Ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time - Cycle B

Deut 5:12-15
2 Cor 4:6-11
Mark 2:23 - 3:6 or 2:23-28

The preserving of life is more important than the law. This simple truth is obvious in countless ways in our daily lives and in our public policy. "No trespassing" signs are meant to preserve certain values of privacy and property, but life is a value that towers above all, and therefore one can violate a "no trespassing" sign in order to save a life, and that would be no violation at all. So even in terms of the sacred law of the Sabbath, Jesus says that the preserving of life is more important.
Jesus said the Sabbath is made for man, not man for the Sabbath. That is because all the law is made for the good of human beings. It all points to Christ, and in Christ, human life is taken to the throne of God. All of salvation history is for the fulfillment of this plan of the exaltation of the human person in God. That is why we are pro-life, and that is why the work of preserving and celebrating human life is more important than any other.
The principle of the primacy of the human person in relation to the Sabbath applies to all other institutions as well. The State is made for human beings, not human beings for the state. The Courts are made for human beings, not human beings for the courts. The medical profession is made for human beings, not human beings for the medical profession, and so on. When this principle is obscured or contradicted, we end up with abortion, and similar forms of slavery and exploitation.