Ordinary Time Week 14

Psalm: Psalm 71:1-6 or Psalm 103:1-8

Old Testament: Jeremiah 1:4-10

 or Isaiah 58:9b-14

Gospel: Luke 13:10-17

Epistle: Hebrews 12:18-29

Today I am just going to say a few words concerning Jeremiah and Luke. First, in Jeremiah we have the calling of the prophet to his ministry by the Lord. Jeremiah is typical of the experience in the Old Testament: God calls, prophet protests their unworthiness, God reassures and sometimes equips or symbolically purifies the prophet (Isaiah and Jeremiah get touched on the lips, Ezekiel eats a scroll), finally there is the commissioning where the prophet is sent out with the summary of his message given (Ezekiel has a great example of this element in Ez. 3). Jeremiah's message, "To pluck up and to break down, To destroy and to overthrow, To build and to plant," (vs. 10) is repeated throughout his ministry and is a warning cry to God's people that justice and exile will come if the people don't change their behavior.

The calls of the Prophets were important markers in their lives and became something they were able to draw from later in ministry. They provided the context for the ministry and message they were to deliver to the people. They also became moments of inspiration and a reminder of the work God had done in them. The touching of the lips for Jeremiah and the eating of the scroll for Ezekiel, became moments to reflect back on and remember that God had called and equipped them for his service. These are moments we all need in our lives as well. We can remember times such as our conversion, baptism, or a time of close contact with God when we need courage or are feeling particularly low and perhaps attacked by the Devil.

Moving on to our reading from Luke, we have one of the various examples of Jesus healing on the Sabbath. In Luke 6:5 Jesus says that he is "Lord of the Sabbath.” In our account today Jesus healed a woman at the synagogue and the officials got upset about it. In the Gospels, Jesus used parables, stories, and word play to make his point. In an oral culture, this made things easier to remember and also had a rhetorical purpose. In this story Jesus used a play on words to compare the "releasing of bonds" that he did, with the "untying" the officials said was permissible. The Pharisee and religious folk allowed a man to untie his ox and take it to find water. The Law and traditions of Israel understood that oxen had to drink, even on the Sabbath, so a man needed to do a little bit of work to care for his animals. Jesus took this allowance in their thinking to show how hypocritical the synagogue officials were. The women in the story had been bound by Satan for 18 years and so Jesus released the ties that bonded her. Surely for Jesus this was less work than untying a donkey and leading it to water--as well as more noble and good. In fact, all present understood the point Jesus made. His opponents left humiliated for multiple reasons, not least of which is the fact that they had put an ox's needs above a human's needs. And the people in the crowd were amazed and rejoiced at Jesus' deeds.

So, what does this have to say to us today? First point, is that Jesus is indeed Lord of the Sabbath. God created the Law and as Jesus said “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.” (Mark 2:27) We are always to draw our example from Christ, and not any traditions of Man. Which needs to the next points which Jesus understood. People's' needs are always first and Love and compassion are paramount. These two points trump any notion of keeping the Sabbath sacred and doing no work. If we see someone in dire need and we can meet that need then love should compel us to act. Jesus found times and ways to rest and and be in communion with the Father. But when the time came and he saw a need, he met it, regardless of any perceived religious obligation. Remember, the Sabbath was made for humanity, and how would the women in the story been served if Jesus had refused to heal her? Not all in fact. So let us remember that any religious or even self-imposed obligations should never prevent us for extending the Love of God to others.

Grace and Peace.