St. Ignatius of Loyola sometimes portrayed Jesus’ ministry and the work of the Church as a battle or a military campaign. Two famous meditations from his Spiritual Exercises highlight this. The first, the Call of the King, involves meditating on Jesus as a great king who is setting off to do his work of salvation and bringing with him anyone who would like to join. The second, the Two Standards, involves meditating on two battle strategies: that of Jesus and that of the enemy. Through making these meditations, St. Ignatius hopes the retreatant will grow in a desire to give his life to serve the Lord and his plan of salvation.
Perhaps Jesus saw it this way too. His reference in today’s Gospel to David and his companions eating the bread of offering in the house of God is a wartime reference. David and his companions were able to eat the bread only because they were in the middle of a war, which required them to maintain ritual cleanness. Jesus’ disciples were also clean, innocent of the accusation of breaking the sabbath because they were focused solely on following the Lord. The Pharisees, however, were themselves unclean, for they had forgotten the point of the sabbath.
The classic image of the soldier or the knight, the one who is uniquely focused on the task at hand and willing to pursue it at all costs, is a helpful image for what the Lord wants in his disciples. Let’s strive for that ideal, letting all other things in our lives serve the Lord.