Jesus as always is the protector of the poor. He sees the greatness and beauty that lie beneath their rough externals and defends them passionately against their oppressors. He is harsh with the scribes and Pharisees, but his harshness (as God’s harshness in the Bible) is because of his concern for the poor.
The “Pharisees and scribes” observe and teach the rules of respectability but they are judgmental of those who do not conform; they do not take time to understand them and in the process they are blind to the fact that they go against basic virtues such as humanity and compassion.
The movement of the story shows the process by which the Church, and every human community dedicated to noble ideals,
gradually becomes set in its ways and ends up accepting the false values of the surrounding culture. The Bible always gives a simple criterion for recognising when this happens – the poor and the marginalized in a country end up being poor and marginalised in the Christian community as well.