"Great Love" (Luke 7:36-50)

Superheroes

Superheroes were born in the United States. I’m not talking about the characters themselves, but the mythology of superheroes. The stories of Batman, Spiderman, Superman, and many more originated in the minds of 20^th-century American comic artists. Their stories quickly captured the imagination of their American audience. Today they dominate at the box office, regularly grossing over $1 billion per movie,[1] suggesting that they tap deeply into our culture’s psyche. They resonate with us in a profound way. They certainly resonated with me as a four and five-year-old, when I would ask my mom or my brother to design various superhero badges or emblems for me, so that I could tape them onto my chest and then pretend to save the world. Because saving the world is what superheroes do.

But before a superhero saves the world, he must be motivated to save the world. This is why a crucial part of the superhero myth is the origin story, the explanation of not only how they got their superpowers but more importantly why they use them the way they do. At the heart of many superheroes’ stories is an experience of death and often violence. Bruce Wayne grows up to become Batman after witnessing the murder of his parents. Peter Parker learns to channel his spidey-powers toward fighting crime as Spiderman after his beloved uncle is murdered on the street. Clark Kent becomes Superman after the death of his adoptive parents prompts some soul-searching, and he decides to fight against whatever might cause the needless deaths of others.

All of this is to say, for a superhero, saving the world is simply an extension of an intensely personal quest to fight back against what has hurt him. A superhero fights bad guys because, first, he has suffered or seen the suffering of others at the hands of bad guys. At the heart of things, this is what a superhero is. Someone who fights bad guys. Someone who fights back.

Sinners: See Outcasts

Today’s scripture is a familiar scene for many of us. An anonymous woman, who is simply identified by Luke as being a “sinner,” scandalizes a Pharisee’s home when she bathes Jesus’ feet in her tears. The Pharisee has probably already heard enough about Jesus to suspect that something like this might happen. After all, last week we read that some of the Pharisees were calling Jesus “a drunkard and a glutton, a friend of tax-collectors and sinners” (7:34). But now that the Pharisee is seeing it with his own eyes, he loses whatever respect he had for Jesus. “If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what kind of woman this is who is touching him—that she is a sinner” (7:39).

In the index of one of his books, biblical scholar Marcus Borg lists the word “sinners,” but instead of a corresponding page number there is a reference instead that reads “See outcasts.” Which is a helpful reminder that “sinner” is not just a moral category, not in Jesus’ day nor in our own. “Sinner” is more broadly a social category. A sinner is a part of “them,” not a part of “us.” A sinner is a “mess,” not someone who “has it together.” A “sinner” has no conscience, unlike us who do. A “sinner” is a “bad guy,” whereas we are “good guys.” A “sinner” is an outcast.

We may not actually use the word “sinner” out loud. After all, a spiritual person shouldn’t fling words like this around so judgmentally. But even so, it may get thought in our heads and felt in our hearts. It is human to divide the world into us and them, right and wrong, good and bad.

And it’s precisely here where the gospel pierces my soul and perhaps pierces yours. How do I treat a person whom I identify as a “sinner,” or “bad guy”? Like the Pharisee, I might do nothing at all outwardly other than give a slight frown of disapproval. I might keep my thoughts to myself, thoughts such as, “What’s that person doing here? They don’t belong.” In other words, my response is to separate myself from them. I exclude them, mentally if not physically. I want them out, elsewhere, not here. They are outcasts. I have nothing to do with them.

The Difference Between Superheroes and God’s Kingdom

I wonder if it’s more than coincidence that this same thinking is baked into our superhero mythology. What does a superhero do with bad guys? He eliminates them. Either mortally or physically by confining them and removing them to the separate space of a prison.

To be clear, I think that much of what resonates with our culture from the superhero myth is quite noble. The superhero myth teaches us that meaning can be found in death and loss. It inspires us to stand up for the weak and the helpless, even against all odds. It enlists us in the struggle for justice.

