Thoughts for the Day

Luke 14:1-4 One Sabbath, when Jesus went to eat in the house of a prominent Pharisee, he was being carefully watched.  There in front of him was a man suffering from dropsy.  Jesus asked the Pharisee and experts of the law, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath or not?” But they remained silent. So taking hold of the man, he healed him and sent him away.

This is some lunch invitation.  Jesus is not just being invited for scholarly discussion; it appears he is being set up.  Pharisees had a raft of laws regarding what could and could not be done on the Sabbath, and they endeavoured to keep them all.  Several times we read of Jesus being taken to task for healing on the Sabbath, as if it is work that should be reserved for the other days of the week.  Luke records a previous encounter in a synagogue (Luke 6:9) when Jesus challenged their understanding of the Sabbath even more fundamentally by asking, before healing a man, whether it right to good or to do evil, to save life or destroy … and those Pharisees were furious.  But not all Pharisees were the same.  These are simply silent, both to Jesus’s immediate question and when he then suggests that even they would pull their own son out of a well on a Sabbath if he fell in.  But rather than judge the Pharisees for their legalism, perhaps this should caution us to check out the Pharisee in ourselves.  What are the rules and boundaries that we put in place around our theology?  Do they promote good or evil, save and heal or destroy?  It’s uncomfortable that Jesus’s challenge offers no middle ground!