Gospel for August 21, 2022

START WITH SCRIPTURE:
Luke 13:10-17
CLICK HERE TO READ SCRIPTURE ON BIBLEGATEWAY.COM

OBSERVE:

This account of a sabbath’s day in a synagogue is inserted amongst seemingly unrelated teachings and healings.  However, we also detect a subtle and steady increase in the level of tension between Jesus and the authorities.

The town in which the synagogue is located is unnamed.  But we know that Jesus is drawing closer and closer, at least psychologically, to confrontation in Jerusalem:

When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem (Luke 9:51).

We see the storm clouds of that coming confrontation already gathering here in Luke 13.

Jesus has already established himself early in his ministry as a healer and an exorcist — casting out demons even on the Sabbath (Luke 5:31-37).

Given his previous ministry, it comes as no surprise that a crippled woman should approach Jesus, even on the Sabbath in the synagogue.  Luke’s Gospel makes it clear that this affliction that causes her to be bent and unable to straighten up has a demonic source.

It is important to note that she doesn’t ask Jesus to heal her — he is proactive, and takes the initiative when he sees her misery:

When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, “Woman, you are set free from your ailment.”  When he laid his hands on her, immediately she stood up straight and began praising God.

If the story had ended here, we might simply have said that this was another example of Jesus’ healing power and left it at that.  But the leader of the synagogue couldn’t leave well enough alone.  This person was likely either a lay leader or a professional rabbi who was sympathetic to the concerns of the priests and the scribes who insisted on strict Sabbath observance.

What happens next illustrates the growing tension between Jesus and the priests, scribes, and Pharisees.  The leader of the synagogue is indignant toward Jesus, but he scolds the crowd, rather than Jesus for gathering to seek healing on the Sabbath day:

“There are six days on which work ought to be done; come on those days and be cured, and not on the sabbath day.”

Obviously, he is annoyed at Jesus, but perhaps the religious authorities have begun to figure out that confronting Jesus directly doesn’t work all that well.  So this leader of the synagogue does something that Family Systems Theory calls triangling. He takes his wrath out on the crowd instead of on Jesus.

Jesus doesn’t let him get by with that.  What Jesus does is called de-triangling.  He confronts the leader, and in so doing also addresses the priests, scribes and Pharisees who might be muttering to one another. Jesus says to them:

“You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger, and lead it away to give it water? And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen long years, be set free from this bondage on the sabbath day?”

Jesus isn’t necessarily denying the importance of the Sabbath as a day of worship and rest.  He himself observed the Sabbath.  However, he is criticizing the preposterous interpretation that would prevent acts of compassion.

It would be illogical and inhumane not to lead an animal to water to drink on the Sabbath day; how much more not to heal this fellow Jew (a daughter of Abraham) who had been in bondage to Satan for 18 years!

Jesus had already addressed their legalistic interpretation of the Sabbath earlier in his ministry, declaring to them that:

The Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath (Luke 6:5).

And when he healed a man whose hand was withered he asked the pointed question:

I ask you, is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the Sabbath, to save life or to destroy it?(Luke 6:9).

Mark’s Gospel quotes Jesus’ eloquent perspective on the proper use of the law, which is meant to benefit human beings, not enslave or oppress them:

The Sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the Sabbath (Mark 2:27).

It is clear that Jesus won this round — as he does every round:

When he said this, all his opponents were put to shame; and the entire crowd was rejoicing at all the wonderful things that he was doing.

APPLY:  

We Christians need to get past the false opposition between law and grace.  The law is never described in the New Testament as an evil thing.  Legalism, which is the effort to attain salvation by one’s own obsessive-compulsive ritual righteousness instead of relying on God’s grace, is the problem.

Salvation is not a human achievement of any kind — through works, the law, or spiritual discipline. Salvation is a gift of God for the sake of Christ.

The law doesn’t save, and the law never trumps love and compassion. However, the moral law, used properly under the auspices of the law of love, can provide moral guidance to the Christian.  Jesus observed the law by resting and worshiping on the Sabbath because of his love for his Father.

But when law becomes legalism, and morality becomes moralism, then the law becomes a bludgeon instead of a tool for spiritual growth.

The obsessive-compulsive rigidity of the leader of the synagogue misses the whole point of the law of the Sabbath.  A day that is created for rest and renewal becomes instead a day of rigid rules that increase religious anxiety and guilt, and neglects those who are suffering.

Jesus reminds us that the law at its best is for the spiritual growth and benefit of human beings.  The law at its best can be an extension of his loving grace rather than a source of oppression.