But…and this but is the very difference between our world and God’s kingdom…but the superhero myth sees the problem as “bad guys” and the solution as redemptive force or violence. A superhero fights the bad guys. And eliminates them.

The Origin of a Christ-Follower

What does Jesus do? Jesus loves the so-called “bad guy” or “bad woman.” He loves the sinner. He makes it a point to welcome them at tables, to break bread with them, to show them God’s love and forgiveness. And their response? Jesus explains the woman’s scandalous behavior: “Hence she has shown great love” (7:47).

I think here of the early Christ-followers who wrote about God’s transformative love, who said that how God treats us, becomes the way we treat others. “We love because [God] first loved us” (1 John 4:19). “Welcome one another, therefore, just as Christ has welcomed you” (Rom 15:7). This is what we see in the gospels, in our scripture today, where the “sinner” or “bad woman” or outcast who receives God’s love then overflows with love of her own. “Hence she has shown great love” (7:47).

If the origin story of superheroes is that they suffer loss and violence and thus decide to fight the bad guys, then the origin story of Christ-followers is the inverse. It begins not with loss but a gift. And it ends not with fighting but with kinship and connection. They receive love and decide to live in love. They do not fight the bad guys to eliminate them. They love them into the family, just as they have been loved into the family.

Loved People Love People

One of the invitations that I hear in today’s scripture is to identify with the sinful woman. If I want to live in great love, as she does, then I must first open myself up to receive God’s great love. Which is to say, I am invited to recognize my own wounds and sinfulness and need. I am invited to recognize that good and bad, or sinful and upright, are not distinctions that divide one group of people from another, but rather are distinctions that run down the center of every heart. I am invited to recognize that in God’s eyes there is not “us” and “them,” but only God’s children, who belong to each other and to God.

The Jesuit priest Greg Boyle, who helped found Homeboy Industries, a gang intervention and rehabilitation program in Los Angeles, shares the two principles that orient the program: everybody is unshakably good, and we belong to each other. Sometimes, he says, he is asked: does he believe “every vexing complex social dilemma would disappear if we embrace” these two principles? His response is clear and simple: “Yes, I do.”[2] He puts it another way: “God doesn’t share in our moral outrage”—at bad guys or sinners. Moral outrage feels good but it actually gets in the way of love. God only sees woundedness and “invites us into [the healing of] kinship and connection.”[3]

God leaves us with a lot of details to parse out. I can already hear my inner superhero saying, “That’s all well and good, but how do you love a man carrying a gun, or a person intent on doing harm?” I don’t know that I have an immediate answer to that. All I know—from the example of Jesus, in whom the fullness of God was pleased to dwell—is that moral outrage and force will never bring us together into God’s family. It will only ever separate us, as it did when Simon the Pharisee looked with disdain on the woman in his home, as it does when people look with resentment or outrage upon others.  The only thing that will bring us together into God’s family is God’s transformative love. Loved people love people.

There are a lot of details to parse out, but the foundational truth in Jesus is clear to me, and it’s opposite from what I learned from superheroes. The problem is not “bad guys” but forgetting or doubting that we are all beloved children of God. And the solution is not fighting but living in the great love we have received. And so the world is not saved through a righteous war between good guys and bad guys. It is saved through a table where all are loved into God’s family. It is saved through a love that redeems each and every one of us into the child of God that we are.

(Taken from https://authorryanc.com/2018/11/12/jesus-is-our-real-super-hero/)

Prayer

God,
Whose great love is the source and center
Of all things—
Soften our hearts
To know others as kindred who belong to us,
To know wrongdoing as woundedness,
To know your love as the power to heal and restore.
Inspire us to show others
The great love you have shown us.
In Christ, who came to save: Amen.

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[1] See https://www.the-numbers.com/box-office-records/worldwide/all-movies/creative-types/super-hero, accessed February 17, 2025.

[2] “Belonging Gone Right with Father Greg Boyle,” interview at Oregon Humanities, https://oregonhumanities.org/rll/podcast/episode/belonging-gone-right/, accessed February 17, 2024.

