Lenten Reflection

I graduated from law school and became a lawyer 15 years ago this year. As a lawyer, I’m continually reminded of the importance of language: word choice, phrasing, punctuation — subtleties in any text can have a dramatic effect on the meaning of a regulation or statute, and lawyers can spend many hours arguing about the right interpretation. Sometimes, however, the text seems clear; for example, take Deuteronomy 5:13-14:

Six days you shall labor, and do all your work; but the seventh day is a sabbath to the LORD your God; in it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, or your manservant, or your maidservant, or your ox, or your donkey, or any of your cattle, or the sojourner who is within your gates, that your manservant and your maidservant may rest as well as you.

There seems no need for legal training to understand the meaning of this passage — do no work, no labor, rest on the seventh day. Period. No exceptions. And, a few verses before, there is this — “the statutes and ordinances that I am addressing to you today; you shall learn them and observe them diligently.” (Deut. 5:1). If I had been a lawyer in 30 or so A.D. in Palestine, I believe my legal training and experience would have led me to conclude that God, through Moses, had defined an inviolable law to do no work and rest on the sabbath. If I had been a leader in a synagogue, charged with disciplining violators of this law, I would have done so, likely without hesitation. It was God’s law, right?

I can therefore see some of myself in the leader described in Luke 13:10-17, who attempts to discipline Jesus for healing, on a sabbath, a woman who had been crippled for 18 years. Luke says the leader was “indignant because Jesus had cured on the sabbath,” citing God’s law to rebuke Jesus. In his own mind, the leader was following what he thought was God’s will — healing is a type of work; as such, it should not be done on the sabbath.

Jesus, however, is not interested in legal debate: he does not challenge the leader’s interpretation, does not distinguish the text. Instead, he says simply “ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound of eighteen long years, be set free from this bondage on the sabbath day?” (Luke 13:16). He focuses not on his actions but on the effect on her — what will set her free? What will give her rest from her torment? Jesus shows the leader was denying the woman the very thing the law sought to provide: rest, peace, relief from pain. In trying to keep to the law, the leader ended up doing exactly the opposite of what God intended.

All of this suggests that even what appears to be a clear statement in the Bible can be misunderstood and, if not careful, used as a reason to deny others the love of God. Jesus’ response to the leader is a reminder to me that I have to be wary of any way of looking at Him that permits me to have rest, what gives me relief, while ignoring the hurt and pain in others. And, in this time when there are so many efforts to enact new laws in God’s name, I hope we remember to ask ourselves — will these efforts give relief, provide rest, or promote peace? Or, will these efforts, like the leader’s actions in Luke’s story, prolong suffering and cause pain? In this Lenten season and beyond, I hope and pray that we will follow Jesus’ example, opening our hearts and minds to Him, serving His will by spreading God’s love and peace to those in desperate need of comfort.

Jeff Kelsey, Parishioner