RESPOND: 

This passage makes me think of Victor Hugo’s masterpiece, Les Miserable.  Jean Valjean, the protagonist, has been imprisoned because he broke the law — he stole a loaf of bread for his starving family.  The law is strict and rigid concerning theft.

After he is released — 19 years later — he is offered hospitality by a kindly bishop who finds him shivering and homeless on the street.  Valjean tries to steal the bishop’s silver, but when he is arrested the bishop insists to the authorities that he had given the silverware to Valjean.  Valjean goes free, a much richer man because of the grace of the bishop.  The bishop tells Valjean that his life has been spared for God’s sake, and he should use the silver to make a better man of himself.

The major complication of the novel is the character of Inspector Javert.  As the plot develops, Valjean has become the compassionate, generous mayor of a French city, and a wealthy and just owner of a factory.  But Javert becomes suspicious — he begins to remember Valjean from years before when Javert was a prison guard, and learns that Valjean has been accused of another crime.

Javert makes it his life’s mission to obsessively hunt Valjean and arrest him.  In a moment of dramatic irony, Javert falls into the hands of revolutionaries, and Valjean contrives to spare his life.  But Javert cannot live with the conflict of his rigid devotion to the law and the merciful goodness of his intended victim, Valjean.  Because of his intense inner conflict, he finds the contradictions irreconcilable and drowns himself in the Seine River.

That is a rather elaborate illustration of the principle that there is a spiritual law of grace and love that always trumps the rigid law of legalism.

Lord, I love your law — but it is the law of love that I seek to follow.  I pray that you will give me a healthy respect and obedience to your law, but always illumined by your love and compassion.  Amen. 

PHOTOS:
"Orthodoxy" by timchallies is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

Gospel for July 17, 2022

START WITH SCRIPTURE:
Luke 10:38-42
CLICK HERE TO READ SCRIPTURE ON BIBLEGATEWAY.COM

OBSERVE:

Jesus is on the move.  He has already passed through Samaria, and now he draws closer to his true objective — Jerusalem.  In the previous chapter, we are told:

his face was set toward Jerusalem (Luke 9:53).

But where is this certain village that Jesus now enters with his disciples?  A little detective work suggests that he has arrived in Bethany, probably 2 miles from Jerusalem.  We deduce that from the fact that this is the hometown of Martha and Mary — and we know from the Gospel of John that these two sisters lived in Bethany with their brother Lazarus (John 11-12).  However, Lazarus doesn’t appear in Luke’s Gospel except as the character in a parable (Luke 16:19-31).

What Jesus encounters here is a domestic scene, seasoned with a little sibling tension.  Martha is mentioned first as the hostess.  The home is described as her home, suggesting her preeminence in the home.  She appears to be the matriarch.

After Mary welcomes this distinguished guest into her home, the sibling tension begins pretty quickly.  Mary sits at the feet of Jesus listening to his teaching, while Martha is:

distracted by her many tasks.

We can only imagine the rising tension as Martha is busy — perhaps trying to supervise the preparation of a meal for Jesus and his hungry disciples.  The word distracted used to describe Martha can be translated to wheel violently around.  This suggests that she is wheeling around in circles trying to take care of many things.  And anyone who has ever lived in a family might imagine the rising frustration as Martha is rushing about, and casting dirty looks at her sister sitting at Jesus’ feet!

But Martha was distracted by her many tasks; so she came to him and asked, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me.”

When we view this incident from a first-century Jewish perspective, what Mary is doing is really quite astounding.  Sitting at the feet of a rabbi was the posture of a disciple.  As a woman, according to the male-dominated culture of the day, she had no business sitting at Jesus’ feet with the men!  Her place, literally, was in the kitchen, according to the mores of the day.

And Jesus defends Mary!

But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.”

Jesus makes it very clear that Mary is quite welcome to sit at his feet as a disciple.  In a sense, he is making a statement about the equality of women with men. According to some sources, no woman was allowed to even learn the Torah.  Rabbi Eliezer wrote in the 1st century AD:

“Rather should the words of the Torah be burned than entrusted to a woman…Whoever teaches his daughter the Torah is like one who teaches her obscenity.”

Jesus is inviting Martha to simplify her life and focus on the one thing needed — a relationship with Jesus.

APPLY:  

We must be careful not to over-allegorize this passage, which is a real temptation.  We are tempted to make Martha the symbol of a busy, type-A person who is constantly hurrying, stressed out, and impatient with others.  And to make Mary the symbol of the quiet, contemplative soul who spends much time in prayer and Bible study.  That would be an oversimplification.