[3] “Father Greg Boyle: Moral outrage can feel good. But it does nothing to heal our divided world,” interview at America: The Jesuit Review, https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2021/09/19/greg-boyle-homeboy-industries-241462?gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAiA2cu9BhBhEiwAft6IxDg3J-mULYqH33D7Z6dt4L10XAoqVpDNEy75zQ1WiRGrTwHGBje2TBoCWOkQAvD_BwE, accessed February 17, 2025. 

"Weeping and Dancing" (Luke 7:18-35)

Many Tears

Bill became the pastor of an evangelical church in the 1990s. As a “self-proclaimed ‘Jesus Freak,’” he immersed himself in the evangelical world, listening to Christian music, reading Christian books, witnessing to the person next to him “on a plane or in line for the D.M.V.”[1] He ate, slept, and breathed Christianity.

Bill was in his day what a Pharisee was in Jesus’ day. I don’t say this as a criticism of Bill so much as I say it as an attempt to rehabilitate our view of the Pharisees. A Pharisee was just a Jew who cared so much about his religious tradition that he immersed himself in it, following the diet to a T, praying before every meal, going to synagogue as often as it was open. A Pharisee tried to make every part of his life Jewish, just as today some people try to make every part of their life Christian.

When Bill welcomed his newborn son, Timothy, into the world, he wrote a letter to Timothy’s future wife, to give to her on her wedding day. He wrote, “I pray that somehow through your family you would grow up and have a profound experience of grace — that at the core of your soul you would feel cared for in spite of your blunders, embraced in spite of your weaknesses, cherished in spite of your selfishness. You are a dear, dear woman to me and to [my wife] Katy. We love you. We look forward to meeting you. We will be praying for you over the years.”

Fast-forward thirteen years, and Bill is walking home from Starbucks with his son, Timothy, who is tentatively sharing that he has noticed certain feelings when he is around other guys. He says, “At one point I wondered if I was gay.” Later, when Bill is alone, praying to God in his journal, he writes, “I will not disguise to you what is going on in my heart and soul and mind. I think down deep, I hate homosexuality. I hate it more than just about anything else in the world. I hate it because it seems sometimes to be stronger than you, God. … Father, you have to spare Timothy from that. You have to.”

Bill’s tears were many over the next few years, as his son officially came out. His fears were many, too. He feared for his son. He feared that his church would reject him. He feared that his son would live in constant shame and insecurity. But his fears were also for himself. How would he reconcile his love for his son and his own beliefs about homosexuality? And how much patience and grace would his church have for him as he navigated this uncharted territory?

Repentance, or an About-Face

Over the next three years, Bill had many conversations and read many books and prayed many prayers. Slowly he came to question some of the certainties of his religious tradition. Here is a journal entry three years after that first conversation with his son: “I’ve been thinking a lot about Paul and how he turned from the Law to Jesus — he really did an about face. And now he says crazy things like, ‘The only thing that matters is faith expressing itself through love (Galatians 5:6) and whoever loves others has fulfilled the law (Romans 13:8) and love is the fulfillment of the law (Romans 13:10) and the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: Love your neighbor as yourself (Galatians 5:14).’ Paul really does want to move us forward to the core message [of love] and to let go of a lot of the other ‘rules.’” Bill then muses on his own evolving about-face: “Life and morality and God and religion were a lot clearer [before Timothy came out] than [they are] now. And yet the strange thing is that I’ve never felt closer to Jesus — more intimate, more interested, more willing to sacrifice for him, and more free to be a Christian.”

He acknowledges there will be consequences to the changes in his theology, so he prays for God’s help: “It’s actually pretty scary, because people are going to judge me, Christians are going to proclaim that I’ve lost my faith, and I will lose certain privileges that I’ve had in the community. I won’t be asked to do some weddings or speak at certain churches or events, etc., especially as I come out more and more into who I see you leading me to be. … Father, have mercy on me. Help me be nothing but gracious and believing and loving. I don’t want to have a big agenda for others. I just want to follow you and to help others do the same.”

