Scripture for Your Inner Outcasts

Transcript

Speaker 1: Have you not read what David did when he and his companions were hungry? How he went into the house of God, and ate the bread of offering, which neither he nor his companions, but only the priests could lawfully eat.

Speaker 2: Welcome back to Scripture for your inner outcasts. It's July 17th, 2026, Friday of the 15th week in Ordinary Time. Today's presenter is Casey Kimble, a PhD candidate in historical theology at Boston College.

Speaker 1: Greetings, podcast listeners, I'm Casey, and it's great to be reflecting on the mass readings with you today. In the gospel reading from Matthew 12. We find Jesus going head to head with the Pharisees over the Sabbath in verses one and two. We hear Jesus was going through a field of grain on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry and began to pick the heads of grain and eat them. When the Pharisees saw this, they said to him, see, your disciples are doing what is unlawful to do on the Sabbath. Coming to their defense in the next two verses, Jesus says, have you not read what David did when he and his companions were hungry? How he went into the house of God and ate the bread of offering, which neither he nor his companions, but only the priests could lawfully eat. What the disciples and King David have in common in these two stories is simple. They were hungry. In fact, they seemed to be in extremis. I mean, seriously, who would eat raw wheat plucked from the stalk unless they were really, really hungry and there was no sign of a meal in the near future? What might have been unlawful in another situation, working on the Sabbath or eating the bread of offering is not unlawful because the people who did these things were hungry. As Jesus says in verse seven, the disciples are innocent men, and in standing up for them against the accusations of the Pharisees. Jesus indicates how realistic he is about their basic human needs, which he shares, and how important it is to him that those basic needs are met. So to all you exiled parts out there, Jesus knows that you are a creature who needs food to survive. He made you that way, and he does not condemn you for meeting that very real need. While others may say your hunger is not okay, or you're too needy, or you don't deserve to have that need met, he says, go ahead and eat, little one. I know you're hungry.

Speaker 2: To find similar content, check out Souls and hearts.com/content.

Speaker 1: Let's end with our invocations. Our Lady, our mother. I'm tired of knots. Pray for us. Saint Joseph. Pray for us. Saint John the Baptist pray for us.