Martha’s problem is not that she is task-oriented, but that she resents the choice of her sister.  Philo, the ancient Jewish philosopher, spoke of the balance of the active life and the contemplative life.  He suggested that the active person who is engaged in good works and public life can also have a kind of stillness in the soul even in the midst of busyness.

And, yes, Mary does sit quietly at Jesus’ feet, learning his teachings.  But, like the other disciples, she is getting to know the nature of her Lord so that one day soon she will be able to put her faith into practice.  According to the Gospel of John, it is Mary who recognizes that Jesus is on his way to death and burial.  When he comes to their house again, she knows what will minister to him at that moment — she anoints his feet with oil (John 12:1-8).

Martha tried to serve Jesus according to her own preconceived notions; Mary served Jesus according to his needs because she had spent time with him.

One more thing — we see in this account an example of the trajectory of the gospel in relation to women.  Women in first century Judaism, as well as in the Greco-Roman world, were little more than property.  Equality was unthinkable.

Jesus consistently elevates the status of women throughout the Gospels.  By declaring that Mary, sitting at his feet as a disiciple, has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her, Jesus has declared that a woman’s soul is as important as a man’s soul.

RESPOND: 

There are so many responses that can be made to this account.  What is the one thing needed?  The obvious answer — to spend time with Jesus.  When we do that — through worship, prayer, searching the Scriptures, fasting, and the Lord’s Supper — we can discern how we are to serve him in witness and service.

But there is also another aspect to this story that is fascinating, in addition to what it tells us about the spiritual life and gender equality.  A family systems therapist might have a field day with this account when examining the relationships of Mary and Martha and Jesus.

Obviously, Martha is the dominant matriarch in this story.  And she asserts her authority with many tasks.  Sometimes “busyness” is an instrument that is used for the purpose of manipulating power.  I’m not suggesting that this was Martha’s motive.  But we can track the rise of her resentment toward her sister Mary.

And finally Martha turns on Jesus with her resentments!

Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me.

A student of family systems theory recognizes exactly what she is doing — this is called “triangling.”  Rather than addressing her concern directly with her sister Mary, Martha seems to blame Jesus for Mary’s supposed “irresponsibility.”

Is this a psychological ploy to draw attention to herself as the “virtuous, hard-working sister?”  That might be going too far.

Jesus’ response is to “de-triangle.”  He not only tells Martha that she is too obsessed with many things and needs to simplify; he actually praises Mary for choosing more wisely.

It might be said that we need both Marthas and Marys in our churches and communities and families.  Of course we need houses cleaned and meals on the table — as well as cars maintained and roofs fixed and teeth cleaned.  In other words, there are tasks that must be done every day.  But our priority must be to do all that we do as though we have first been sitting at the feet of Jesus — then we know how to serve him and to serve others effectively and with true love.

Lord, it is so easy to be busy with many tasks that distract us from you.  We pray that we may spiritually sit at your feet so that when the time comes to serve we know what you would have us do.  Amen.

PHOTOS:
"Christ in the House of Martha and Mary" by Johannes (Jan) Vermeer is in the public domain.

Gospel for August 25, 2019

START WITH SCRIPTURE:
Luke 13:10-17
CLICK HERE TO READ SCRIPTURE ON BIBLEGATEWAY.COM

OBSERVE:

This account of a sabbath’s day in a synagogue is inserted amongst seemingly unrelated teachings and healings.  However, we also detect a subtle and steady increase in the level of tension between Jesus and the authorities.

The town in which the synagogue is located is unnamed.  But we know that Jesus is drawing closer and closer, at least psychologically, to confrontation in Jerusalem:

When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem (Luke 9:51).

We see the storm clouds of that coming confrontation already gathering here in Luke 13.

Jesus has already established himself early in his ministry as a healer and an exorcist — casting out demons even on the Sabbath (Luke 5:31-37).

Given his previous ministry, it comes as no surprise that  a crippled woman should approach Jesus, even on the Sabbath in the synagogue.  Luke’s Gospel makes it clear that this affliction that causes her to be bent and unable to straighten up has a demonic source.

It is important to note that she doesn’t ask Jesus to heal her — he is proactive, and takes the initiative when he sees her misery:

When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, “Woman, you are set free from your ailment.”  When he laid his hands on her, immediately she stood up straight and began praising God.

If the story had ended here, we might simply have said that this was another example of Jesus’ healing power and left it at that.  But the leader of the synagogue couldn’t leave well enough alone.  This person was likely either a lay leader or a professional rabbi who was sympathetic to the concerns of the priests and the scribes who insisted on strict Sabbath observance.