“A Full, True, Vibrant Life”

Over the next couple of years, Bill’s church grew smaller and smaller, until it was half the size it was before. But Bill saw grace even in this: “[Those who have left] have plenty of places to go — none of the people who have left our church have gone church-less. But if we ceased to exist, [the few] who remain would have nowhere to go.”

In a recent journal entry, Bill reflects on the profound changes he has undergone over the last decade: “When Timothy came out, I was wracked with insecurities and questions, doubts and fears. But now, I’m just in a different spot.” “I find myself so much less afraid, less anxious.” He then shares, “As Katy [his wife] prayed last night she thanked you for the remarkable gift of Timothy coming out — and how we thought it was the end, but it was only the beginning of a full, true, vibrant life in Christ.” 

Who Are the Ones Who Weep and Dance?

As I read Bill’s story, I see a man who wept and a man who danced. He wept for the growing pains of following God, for the repentance necessary to open up to God’s gift. He wept for the woundedness of a world where religious tradition got in the way of God’s love, where culture got in the way of compassion. But he also danced for the discovery of God’s grace and freedom. He danced for delight to have a son who despite all his differences loved and followed God, who taught him a lot about the welcome of God’s table and the joy of outsiders who are welcomed in.

Jesus talks in our scripture today about a faith that weeps and dances. Drawing on the image of children who do not respond to the game that is called, he says that John the Baptist came fasting and preaching repentance but many of the religious folks would not weep, and that he himself came in the opposite manner—proclaiming a feast—but many of the religious folks would not dance. He seems to say that God can’t win for trying.  The irony, of course, is that there are people weeping and dancing. But they are the “wrong people.” They are the tax collectors and sinners! The people who wake up to their own woundedness and the woundedness of the world, are the people who rejoice when they hear the gospel of God’s boundless, unconditional love.

I wonder what kept so many of the religious folks, such as the Pharisees, from weeping and dancing. Perhaps it was fear—fear of losing control, fear of the unknown. Perhaps it was complacency, a sort of self-satisfaction with their religious routine and worldview that ultimately left no wiggle-room for God. When I consider today, I see these inhibitors—fear and complacency—prevalent in the world around us, where we are bombarded by advertisements offering personal security and satisfaction, teaching us that if we just have this one thing, we will be safe and happy. If we listen long enough to this message, we can become like zombies, our eyes glazed over as we chase one thing after another, continually distracted from our woundedness and also from the possibilities for love and healing, with no real reason for tears and no reason for dancing.

The good news of today’s scripture is not comfort and convenience. It’s much bigger, better than that. The good news of today’s scripture is abundant life, an adventure with God, where we grow and change, where we weep and dance, where our wounds and the wounds of the world are always met with the compassion and healing of God. The feast of God’s love is not reduced to a bubblewrapped package from Amazon, opened in the privacy of our own home. It is so much larger than that. God’s love gathers us together, with our tears and our wounds, and restores us to wholeness, to dancing.

The NC State basketball coach Jimmy Valvano, who gave a memorable, inspirational speech in the face of his own cancer, explained how he got through the day. “To me, there are three things we all should do every day. … Number one is laugh. You should laugh every day. Number two is think, you should spend some time in thought. And number three is you should have your emotions moved to tears. Could be happiness or joy, but think about it. If you laugh, you think, and you cry, that’s a full day. That’s a heck of a day. You do that seven days a week, you’re going to have something special.”

The kingdom of God is a heck of a place. It is filled with tears and laughter, weeping and dancing. It is where difficult wounds are exposed, and where they are healed.

