Luke 14:1-6

     Once again, the question of healing on the Sabbath is raised. Jesus was going to the house of a leader of the Pharisees to eat a meal on the Sabbath. By this time, everyone was interested in what he would do, and most especially because they knew a man with dropsy was in his path. Jesus knew what they were thinking and asked them whether it was lawful to cure someone on the Sabbath. They wouldn’t answer him.
     So he healed the man and sent him home. Then he asked the righteous people listening whether, if they owned an animal that had fallen into a well, wouldn’t they immediately rescue it? If they had a child, that had done so, wouldn’t they help it, whether it was the Sabbath or not? But they still didn’t answer him.
     The first question was general. Was it lawful? The second question was possibly more rhetorical than anything else. That is, the answer was likely self-evident. If they had an animal in which they had an economic interest, of course they would rescue it from the well. If a son or daughter had fallen into a well, they wouldn’t dream of telling the child to wait until it was no longer the Sabbath.
     The lawyers and Pharisees might have argued that an emergency was different from a man who had been ill for some time and could have waited until tomorrow. Yet Jesus could easily have countered with asking why the man should have to suffer any longer? Why should he wait until a day when Jesus might or might not be present to help him?
     The idea of the Sabbath being a day of rest is a good one. Not all ancient cultures had a weekly established day in which to rest and in which to give special attention to spiritual matters. The history of a five day (for many people) work-week and a weekend for rest and recreation may well have come from the establishment of the Sabbath.
     For the Israelite people there is even a folk tale that said each day of the week had a mate, but for the Sabbath, its mate was the Jewish nation. The day had laws to define its beginning and end. It was important to protect it and make sure it did not degenerate into a day just like every other day. Multiple laws were given to help keep it a day of rest and to keep it holy. The laws are old and don’t always fit the modern world. For example, there has been debate in orthodox Jewish circles as to whether turning a light switch is the same as kindling a fire (prohibited on the Sabbath).
     Some excellent rules regarding the Sabbath were the one that protected others, even the poor and powerless. A rich person couldn’t enjoy the Sabbath and making a servant labor. Even the foreigner deserved a Sabbath. Animals were to be allowed a day of rest. The Sabbath law was extended to the land--every seven years a field was supposed to lie fallow, not tilled and worked. (This is one of a number of laws investigated by those interested in ecological awareness).
     For some in ancient Israel, the rule had become almost the purpose of the Sabbath. Jesus would turn that around and point out that the Sabbath was made for the sake of the people and not people for the sake of the Sabbath. Jesus wasn’t a spiritual anarchist, he simple wanted the spirit and understanding of spiritual rules to be understood and followed more than the specifics. He might have asked, what more spiritual thing could be done than to do a good deed of healing a man who has been suffering?
     On this particular day, it is unfair to necessarily assume that the Pharisees and lawyers were in opposition to Jesus. The laws were good ones and they felt charged with upholding them. It is more realistic to believe that some on the group nodded with approval and understanding, while a few others were ambivalent or negative.
     As one scholar points out, following the rules of the Sabbath was a good thing--the Sabbath was considered a gift from God that should be honored by careful observance. It was a gift for rest and restoration, physically and spiritually. The choice Jesus had in healing the man was not between a good thing or a bad thing, but between two good things. He chose the love of a fellow human being as the spiritual duty with the greater priority, but did not reject the Sabbath laws.

In what way do you keep a time of Sabbath?
Is your Sabbath as spiritual as it could be?
How do you choose between two good things?