As the briefest, tersest version of the Good News, Mark's gospel tends to condense and compress events that the other gospel writers leisurely scatter throughout their books. In Mark, therefore, we end up with units of his gospel known as the journey motif, the miracles section or the confrontation unit. Today's text is taken from the midst of Mark's so-called confrontation section (Mark 2:1-3:6), including two distinct scenes. In both examples the common topic is Sabbath observance.

In the first pericope, a confrontation arises when the disciples are observed on a Sabbath "plucking heads of grain" from the field they are walking through. The Pharisees take issue with this practice, seeing it as an infringement on the prohibition against working (reaping) on the Sabbath. Strict Sabbath obs…