I shared Bill’s story earlier, not with an agenda toward a single issue (although I do think the story makes a compelling case); but I shared it with wonder at a modern-day Pharisee who heard the wailing and wept, who heard the flute and danced. I shared it for the good news that I heard in it, that at the very moment Bill faced his own woundedness, he also found himself in God’s embrace. As he put it, “The strange thing is that I’ve never felt closer to Jesus.” Or as Jim Valvano put it toward the end of his speech, “Cancer can take away all my physical abilities… It cannot touch my soul.” Which is to say, when we weep for our woundedness and the woundedness of the world, we open ourselves up to the good news of God’s love. We open ourselves up to the one who comes eating and drinking. We dance, and invite others to join us.

Prayer

Holy God,
Whose kingdom comes with wailing and weeping,
With singing and dancing—
Open our hearts
To the wounds and difficulties
That invite change and growth,
And to the invitation
Of your boundless compassion.
May we be people of your dance,
Celebrants of your feast.
In Christ, who comes eating and drinking, a friend to all: Amen.

 

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[1] This quote and others, as well as the story they accompany, come from the following opinion piece: Timothy White, “How My Dad Reconciled His God and His Gay Son,” https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/02/05/opinion/coming-out-evangelical-pastor.html, accessed on 2/10/25.

"Moved to Compassion" (Luke 7:1-17)

The Worthy Centurion?

Why did Jesus heal the centurion’s slave? How a person answers this question will undoubtedly shape how they understand God and God’s kingdom.

The centurion and his entourage approach Jesus on the basis of his merit. First he sends some Jewish elders to make his plea, and they insist of the centurion, “He is worthy to have you do this for him”—in other words, he merits this—“for he loves our people, and it is he who built our synagogue for us” (7:4-5). But a little while later, the centurion sends some more friends to pass on a message directly from him, “Lord, do not trouble yourself, for I am not worthy to have you come under my roof… [O]nly speak the word.” (7:6-7). Here the centurion refutes any claims to his own merit.

When Jesus expresses amazement at the centurion’s faith, however, I am initially inclined to hear his words of praise as a direct rebuttal to the centurion’s self-deprecation.  I hear honor added to honor, merit stacked upon merit. Not only is this an altruistic centurion who cares for the people under his authority, but also he is humble and trusting. If anyone deserves to have his request for healing granted, it is this upright and well-respected centurion.

To put it another way, here is what I hear between the lines. The centurion says, “I’m not worthy,” and Jesus says, “On the contrary, you are more worthy than anyone I know.”

But the truth is, this picture of events that I’m imagining conforms more to the contours of our present world than it does to the contours of God’s kingdom. This picture of events resembles any number of feel-good, inspirational movies, where an upstanding character perseveres with integrity through difficult circumstances and finally meets with due reward. The message of this storyline is that, ultimately, good behavior is rewarded.

But this is not the gospel. The gospel is even better than this. God’s kingdom is better than this.

Unconditional Compassion

Immediately following the story of the centurion’s healing is another story of healing, but it could hardly be more different.

To begin, the person of interest is not a man of power, but a widow who has lost her final support, her son. Whereas the Roman centurion seeks Jesus’ help and sends multiple people to plead on his behalf, this widow does not address Jesus. Perhaps most crucially of all, there is no suggestion that this widow has any standing or has done anything that would merit Jesus’ attention. There is not even a mention of her faith.

All that is said is this. Jesus sees her. And he is moved to compassion. Which is to say, his response is not intellectual but visceral, emotional. It is not a weighing of the scales, a matter of judging what is worthy of his attention. His compassion is unconditional. He cannot help but care.

He says, “Do not cry,” but I imagine that he himself has a tear in his eye. He shares the widow’s sorrow…before he shares his hope and joy. Is this not the way of compassion? Is not the shared bearing of a burden also the beginning of a shared hope and joy?

The final difference between these two stories is easy to miss. Whereas Jesus heals the centurion’s slave from afar, through some spiritual confluence of the centurion’s faith and his own love, Jesus raises the widow’s son through the most intimate, immediate gesture. He approaches the funeral bier and touches it. If the centurion had thought Jesus as a Jew would have avoided the impurity of his gentile home, then he was mistaken, because here Jesus willingly touches death. In his religious tradition, this would have rendered him “impure.” But in reality, it expresses the resurrection power of God’s compassion.