What happens next illustrates the growing tension between Jesus and the priests, scribes, and Pharisees.  The leader of the synagogue is indignant toward Jesus, but he scolds the crowd, rather than Jesus for gathering to seek healing on the Sabbath day:

“There are six days on which work ought to be done; come on those days and be cured, and not on the sabbath day.”

Obviously, he is annoyed at Jesus, but perhaps the religious authorities have begun to figure out that confronting Jesus directly doesn’t work all that well.  So this leader of the synagogue does something that Family Systems Theory calls triangling. He takes his wrath out on the crowd instead of on Jesus.

Jesus doesn’t let him get by with that.  What Jesus does is called de-triangling.  He confronts the leader, and in so doing also addresses the priests, scribes and Pharisees who might be muttering to one another. Jesus says to them:

“You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger, and lead it away to give it water? And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen long years, be set free from this bondage on the sabbath day?”

Jesus isn’t necessarily denying the importance of the Sabbath as a day of worship and rest.  He himself observed the Sabbath.  However,  he is criticizing the preposterous interpretation that would prevent acts of compassion.

It would be illogical and inhumane not to lead an animal to water to drink on the Sabbath day; how much more not to heal this fellow Jew (a daughter of Abraham) who had been in bondage to Satan for 18 years!

Jesus had already addressed their legalistic interpretation of the Sabbath earlier in his ministry, declaring to them that:

The Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath (Luke 6:5).

And when he healed a man whose hand was withered he asked the pointed question:

I ask you, is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the Sabbath, to save life or to destroy it?(Luke 6:9).

Mark’s Gospel quotes Jesus’ eloquent perspective on the proper use of the law, which is meant to benefit human beings, not enslave or oppress them:

The Sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the Sabbath (Mark 2:27).

It is clear that Jesus won this round — as he does every round:

When he said this, all his opponents were put to shame; and the entire crowd was rejoicing at all the wonderful things that he was doing.

APPLY:  

We Christians need to get past the false opposition between law and grace.  The law is never described in the New Testament as an evil thing.  Legalism, which is the effort to attain salvation by one’s own obsessive-compulsive ritual righteousness instead of relying on God’s grace, is the problem.

Salvation is not a human achievement of any kind — through works, the law, or spiritual discipline. Salvation is a gift of God for the sake of Christ.

The law doesn’t save, and the law never trumps love and compassion. However, the moral law, used properly under the auspices of the law of love, can provide moral guidance to the Christian.  Jesus observed the law by resting and worshiping on the Sabbath because of his love for his Father.

But when law becomes legalism, and morality becomes moralism, then the law becomes a bludgeon instead of a tool for spiritual growth.

The obsessive-compulsive rigidity of the leader of the synagogue misses the whole point of the law of the Sabbath.  A day that is created for rest and renewal becomes instead a day of rigid rules that increase religious anxiety and guilt, and neglects those who are suffering.

Jesus reminds us that the law at its best is for the spiritual growth and benefit of human beings.  The law at its best can be an extension of his loving grace rather than a source of oppression.

RESPOND: 

This passage makes me think of Victor Hugo’s masterpiece, Les Miserable.  Jean Valjean, the protagonist, has been imprisoned because he broke the law — he stole a loaf of bread for his starving family.  The law is strict and rigid concerning theft.

After he is released — 19 years later — he is offered hospitality by a kindly bishop who finds him shivering and homeless on the street.  Valjean tries to steal the bishop’s silver, but when he is arrested the bishop insists to the authorities that he had given the silverware to Valjean.  Valjean goes free, a much richer man because of the grace of the bishop.  The bishop tells Valjean that his life has been spared for God’s sake, and he should use the silver to make a better man of himself.

The major complication of the novel is the character of Inspector Javert.  As the plot develops, Valjean has become the compassionate, generous mayor of  a French city, and a wealthy and just owner of a factory.  But Javert becomes suspicious — he begins to remember Valjean from years before when Javert was a prison guard, and learns that Valjean has been accused of another crime.

Javert makes it his life’s mission to obsessively hunt Valjean and arrest him.  In a moment of dramatic irony, Javert falls into the hands of revolutionaries, and Valjean contrives to spare his life.  But Javert cannot live with the conflict of his rigid devotion to the law and the merciful goodness of his intended victim,  Valjean.  Because of his intense inner conflict, he finds the contradictions irreconcilable  and drowns himself in the Seine River.

That is a rather elaborate illustration of the principle that there is a spiritual law of grace and love that always trumps the rigid law of legalism.

Lord, I love your law — but it is the law of love that I seek to follow.  I pray that you will give me a healthy respect and obedience to your law, but always illumined by your love and compassion.  Amen. 

