Friday Gospel Recharge
A Reflection on Luke 14: 1-6
(30th Friday in Ordinary Time, Year A of the Liturgical Calendar, 2023)
Approaching the Sabbath with common sense
In today’s Gospel, Jesus introduced us to the dilemma revolved around observing the sabbath. His contemporary Pharisees and Scribes contended a harsh observation of the law, which often neglected the concerns for a fellow human being in the time of his need. We get an insight to the rigidity of the sabbath by the attention that is paid on Christ by the Pharisees: “and they watched him closely.”
Jesus, however, knowing their inward thoughts, puts the dilemma of the sabbath on those leaders in the room with him: “is it against the law… to cure a man on the sabbath or not?” and again: “which of you here, if his son falls into a well, or his ox, will not pull him out on the sabbath without hesitation?” So, it is very hard to oversee this problem which was so real in and the years leading up to Jesus’s time.
The sabbath is extremely important for human flourishing. We simulate this since the call to rest on the sabbath is the third divine commandment of the Decalogue. It should be noted that the Commandments have a different numbering system for the Decalogue or the Ten Commandments for Catholics and Protestant Christians. Whatever is issued here has been primarily for our good and upbuilding, and nothing less. However, keeping the sabbath is not approached with stiffness as the leaders in Jesus’s time would have us observe. Instead, Jesus reminds us that the bases of the sabbath is found on love. Our business on this day is not merely static or an isolated action; other people who rest and who are meant to and don’t but should rest are also drawn into this weekly solemn divine calling. Since others participate in the sabbath then our response to this commandment is governed by love.
When we rest on this holy day, we do so along with other people, since all are called to honour God with their life. We are also social beings which means we relate with one another, and more importantly: can learn how to love each other. A sign of our love for one another is seen in our response to the immediate needs of those God puts before us. Keep in mind that on the sabbath, it’s a time of worship, rest and leisure. When a fellow neighbour is in a state of physical, emotional or spiritual discombobulation in anyway, it normally causes distress and unrest in our very existence. Think about the unrest in Ukraine 🇺🇦 or the struggle between Israel and Hamas in more recent times, we often respond with sadness when war and conflict affects those there. The news on these conflicts are reported every day, we don’t become indifferent on the sabbath to these events, so we often wonder in helplessness when peace will be establish in those places. So, whenever a fellow human being is in need on a sabbath and is left unattended, our rest is disturbed, and we fail to love truly.
The sick man in today’s passage suffered from dropsy, a disease caused by heart, lung and kidney failure. Its symptoms cause general swelling in the extremities, leaving one stiff in the joints, limiting movement. In the time of Jesus, dropsy was fatal, whereas nowadays there are some medications that can be helpful. However, the real disease ascertained from this passage isn’t so much the dropsy of the man, but the stiffness of the thinking of the leaders. They would, in their hypocrisy, rescue their own animal over a human being, would allow him to be dead yet pull out their own ox from the well instead. In other words, they put their own interests over the interest of others. Jesus finds this attitude of thinking problematic because in the divine scheme of things, love looks outwardly and not selfish interiorly. The interest of the other should always precede that of our own every day.
As a
take home, we should have a healthy attitude toward the sabbath and be flexible
in our thinking and actions when responding to the concerns of human beings on
this sacred day. Let’s ask God therefore to equip us with the right thinking so
not to be so stiff like the religious leaders of Jesus’s day and those of our
own with respect to our religious duties on the Sabbath.
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