The Reason Jesus Heals

The reason that Jesus heals the centurion’s slave, I think, is the exact same reason he raises the widow’s son. It has nothing to do with merit. It even has nothing to do with faith. (To be sure, faith is the reason that the centurion seeks Jesus, but it is not the reason Jesus heals his slave.) The reason that Jesus heals is plain and simple. He is moved to compassion.

This is the gospel, the good news, and it is even better than the feel-good, inspirational stories our world tells. Because the truth is, none of us is perfect, and even the best of us will encounter hard times when faith founders and despair crowds around us. If at some points in our life we find ourselves in the centurion’s shoes, living respectably and enjoying the support of friends who will speak in our favor, we will at the other times find ourselves in the shoes of the widow, having lost our last support and perhaps even our faith.

Thank God for the compassion of Christ, who draws near to our wounds, our impurities, our death, whose touch raises us to life. You have experienced this yourselves, I’m sure of it. Compassion heals and raises us to life. There are times when a long, genuine hug or a heartfelt note heals you in a way no drug or therapy can. There are times when the silent companionship of a friend divides your loneliness in half and gives you the strength to go on. There are times when you see something in nature, a bird or a sunrise, and it is as though God were speaking directly to you, telling you what you need to hear. In all of these times, Christ is with us. His compassion is what heals and raises us to life.

A few weeks ago, I went skiing with my brother and nephews. When one of my nephews learned that we would not be staying in the mountains past that night, he became inconsolable. Literally. We heard his muffled cries long after the lights had been turned out in his room. Finally, my brother went to be with him. He knew better than to try to reason with my nephew, to try to help him see things differently. He simply shared my nephew’s sorrow. He said he was sad too. Then he asked if he could cuddle for a moment, and my nephew finally relented from his despair and said, “Yes.” All was quiet, calm, as my brother shared his hope with my nephew.

It was a minor event. Nothing at all like what happens when we lose a loved one or suffer a serious trauma. But I trust that, whatever the degree of our loss and suffering, the truth remains the same…Christ sees us. Draws near to us. And it is his compassion that heals.

“I Will Give You Rest”

Last Sunday I mentioned a congregational conversation that I am inviting you to be a part of in a couple of Saturdays. No matter how I talk about that conversation, I feel some discomfort. Thinking about the future and about change usually makes me feel some discomfort. Even as I recognize that change is often an invitation to be faithful and an opportunity to grow.

So I’m grateful for this week’s passage. I’m grateful for the reminder that God’s care is not conditional upon our being right or good…or even faithful. God’s care is unconditional. Christ sees us and our need. Christ draws near to us. Christ shares our sorrow, even as he shares the hope and joy of new life.

My prayer for our conversation and for the present phase of discernment is that we can rest in the presence of Christ and his compassion. That we can see the see the tear in his eye even as he says, “Do not cry.” And that we will find ourselves less burdened than before.

Jesus says, “Come to me, all you who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble of heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” The paradox of faith is that when we let go of control, the result is not chaos…but rest for our souls.

Prayer

God of compassion,
Whose mercies are new every morning—
We rejoice that you see us
And know our need,
That you share our sorrow and discomfort
Even as you share your hope and joy
…
Inspire us by the stories of the centurion and widow
To live secure in your care,
To know that healing and new life
Is the gift of your boundless compassion.
In Christ, of gentle and humble heart: Amen.

"Remembering Why" (Luke 6:1-16)

“Smoking, Nonsmoking, or First Available?”

I was around seven or eight years old, and my family was down in Raleigh, North Carolina, for my brother’s soccer tournament. We were looking for a carb-rich dinner, I suppose, and so we found an Olive Garden not far from the hotel. Crowded restaurants were common on tournament weekends, so we went early to beat the rush. In fact, we arrived at the restaurant just as it was reopening for the evening. We were the first ones there.