PHOTOS:
"Orthodoxy" by timchallies is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

Gospel for July 21, 2019

START WITH SCRIPTURE:
Luke 10:38-42
CLICK HERE TO READ SCRIPTURE ON BIBLEGATEWAY.COM

OBSERVE:

Jesus is on the move.  He has already passed through Samaria, and now he draws closer to his true objective — Jerusalem.  In the previous chapter, we are told:

his face was set toward Jerusalem (Luke 9:53).

But where is this certain village that Jesus now enters with his disciples?  A little detective work suggests that he has arrived in Bethany, probably 2 miles from Jerusalem.  We deduce that from the fact that this is the hometown of Martha and Mary — and we know from the Gospel of John that these two sisters lived in Bethany with their brother Lazarus (John 11-12).  However,  Lazarus doesn’t appear in Luke’s Gospel except as the character in a parable (Luke 16:19-31).

What Jesus encounters here is a domestic scene, seasoned with a little sibling tension.  Martha is mentioned first as the hostess.  The home is described as her home, suggesting her preeminence in the home.  She appears to be the matriarch.

After Mary welcomes this distinguished guest into her home, the sibling tension begins pretty quickly.  Mary sits at the feet of Jesus listening to his teaching, while Martha is:

distracted by her many tasks.

We can only imagine the rising tension as Martha is busy — perhaps trying to supervise the preparation of a meal for Jesus and his hungry disciples.  The word distracted used to describe Martha can be translated to wheel violently around.  This suggests that she is wheeling around in circles trying to take care of many things.  And anyone who has ever lived in a family might imagine the rising frustration as Martha is rushing about, and casting dirty looks at her sister sitting at Jesus’ feet!

But Martha was distracted by her many tasks; so she came to him and asked, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me.”

When we view this incident from a first-century Jewish perspective, what Mary is doing is really quite astounding.  Sitting at the feet of a rabbi was the posture of a disciple.  As a woman, according to the male-dominated culture of the day, she had no business sitting at Jesus’ feet with the men!  Her place, literally, was in the kitchen,  according to the mores of the day.

And Jesus defends Mary!

But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.”

Jesus makes it very clear that Mary is quite welcome to sit at his feet as a disciple.  In a sense, he is making a statement about the equality of women with men. According to some sources,  no woman was allowed to even learn the Torah.  Rabbi Eliezer wrote in the 1st century AD:

“Rather should the words of the Torah be burned than entrusted to a woman…Whoever teaches his daughter the Torah is like one who teaches her obscenity.”

Jesus is inviting Martha to simplify her life, and focus on the one thing needed — a relationship with Jesus.

APPLY:  

We must be careful not to over-allegorize this passage, which is a real temptation.  We are tempted to make Martha  the symbol of a busy, type-A person who is constantly hurrying, stressed out, and impatient with others.  And to make Mary the symbol of the quiet, contemplative soul who spends much time in prayer and Bible study.  That would be an oversimplification.

Martha’s problem is not that she is task-oriented, but that she resents the choice of her sister.  Philo, the ancient Jewish philosopher, spoke of the balance of the active life and the contemplative life.  He suggested that the active person who is engaged in good works and public life can also have a kind of stillness in the soul even in the midst of busyness.

And, yes, Mary does sit quietly at Jesus’ feet, learning his teachings.  But, like the other disciples, she is getting to know the nature of her Lord so that one day soon she will be able to put her faith into practice.  According to the Gospel of John, it is Mary who recognizes that Jesus is on his way to death and burial.  When he comes to their house again, she knows what will minister to him at that moment — she anoints his feet with oil (John 12:1-8).

Martha tried to serve Jesus according to her own preconceived notions; Mary served Jesus according to his needs because she had spent time with him.

One more thing — we see in this account an example of the trajectory of the gospel in relation to women.  Women in first century Judaism, as well as in the Greco-Roman world, were little more than property.  Equality was unthinkable.

Jesus consistently elevates the status of women throughout the Gospels.  By declaring that Mary, sitting at his feet as a disiciple, has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her, Jesus has declared that a woman’s soul is as important as a man’s soul.

RESPOND: 

There are so many responses that can be made to this account.  What is the one thing needed?  The obvious answer — to spend time with Jesus.  When we do that —  through worship, prayer, searching the Scriptures, fasting, and the Lord’s Supper —  we can discern how we are to serve him in witness and service.

But there is also another aspect to this story that is fascinating, in addition to what it tells us about the spiritual life and gender equality.  A family systems therapist might have a field day with this account when examining the relationships of Mary and Martha and Jesus.

