Scripture: Luke 14:1-3
One Sabbath, when Jesus went to share a meal in the home of one of the leaders of the Pharisees, they were watching him closely. A man suffering from an abnormal swelling of the body was there. Jesus asked the lawyers and Pharisees, “Does the Law allow healing on the Sabbath or not?”
Thought for the Day: Did anyone else have a mother or grandmother who said something like, “Just because it is legal doesn’t mean it is right.” In a country where I want to celebrate free speech, I am required to defend people’s right to speak in ways I find incredibly offensive. It might be legal, but that doesn’t mean it is helpful or healthy for our culture. The opposite is true as well. What I am suggesting is that just because something is illegal doesn’t mean it is necessarily wrong. Religious laws have often demonstrated values that do not uphold the core beliefs the religion. At other points in history, faith traditions have found themselves under unjust laws and struggled with whether to uphold the civil law or to uphold the teachings of the faith. At one point in our nation’s history, it was illegal to hide a slave who had escaped. The law was clear, but as I read the Gospels, so was Jesus. The value and health of a human being should always supersede the law. Of course, it can get complicated, and at times, one person’s value and health might be in conflict with another person’s value and health. But even naming that exception, there are so many times when the church and followers of Jesus have chosen to defend a law or support an institution that undermined the value and health of human being. It’s interesting how Jesus asked if the law allowed for healing on the Sabbath. In general, the answer would have been NO, but even within Judaism, exceptions were made when living into the law would require you to ignore the value and health of a person. So often we are in search of a Black & White religion, where everything is clear cut. Most of us live lives that are a bit more complicated, and require us to struggle with where are the exceptions to the rule, where do we call into question the law itself, where does love make me a rebel, even an outlaw?
Prayer: Honestly God, this faith thing can be complicated. In Jesus, you tried to summarize it with two commandments – to love you and to love the neighbor. You’d think we could handle that, but it gets complicated. In the end, I believe that if I fail on the side of love, then I am still on the side of love. Wherever I fail, Lord, may it be a glorious failure of loving just a little too much. Amen.
TODAY
See You In Worship
Scripture: Luke 14:7-11
