Luke 14:1-6
On one occasion when Jesus was going to the house of a leader of the Pharisees to eat a meal on the Sabbath, they were watching him closely. Just then, in front of him, there was a man who had dropsy. And Jesus asked the lawyers and Pharisees, “Is it lawful to cure people on the Sabbath, or not?” But they were silent. So Jesus took him and healed him, and sent him away. Then he said to them, “If one of you has a child or an ox that has fallen into a well, will you not immediately pull it out on a Sabbath day?” And they could not reply to this.
We’ve covered this ground before: the law was given by God to provide a level of order to our lives so that we might help each other get the very most from life. But sometimes we value the means – the order the law provides – over its intended end – a richer life shared together. And so Jesus heals a man on the Sabbath even though one is technically not to do work on the Sabbath to demonstrate that God’s desired outcome (health and healing) is more important than the means to that outcome (the law).
This all seems simple enough, and yet Jesus keeps repeating this same message in a variety of settings. Why?
Perhaps because we keep falling back on the thing that provides order – the law – rather than embrace the unpredictable and chaotic people the law was meant to serve. Obeying the letter of the law, finally, is easier than welcoming all manner of people, following the rules is cleaner than improvising for the sake of love, and judging others for their failures more rewarding then forgiving them and receiving in return their forgiveness when we fall short.
And so we forget just how much God loves all people and fall into preferring the law for what it does for us rather than how it helps us provide for our neighbor. And so Jesus keeps teaching, then, now, all the way to Jerusalem, the cross, and beyond. Thanks be to God.
Prayer: Dear God, remind us again and again that you love us and all people. Period. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Thank you, David. Life is not black and white, as rules and laws tend to be. Life does not follow either/or prescriptions. I have often said that life is full of gray areas and we will find God, and by extension love, grace, and mercy, in the gray areas.