Obviously, Martha is the dominant matriarch in this story.  And she asserts her authority with many tasks.  Sometimes “busyness” is an instrument that is used for the purpose of manipulating power.  I’m not suggesting that this was Martha’s motive.  But we can track the rise of her resentment toward her sister Mary.

And finally Martha turns on  Jesus with her resentments!

Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me.

A student of family systems theory recognizes exactly what she is doing — this is called “triangling.”  Rather than addressing her concern directly with her sister Mary, Martha seems to blame Jesus for Mary’s supposed “irresponsibility.”

Is this a psychological ploy to draw attention to herself as the “virtuous, hard-working sister?”  That might be going too far.

Jesus’ response is to “de-triangle.”  He not only tells Martha that she is too obsessed with many things, and needs to simplify; he actually praises Mary for choosing more wisely.

It might be said that we need both Marthas and Marys in our churches and communities and families.  Of course we need houses cleaned and meals on the table — as well as cars maintained and roofs fixed and teeth cleaned.  In other words, there are tasks that must be done every day.  But our priority must be to do all that we do as though we have first been sitting at the feet of Jesus — then we know how to serve him and to serve others effectively and with true love.

Lord, it is so easy to be busy with many tasks that distract us from you.  We pray that we may spiritually sit at your feet so that when the time comes to serve we know what you would have us do.  Amen.

PHOTOS:
"Christ in the House of Martha and Mary" by Johannes (Jan) Vermeer is in the public domain.

Gospel for August 21, 2016

START WITH SCRIPTURE:

Luke 13:10-17

CLICK HERE TO READ SCRIPTURE ON BIBLEGATEWAY.COM

OBSERVE:

This account of a sabbath’s day in a synagogue is inserted amongst seemingly unrelated teachings and healings.  However, we also detect a subtle and steady increase in the level of tension between Jesus and the authorities.

The town in which the synagogue is located is unnamed.  But we know that Jesus is drawing closer and closer, at least psychologically, to confrontation in Jerusalem:

When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem (Luke 9:51).

We see the storm clouds of that coming confrontation already gathering here in Luke 13.

Jesus has already established himself early in his ministry as a healer and an exorcist — casting out demons even on the Sabbath (Luke 5:31-37).

Given his previous ministry, it comes as no surprise that  a crippled woman should approach Jesus, even on the Sabbath in the synagogue.  Luke’s Gospel makes it clear that this affliction that causes her to be bent and unable to straighten up has a demonic source.

It is important to note that she doesn’t ask Jesus to heal her — he is proactive, and takes the initiative when he sees her misery:

When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, “Woman, you are set free from your ailment.”  When he laid his hands on her, immediately she stood up straight and began praising God.

If the story had ended here, we might simply have said that this was another example of Jesus’ healing power and left it at that.  But the leader of the synagogue couldn’t leave well enough alone.  This person was likely either a lay leader or a professional rabbi who was sympathetic to the concerns of the priests and the scribes who insisted on strict Sabbath observance.

What happens next illustrates the growing tension between Jesus and the priests, scribes, and Pharisees.  The leader of the synagogue is indignant toward Jesus, but he scolds the crowd, rather than Jesus for gathering to seek healing on the Sabbath day:

“There are six days on which work ought to be done; come on those days and be cured, and not on the sabbath day.”

Obviously, he is annoyed at Jesus, but perhaps the religious authorities have begun to figure out that confronting Jesus directly doesn’t work all that well.  So this leader of the synagogue does something that Family Systems Theory callsl triangling. He takes his wrath out on the crowd instead of on Jesus.

Jesus doesn’t let him get by with that.  What Jesus does is called de-triangling.  He confronts the leader, and in so doing also addresses the priests, scribes and Pharisees who might be muttering to one another. Jesus says to them:

“You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger, and lead it away to give it water? And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen long years, be set free from this bondage on the sabbath day?”

Jesus isn’t necessarily denying the importance of the Sabbath as a day of worship and rest.  He himself observed the Sabbath.  However,  he is criticizing the preposterous interpretation that would prevent acts of compassion.

It would be illogical and inhumane not to lead an animal to water to drink on the Sabbath day; how much more not to heal this fellow Jew (a daughter of Abraham) who had been in bondage to Satan for 18 years!

Jesus had already addressed their legalistic interpretation of the Sabbath earlier in his ministry, declaring to them that:

The Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath (Luke 6:5).

And when he healed a man whose hand was withered he asked the pointed question:

I ask you, is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the Sabbath, to save life or to destroy it?(Luke 6:9).