This was the time when restaurants were still divided into smoking and nonsmoking sections. The hostess at the front of the restaurant greeted us. “Smoking, nonsmoking, or first available?” My dad, who couldn’t help but see the funny side, looked around at the empty restaurant and replied, “First available.”

Seemingly oblivious to the situation, or perhaps just not in the mood for humor, the hostess wore a blank, questioning look. Finally my dad dropped the joke and said, “Nonsmoking.”

This memory was quickly cemented in family lore. Now, whenever a business or an institution holds so fast to its script, its programmed interaction, that it completely misses the demands of a particular situation, we will jokingly say, “Smoking, non-smoking…or first available?”

“Is It Lawful?”

Today’s scripture is about the inadequacy of our scripts. It is about when our rules and routines get in the way of the very thing they were meant to serve. It is about the danger of “just following orders.”

When Jesus’ disciples pluck some heads of grain and eat them on the Sabbath, the Pharisees ask Jesus why they are doing “what is not lawful” (6:2). In response, Jesus points out that David himself and his companions also did what was “not lawful” by eating the sacred bread in the tabernacle (6:4). In other words, Jesus does not contest the Pharisees’ accusation that his disciples have acted unlawfully. He does not say, “But it is lawful, if you would just look at it this other way.” Instead his response relativizes the law. It puts the law in its place. He implies that, whatever the law is, there is something more important. “Yes, my disciples are breaking your law, just as David broke the law.” In a way, he is asking a question. “What is the importance of the law? Why did David break it? Why are my disciples breaking it?”

The very next scene offers a compelling answer. This time, it’s not Jesus’ disciples who are breaking the Sabbath. It is Jesus himself. He is teaching in the synagogue. There is a man with a withered hand. Jesus sees him. The scribes and the Pharisees see him. Everyone is thinking the same thing. Will Jesus heal him? Surely Jesus could wait a day and avoid the controversy. But he doesn’t. He seems resolved to make a point. He calls to the man with the withered hand, “Come and stand in the middle” (6:8)—in other words, “front and center.” This is Jesus’ sermon, more than anything he has said. Then Jesus asks his audience, “Is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the Sabbath, to save life or to destroy it?” (6:9).

The silence that follows this question, speaks volumes. The point that Jesus is making, I think, is not that it is lawful. The fact that some Pharisees and scribes are filled with fury and are determined to retaliate suggests to me that they are not persuaded. They see this healing as unlawful. They see Jesus as an outlaw, someone who has no respect for their rules, for their law and order, for their tradition.

The point that Jesus is making, I think, is that there is something more important than the law. Something bigger than their script.

To Think More Deeply

I want to tread very carefully here. When I was sharing some of these thoughts earlier in the week with my brother, he rightly pointed out that this interpretation could quickly unravel into a sort of “do-whatever-you-think-is-right” kind of life, with no regard for the law or for the wisdom and traditions of our ancestors. And I don’t think that’s what Jesus is advocating. He clearly reveres the Jewish tradition and scriptures himself, viewing them as God-inspired. This is evident in Matthew, where he insists that he has come not to abolish the law but to fulfill it.

I don’t think Jesus is telling people to have less regard for the law, to think less about it. I think he’s telling them to think more about it. To think more deeply about it. To remember why God gave it in the first place. To think about its purpose and how it might occasionally get in the way of its own purpose. Indeed, the same transcendent purpose that inspired the law may one day come to subvert it.

