Nothing to say?
This week's study is on Luke 14:1-6:
Jesus is always challenging people on their assumptions and traditions. He's an expert in the law because he wrote it. He knows why it exists and what his goal was in giving it to people. Here he's challenging the religious people's slavish adherence to their mental model of what the Sabbath is.
These verses are fun because they show that Jesus didn't segregate himself from the Pharisees. He says a lot of things in the Bible that are very blunt and aggressive towards them, but he doesn't cut off relationship with them. They are still people he loves and who he shares life with. He dines with them. He goes to their church meetings. He interacts with them in public and recognizes their humanity. There's no pretending not to see them. No fake smiles and awkward empty conversations while backing away. All people are his people. He is love embodied!
Here the Pharisees were the ones staying silent. I don't know whether it was out of a desire to be politically correct and not say anything that they might get in trouble for. I don't know if they were shunning him, cult style, in the hopes that he'd move along. They may just as well have had nothing to say. Jesus still tries to engage them though.
Jesus loves the guy with the grotesque swelling. He heals him. He also loves the Pharisees with their grotesque legalism. He offers them his wisdom and establishes the common ground of how he and they all love their respective flocks and children. He's like "You know how you can't help but help your kid if he needs it? It's like that for me too! And you know how your ox isn't even human like you but you still help it anyway, Sabbath or no Sabbath? It's like that for me too! Love is greater than law."
He goes on past these verses and shares more parables in the hopes of welcoming them into his kingdom. I don't know if any were changed that day. It doesn't say in the Bible, but what the Pharisees did or didn't do is less important than what it says about Jesus and who he is.
We all have our phases where we're stubborn, ignorant, angry at God or just distracted, just like the Pharisees. There are times we have nothing to say ourselves. But Jesus is just as engaging as he ever was, and is still trying to show us his love, and his way of seeing things. We're not condemned and shunned and berated for who we are. There's no "us" versus "him." We're loved and pursued. It's less important what we do or don't do than it is that Jesus is who he is, and offers his world to us.
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 abnormal swelling of his body. Jesus asked the Pharisees and experts in 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 on his way.
Then he asked them, “If one of you has a child or an ox that falls into a well on the Sabbath day, will you not immediately pull it out?” And they had nothing to say.
Jesus is always challenging people on their assumptions and traditions. He's an expert in the law because he wrote it. He knows why it exists and what his goal was in giving it to people. Here he's challenging the religious people's slavish adherence to their mental model of what the Sabbath is.
These verses are fun because they show that Jesus didn't segregate himself from the Pharisees. He says a lot of things in the Bible that are very blunt and aggressive towards them, but he doesn't cut off relationship with them. They are still people he loves and who he shares life with. He dines with them. He goes to their church meetings. He interacts with them in public and recognizes their humanity. There's no pretending not to see them. No fake smiles and awkward empty conversations while backing away. All people are his people. He is love embodied!
Here the Pharisees were the ones staying silent. I don't know whether it was out of a desire to be politically correct and not say anything that they might get in trouble for. I don't know if they were shunning him, cult style, in the hopes that he'd move along. They may just as well have had nothing to say. Jesus still tries to engage them though.
Jesus loves the guy with the grotesque swelling. He heals him. He also loves the Pharisees with their grotesque legalism. He offers them his wisdom and establishes the common ground of how he and they all love their respective flocks and children. He's like "You know how you can't help but help your kid if he needs it? It's like that for me too! And you know how your ox isn't even human like you but you still help it anyway, Sabbath or no Sabbath? It's like that for me too! Love is greater than law."
He goes on past these verses and shares more parables in the hopes of welcoming them into his kingdom. I don't know if any were changed that day. It doesn't say in the Bible, but what the Pharisees did or didn't do is less important than what it says about Jesus and who he is.
We all have our phases where we're stubborn, ignorant, angry at God or just distracted, just like the Pharisees. There are times we have nothing to say ourselves. But Jesus is just as engaging as he ever was, and is still trying to show us his love, and his way of seeing things. We're not condemned and shunned and berated for who we are. There's no "us" versus "him." We're loved and pursued. It's less important what we do or don't do than it is that Jesus is who he is, and offers his world to us.
Comments
Post a Comment