The texts from the Roman Catholic Lectionary today invite us to contemplate the paradox of our journey that involves living with both blessings and challenges in our relationship with God.
A journey with blessing and challenge
The reading from the Letter of Paul to the Romans declares his Love for Israel and praises God’s Election of Israel.
* [9:1–5] The apostle speaks in strong terms of the depth of his grief over the unbelief of his own people. He would willingly undergo a curse himself for the sake of their coming to the knowledge of Christ (Rom 9:3; cf. Lv 27:28–29). His love for them derives from God’s continuing choice of them and from the spiritual benefits that God bestows on them and through them on all of humanity (Rom 9:4–5).1
Psalm 147 is praise for God’s Care for Jerusalem.
* [147:15–19] God speaks through the thunder of nature and the word of revealed law, cf. Is 55:10–11. The weather phenomena are well known in Jerusalem: a blizzard of snow and hail followed by a thunderstorm that melts the ice.2
In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus heals the man with dropsy on the Sabbath.
* [14:5] Your son or ox: this is the reading of many of the oldest and most important New Testament manuscripts. Because of the strange collocation of son and ox, some copyists have altered it to “your ass or ox,” on the model of the saying in Lk 13:15.3
Jeanne Schuler comments that those we love deeply can inflict suffering. Paul’s love for his Jewish community was laced with anguish. They were his brothers and sisters. They shared patriarchs, law, worship, and the covenant. “The Lord proclaimed his word to Jacob.” Their ancestors endured exile and on their return the temple was rebuilt. Their history was punctured by faithless times. God awaited their return over and over.
Paul was torn that the Jewish Christians were small in number. Many prophets had emerged from this community. Why was Jesus not heard? How did their hearts grow hard? When frustrated, we often entertain extravagant plots. Paul offers to abandon Jesus if his community would have a change of heart. Let my soul be damned, says Paul, if only you are saved. It is exhausting to be closely watched. The leaders waited to spring on Jesus the moment he skirts the law. They were not bothered by a man swollen with fluids. The poor are unseen, just so your livestock stays safe. Jesus’s conscience opened to the groans from the street. He healed on the Sabbath while his faults were duly recorded by the spiritual watchdogs.4
Don Schwager quotes “The law does not forbid mercy on the Sabbath,” by Cyril of Alexandria (376-444 AD).
"As they were silent from ill will, Christ refutes their unrelenting shamelessness by the convincing arguments that he uses. 'Whose son of you,' he says, 'or whose ox shall fall into a pit, and he will not immediately draw him out on the sabbath day?' If the law forbids showing mercy on the sabbath, why do you take compassion on that which has fallen into the pit?... The God of all does not cease to be kind. He is good and loving to people."(excerpt from COMMENTARY ON LUKE, HOMILY 101)5
The Word Among Us Meditation on Luke 14.1-6 comments that it is an invitation for all of us: to be healed of spiritual bloat and stiffness so that we can deepen our relationship with the Lord. It’s easy to settle into a fixed, familiar understanding of who God is and what he wants. But more than anything, what he wants is an intimate and fluid relationship with us, one that moves and grows and matures daily. So Jesus wants to heal anything that hampers our movement toward him and with him.
The Lord’s invitation to seek healing isn’t reserved for particular days or particular people. It’s for all his children, for every day. It’s for you. The Pharisees kept silent in answer to Jesus’ invitation (Luke 14:4). You have the opportunity to say yes. Let your response today be a joyful, grateful prayer to the one who heals you and invites you to walk more freely with him. “Jesus, thank you for inviting me to know you more. Heal me of anything that hinders my walk with you.”6
Friar Jude Winkler shares that Paul’s relationship with Israel breaks his heart. The Pharisees allowed healing on the Sabbath if it involved life and death. Friar Jude warns against the scrupulosity of the Pharisees that rejects the mercy of God.
Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM, shares the work of Episcopal Bishop Michael Curry on how knowing we are “God’s somebody” allows us to love ourselves and others.
There is a Jewish proverb, “Before every person there marches an angel proclaiming, ‘Behold, the image of God.’” Unselfish, sacrificial living isn’t about ignoring or denying or destroying yourself. It’s about discovering your true self—the self that looks like God—and living life from that grounding. Many people are familiar with a part of Jesus’s summary of the law of Moses: You shall love your neighbor as you love yourself. Yourself. Loving the self is a required balance. If we fail in that, we fail our neighbor, too. To love your neighbor is to relate to them as someone made in the image of the God. And it is to relate to yourself as someone made in the image of the God. It’s God, up, down, and all around, and God is love.7
May the blessings we receive from God open our lives to accept the challenges of our journey in life.
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