NOTES for Luk 6:9
Disputes about the Sabbath are almost the sharpest of the disagreements between the Lord Jesus Christ and the Pharisees and teachers of the law, and this is not accidental. The issue is not obvious things, but what it means to obey God's commandment. In any religious community the commandments tend to turn into certain ritual regulations whose fulfillment is valuable in itself. Besides, such an approach to the commandment requires casuistry: exactly how to fulfill it, what is allowed in doing so, and what is not. This is what happened with the commandment about the Sabbath: there was an oral tradition spelling out all the fine points of observing the sacred day. Jesus clearly does not fit within these limits. He directly asks the teachers of the law what God's commandment exists for: to do good, or the opposite? For Him, apparently, the answer "to do nothing" is unacceptable. Incidentally, many believers even now formulate the goal of their life this way: "not to do anything bad." But if we suddenly realize that the commandment is given for good, then perhaps we will have to do this good on the Sabbath, on Sunday, and on other days as well...