The original Sabbath law, expressed with minor variation in Exodus and Deuteronomy, “focuses less on the duty of the individual to observe a Sabbath rest [himself and more on] his duty to allow his servants and even beasts of burden to have a day without work.”^[1] The purpose is expressed this way: “…so that [they] may rest, as you do” (Deut 5:14). The purpose of the Sabbath is not to please some God who’s keeping track of whether you lift a finger or not. The purpose of the Sabbath is rest and well-being, not just our own but others! The way the law is expressed implies that, Yes, we are our brother’s keeper. So when Jesus sees a man in need of healing, a man who has carried heavy burdens, his duty is clear. His duty comes not from the law, but from the God who liberates, the God who heals, the God who is working for the redemption and well-being of all creation.

The Irresponsibility of “Obedience”

A big risk of laws and rules and scripts for living, is that they might invite us to stop thinking, to relinquish responsibility and hide behind obedience. Whether it is a restaurant hostess who welcomes customers with the same formula, regardless of the situation, or a religious community who settles into a routine, regardless of the needs and demands that surround them, when we defer to the ways things are normally done, we risk becoming irresponsible.  Theologian John Caputo puts it rather provocatively this way, “Looking for a rule to follow is always the height of irresponsibility. I was just following orders is a lamentable excuse.”

When Jesus looks pleadingly around the synagogue, he’s not looking for law-abiders, he’s looking for God-fearers. He’s looking for people whose faithfulness is not about checking off a box but about doing good and saving life.

What Are We “For”?

I will be saying more in the next couple of weeks, but today I want at least to introduce a conversation that I will be inviting you to join. A few Saturdays from now, here at church, I will be inviting us to share in an open, congregational conversation about our future as a church community. The purpose of the conversation is not to make any decisions or even really to contemplate decisions, but rather to be honest about where we are..and to begin listening. (Listening is perhaps the most underappreciated part of prayer, at least in western culture.)

The unspoken modus operandi of many churches is, “Let’s do what we’ve always done.” It is to approach change with the question, “How can we stay the same?” Maybe small tweaks or adaptations are necessary, but the question is, “How can we stay the same?” But as I’m reading through Luke, I’m struck by the continual confrontation between Jesus and the religious establishment, how Jesus is regularly challenging the way things have been done. Not to be contrarian, but to be faithful. Instead of deferring to old patterns, to “I’m just following orders,” he thinks deeply about what God wants and what that looks like. He reveres the law and tradition, but he has a deeper memory than many of his fellow Judeans. (Or as C. S. Lewis puts it in the Narnia series, he remembers a “deeper magic.”) He remembers the why, which on occasion has been obscured by the overgrowth of the very law and tradition that was originally meant to serve God’s purpose.

That is effectively what I will be inviting us to ponder and share. What is the “why” of gathering for church? At this stage, change is inevitable. Not just for our small church community, but for many church communities. It is projected that in this one year of 2025, over 500 churches in the state of Virginia will be closing their doors. Staying the same, in the strictest sense, is not really an option. But rather than seeing change as a threat, I would like to see it as an invitation and an opportunity in which the question becomes, “How do we stay faithful to who we are, as everything around us changes? How do we stay faithful to who God has called us to be?” Which begs the question, “Why do we gather in the first place?”

My dad tells me that my grandpa, who was a pastor, would encourage him, “Don’t tell me what you’re against. Tell me what you’re for.” I would like to think my grandpa was inspired by Jesus, who is always clear about the why. In today’s scripture, he’s not flouting the Sabbath to be a contrarian or a revolutionary. He is not against resting. He is for the healing and well-being of others, for their rest as well as his own.

Is it a coincidence that this is what God seems to have had in mind in the first place? 

Prayer

Caring God,
For whom, whatever the question,
The answer is always compassion—
Inspire us by the unruly love of Christ,
Who kept first things first
And loved others,
Especially those who had been neglected or excluded.
…
Grant us the joy and peace
Of living in your Spirit,
Which is free
And unburdened. In Christ, who is our Lord and teacher: Amen.

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[1] Linda Lee Clader, “Luke 6:1-11: Homiletical Perspective,” pp. 417-419 in Feasting on the Gospels: Luke, Volume 1 (Cynthia A. Jarvis and E. Elizabeth Johnson, eds; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2014).