Today is Labor Day. Our Gospel is about “working” on the sabbath. It is always the work of a Christian to do good and certainly to save life.
From a narrow perspective, like that of Jesus’ interlocutors in our reading, the Lord’s relationship with the Law can seem complicated. But it isn’t, really. Before the time of Jesus and even during his time, for many rabbis, adherence to the Law was not just about keeping a list of rules, avoiding what was forbidden, and doing what was prescribed.
What is at stake in the kinds of incidents we hear about today is our relationship with God, both personal and communal. It is very human to make my relationship with God transactional. I do this or don’t do that. As a result, God does something for me in return. Conversely, when I fail to do what I am supposed to do or do what I’m not supposed to do, God will punish me.
Try as we might to make him that way, God isn’t like that. God loves us. His disposition towards us doesn’t change. His love is not conditional, dependent on our often-whimsical behavior. Jesus shows us this repeatedly.
Detail from Christ healing an infirm woman on the Sabbath, by James Tissot, 1886-1896,in public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
By curing the man with a withered hand on the sabbath, in the eyes of at least some of those in the synagogue, Jesus violated the commandment forbidding work on the sabbath. He did the very thing some of those present were hoping he would do. They came looking for a reason, any reason, to condemn him.
He blatantly did what those looking to accuse him hoped he would do: cured someone on the sabbath. They were not swayed by the mercy to which the Lord appealed. Jesus is the Mercy King. In our epistle reading from yesterday, taken from his Letter to the Romans, Saint Paul asserted that to love your neighbor by doing good to her/him is the fulfillment of the Law (see Romans 13:8-10).
Of course, Paul takes this directly from Jesus’ teaching. You see, the Law was given to provide a means to the end of loving God with your entire being by loving your neighbor as you love yourself. There is no higher commandment. All other rules are subordinated to the Two Great Commandments (sticking with Saint Luke's Gospel see Luke 10:27-37).
I can genuinely love because, first, I am loved (see 1 John 4:10). Far from a transaction consisting of quid pro quo, obedience is my loving response to God, who is love.
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