, that goes against celebrating life becomes a violation of the Sabbath. Anything that would, in any way, destroy or promote the destruction of life, is unlawful on the Sabbath. Were the disciples of Jesus violating the Sabbath? Were they engaging in an activity that destroyed or promoted the destruction of life? I don’t think so. If they were picking the heads of grain because they were hungry, this does not constitute a violation of the Sabbath. They were fighting hunger, a situation which in itself is a threat to life. If they were gleaning the ears of grain in order to bring home with them, they were not engaging in any unlawful activity. On the contrary, they wanted to preserve life.
Jesus disagreed with the religious leaders because of their failure to understand the essence of the law. The religious leaders sought to strictly enforce the law without any regard for the very persons whose good the law was to serve. Jesus disagreed with them because in an attempt to enforce a strict observance of the law, they turned the very laws into life-choking mechanisms.