Knowing Love!
A reading for Monday, March 13, 2017: Luke 13:10-17.
Sometimes we allow the rules of faith to supersede what would be common sense. The woman who is in need of healing should not be forced to wait another day to be healed, when Jesus is ready to heal her now. Outsiders to the synagogue that day would not have understood the need to wait. Even today, we can still fall into the trap of doing things in our churches that outsiders sometimes do not understand or appreciate. The "rules of church" sometimes prevent us from relating to people.
However, that's not even really the important point of today's lesson...
In fact, those attempting to prevent Jesus from healing that day long ago were actually blocking something more important than common sense or even relating to people. The leaders were unknowingly standing in the way of the love of God. God's love would not wait another moment to release the woman from her infirmity. Love would place all things in their rightful order: freedom and peace, and then observance of sabbath. Or... freedom and peace from infirmity SO THAT there might be observance of sabbath. God's love is not bound to anything but God's will to share love. Jesus said, "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?"
We believe in a God who will not prevent us from knowing love, who will go to extremes to show us how much we are loved. What is the most extravagant way we might imagine God's love today? What might prevent it from becoming real?
That might just be the very place to start looking for God in the midst of our lives today!
Sometimes we allow the rules of faith to supersede what would be common sense. The woman who is in need of healing should not be forced to wait another day to be healed, when Jesus is ready to heal her now. Outsiders to the synagogue that day would not have understood the need to wait. Even today, we can still fall into the trap of doing things in our churches that outsiders sometimes do not understand or appreciate. The "rules of church" sometimes prevent us from relating to people.
However, that's not even really the important point of today's lesson...
In fact, those attempting to prevent Jesus from healing that day long ago were actually blocking something more important than common sense or even relating to people. The leaders were unknowingly standing in the way of the love of God. God's love would not wait another moment to release the woman from her infirmity. Love would place all things in their rightful order: freedom and peace, and then observance of sabbath. Or... freedom and peace from infirmity SO THAT there might be observance of sabbath. God's love is not bound to anything but God's will to share love. Jesus said, "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?"
We believe in a God who will not prevent us from knowing love, who will go to extremes to show us how much we are loved. What is the most extravagant way we might imagine God's love today? What might prevent it from becoming real?
That might just be the very place to start looking for God in the midst of our lives today!
Comments
Post a Comment