Mark’s Gospel quotes Jesus’ eloquent perspective on the proper use of the law, which is meant to benefit human beings, not enslave or oppress them:

The Sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the Sabbath (Mark 2:27).

It is clear that Jesus won this round — as he does every round:

When he said this, all his opponents were put to shame; and the entire crowd was rejoicing at all the wonderful things that he was doing.

APPLY:  

We Christians need to get past the false opposition between law and grace.  The law is never described in the New Testament as an evil thing.  Legalism, which is the effort to attain salvation by one’s own obsessive-compulsive ritual righteousness instead of relying on God’s grace, is the problem.

Salvation is not a human achievement of any kind — through works, the law, or spiritual discipline. Salvation is a gift of God for the sake of Christ.

The law doesn’t save, and the law never trumps love and compassion. However, the moral law, used properly under the auspices of the law of love, can provide moral guidance to the Christian.  Jesus observed the law by resting and worshiping on the Sabbath because of his love for his Father.

But when law becomes legalism, and morality becomes moralism, then the law becomes a bludgeon instead of a tool for spiritual growth.

The obsessive-compulsive rigidity of the leader of the synagogue misses the whole point of the law of the Sabbath.  A day that is created for rest and renewal becomes instead a day of rigid rules that increase religious anxiety and guilt, and neglects those who are suffering.

Jesus reminds us that the law at its best is for the spiritual growth and benefit of human beings.  The law at its best can be an extension of his loving grace rather than a source of oppression.

RESPOND: 

This passage makes me think of Victor Hugo’s masterpiece, Les Miserable.  Jean Valjean, the protagonist, has been imprisoned because he broke the law — he stole a loaf of bread for his starving family.  The law is strict and rigid concerning theft.

After he is released — 19 years later — he is offered hospitality by a kindly bishop who finds him shivering and homeless on the street.  Valjean tries to steal the bishop’s silver, but when he is arrested the bishop insists to the authorities that he had given the silverware to Valjean.  Valjean goes free, a much richer man because of the grace of the bishop.  The bishop tells Valjean that his life has been spared for God’s sake, and he should use the silver to make a better man of himself.

The major complication of the novel is the character of Inspector Javert.  As the plot develops, Valjean has become the compassionate, generous mayor of  a French city, and a wealthy and just owner of a factory.  But Javert becomes suspicious — he begins to remember Valjean from years before when Javert was a prison guard, and learns that Valjean has been accused of another crime.

Javert makes it his life’s mission to obsessively hunt Valjean and arrest him.  In a moment of dramatic irony, Javert falls into the hands of revolutionaries, and Valjean contrives to spare his life.  But Javert cannot live with the conflict of his rigid devotion to the law and the merciful goodness of his intended victim,  Valjean.  Because of his intense inner conflict, he finds the contradictions irreconcilable  and drowns himself in the Seine River.

That is a rather elaborate illustration of the principle that there is a spiritual law of grace and love that always trumps the rigid law of legalism.

Lord, I love your law — but it is the law of love that I seek to follow.  I pray that you will give me a healthy respect and obedience to your law, but always illumined by your love and compassion.  Amen. 

PHOTOS:
"Orthodoxy" by timchallies is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

Gospel for July 17, 2016

START WITH SCRIPTURE:

Luke 10:38-42

CLICK HERE TO READ SCRIPTURE ON BIBLEGATEWAY.COM

OBSERVE:

Jesus is on the move.  He has already passed through Samaria, and now he draws closer to his true objective — Jerusalem.  In the previous chapter, we are told:

his face was set toward Jerusalem (Luke 9:53).

But where is this certain village that Jesus now enters with his disciples?  A little detective work suggests that he has arrived in Bethany, probably 2 miles from Jerusalem.  We deduce that from the fact that this is the hometown of Martha and Mary — and we know from the Gospel of John that these two sisters lived in Bethany with their brother Lazarus (John 11-12).  However,  Lazarus doesn’t appear in Luke’s Gospel except as the character in a parable (Luke 16:19-31).

What Jesus encounters here is a domestic scene, seasoned with a little sibling tension.  Martha is mentioned first as the hostess.  The home is described as her home, suggesting her preeminence in the home.  She appears to be the matriarch.

After Mary welcomes this distinguished guest into her home, the sibling tension begins pretty quickly.  Mary sits at the feet of Jesus listening to his teaching, while Martha is:

distracted by her many tasks.

