Thinking about today's Gospel reading...

Today’s Gospel Reading (Luke 13: 10 – 17) tells us about Christ Healing a woman in the Synagogue on the Sabbath. The people in charge are affronted by this “work” on the Sabbath and reproach him.

It is the subtext to this story which interests me. For example, the complaint regarding the healing act is not directed at Jesus but at the people in the synagogue. The ruler of the synagogue says, “There are six days on which work ought to be done; come on those days and be healed, and not on the Sabbath day." Does this mean that people are attending the synagogue specifically to be healed by Jesus?

Jesus answers in an interesting way, too. He says, "You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or his ass from the manger, and lead it away to water it? And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath day?"

The “work” Jesus refers to is essential stuff you have to do regardless of what else is going on. They are not special activities or major undertakings. They are also about providing necessary care and acting in a responsible manner, perhaps even carrying out an essential duty expected of you.

The final sentence is also curious; “As he said this, all his adversaries were put to shame; and all the people rejoiced at all the glorious things that were done by him.”

What does this story say about what it was like to be in that synagogue with Christ teaching? It suggests quite a lively event. Perhaps the whole thing seemed to be getting out of hand in the eyes of the ruler and his fellow senior members? It sounds like the whole place was charged with a vibrancy, an expectation that anything could and would happen and that people were going to be healed and perhaps it felt like everyone was going to have a great time and come out excited and amazed by the experience. The people in the synagogue would not have normally rejoiced openly when the authority of the rulers of the synagogue was being so openly and brashly challenged.

If you try to put it in context you get quite a different feel to the one you get when you read it as a “Gospel” reading where the synagogue is a foreign and distant place and your whole view is from that of our Christian understanding of Christ as the Saviour. Things were not so obvious then. Try replacing synagogue with “Church”, etc… and see how less acceptable the activities might seem to the people in charge of your place of worship.

Jesus was a truly challenging teacher and activist and he would have been a very unsettling figure to all those in authority and with strict religious views.

There are also echoes between this and the story in the Acts (13: 42-52) where Paul and Barnabas teach in the synagogue and end up with much of the town turning up to hear them, which upsets the people in charge of the synagogue who do not want non-Jews and non-converts in their place of worship.

Again you read between the lines in the text and there are two different things going on. One is the feeling that the synagogue is being taken over and/or the leaders are loosing control. The synagogue is possibly being used for unusual or “inappropriate” purposes from the point of view of those in charge. The challenge is to authority and to a closed view by the authorities. The message is one of universal welcome – the Good News is for everyone, not just the few. Christ really did come to turn the world upside down.

The second is that complacency is a bad thing. Christ’s message demands something more than just sticking to the rules and enforcing them. You have to re-examine what those rules mean. You have to view everything you do in the light of Christ’s teachings and change where necessary. You have to keep asking “Is this good enough?” and “Does this really answer the challenge that Christ is placing before me?” and perhaps even, “How does the way I live my life fit with the teachings of Christ?”

And, of course, if healing is not work but a basic and essential activity, if caring for others is an essential duty that is not an “extra” or a task that can be treated like “work”, what does that mean to us in our ordinary lives?

What are we doing about it?