We can only imagine the rising tension as Martha is busy — perhaps trying to supervise the preparation of a meal for Jesus and his hungry disciples.  The word distracted used to describe Martha can be translated to wheel violently around.  This suggests that she is wheeling around in circles trying to take care of many things.  And anyone who has ever lived in a family might imagine the rising frustration as Martha is rushing about, and casting dirty looks at her sister sitting at Jesus’ feet!

But Martha was distracted by her many tasks; so she came to him and asked, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me.”

When we view this incident from a first-century Jewish perspective, what Mary is doing is really quite astounding.  Sitting at the feet of a rabbi was the posture of a disciple.  As a woman, according to the male-dominated culture of the day, she had no business sitting at Jesus’ feet with the men!  Her place, literally, was in the kitchen,  according to the mores of the day.

And Jesus defends Mary!

But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.”

Jesus makes it very clear that Mary is quite welcome to sit at his feet as a disciple.  In a sense, he is making a statement about the equality of women with men. According to some sources,  no woman was allowed to even learn the Torah.  Rabbi Eliezer wrote in the 1st century AD:

“Rather should the words of the Torah be burned than entrusted to a woman…Whoever teaches his daughter the Torah is like one who teaches her obscenity.”

Jesus is inviting Martha to simplify her life, and focus on the one thing needed — a relationship with Jesus.

APPLY:  

We must be careful not to over-allegorize this passage, which is a real temptation.  We are tempted to make Martha  the symbol of a busy, type-A person who is constantly hurrying, stressed out, and impatient with others.  And to make Mary the symbol of the quiet, contemplative soul who spends much time in prayer and Bible study.  That would be an oversimplification.

Martha’s problem is not that she is task-oriented, but that she resents the choice of her sister.  Philo, the ancient Jewish philosopher, spoke of the balance of the active life and the contemplative life.  He suggested that the active person who is engaged in good works and public life can also have a kind of stillness in the soul even in the midst of busyness.

And, yes, Mary does sit quietly at Jesus’ feet, learning his teachings.  But, like the other disciples, she is getting to know the nature of her Lord so that one day soon she will be able to put her faith into practice.  According to the Gospel of John, it is Mary who recognizes that Jesus is on his way to death and burial.  When he comes to their house again, she knows what will minister to him at that moment — she anoints his feet with oil (John 12:1-8).

Martha tried to serve Jesus according to her own preconceived notions; Mary served Jesus according to his needs because she had spent time with him.

One more thing — we see in this account an example of the trajectory of the gospel in relation to women.  Women in first century Judaism, as well as in the Greco-Roman world, were little more than property.  Equality was unthinkable.

Jesus consistently elevates the status of women throughout the Gospels.  By declaring that Mary, sitting at his feet as a disiciple, has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her, Jesus has declared that a woman’s soul is as important as a man’s soul.

RESPOND: 

There are so many responses that can be made to this account.  What is the one thing needed?  The obvious answer — to spend time with Jesus.  When we do that —  through worship, prayer, searching the Scriptures, fasting, and the Lord’s Supper —  we can discern how we are to serve him in witness and service.

But there is also another aspect to this story that is fascinating, in addition to what it tells us about the spiritual life and gender equality.  A family systems therapist might have a field day with this account when examining the relationships of Mary and Martha and Jesus.

Obviously, Martha is the dominant matriarch in this story.  And she asserts her authority with many tasks.  Sometimes “busyness” is an instrument that is used for the purpose of manipulating power.  I’m not suggesting that this was Martha’s motive.  But we can track the rise of her resentment toward her sister Mary.

And finally Martha turns on  Jesus with her resentments!

Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me.

A student of family systems theory recognizes exactly what she is doing — this is called “triangling.”  Rather than addressing her concern directly with her sister Mary, Martha seems to blame Jesus for Mary’s supposed “irresponsibility.”

Is this a psychological ploy to draw attention to herself as the “virtuous, hard-working sister?”  That might be going too far.

Jesus’ response is to “de-triangle.”  He not only tells Martha that she is too obsessed with many things, and needs to simplify; he actually praises Mary for choosing more wisely.

It might be said that we need both Marthas and Marys in our churches and communities and families.  Of course we need houses cleaned and meals on the table — as well as cars maintained and roofs fixed and teeth cleaned.  In other words, there are tasks that must be done every day.  But our priority must be to do all that we do as though we have first been sitting at the feet of Jesus — then we know how to serve him and to serve others effectively and with true love.

Lord, it is so easy to be busy with many tasks that distract us from you.  We pray that we may spiritually sit at your feet so that when the time comes to serve we know what you would have us do.  Amen.

PHOTOS:
"Christ in the House of Martha and Mary" by Johannes (Jan) Vermeer is in the public domain.