Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do evil, to save life or to destroy?

 Now it happened on the second Sabbath after the first that He went through the grainfields.  And His disciples plucked the heads of grain and ate them, rubbing them in their hands.  And some of the Pharisees said to them, "Why are you doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath?"  But Jesus answering them said, "Have you not even read this, what David did when he was hungry, he and those who were with him:  how he went into the house of God, took and ate the showbread, and also gave some to those with him, which is not lawful for any but the priests to eat?"  And He said to them, "The Son of Man is also Lord of the Sabbath."

Now it happened on another Sabbath, also, that He entered the synagogue and taught.  And a man was there whose right hand was withered.  So the scribes and Pharisees watched Him closely, whether He would heal on the Sabbath, that they might find an accusation against Him.  But He knew their thoughts, and said to the man who had the withered hand, "Arise and stand here."  And he arose and stood.  Then Jesus said to them, "I will ask you one thing:  Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do evil, to save life or to destroy?"  And when He had looked around at them all, He said to the man, "Stretch out your hand."  And he did so, and his hand was restored as whole as the other.  But they were filled with rage, and discussed with one another what they might do to Jesus.

- Luke 6:1-11

Yesterday we read that after healing a paralytic, Jesus went out and saw a tax collector named Levi, sitting at the tax office.  And he said to him, "Follow Me."  So he left all, rose up, and followed Him.  Then Levi gave Him a great feast in his own house.  And there were a great number of tax collectors and others who sat down with them.  And their scribes and the Pharisees complained against His disciples, saying, "Why do You eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?"  Jesus answered and said to them, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.  I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance."  Then they said to Him, "Why do the disciples of John fast often and make prayers, and likewise those of the Pharisees, but Yours eat and drink?"  And He said to them, "Can you make the friends of the bridegroom fast while the bridegroom is with them?  But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them; then they will fast in those days."  Then He spoke a parable to them:  "No one puts a piece from a  new garment on an old one; otherwise the new makes a tear, and also the piece that was taken out of the new does not match the old.  And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; or else the new wine will burst the wineskins and be spilled, and the wineskins will be ruined.  But new wine must be put into new wineskins, and both are preserved.  And no one, having drunk old wine, immediately desires new; for he says, 'The old is better.'"

 Now it happened on the second Sabbath after the first that He went through the grainfields.  And His disciples plucked the heads of grain and ate them, rubbing them in their hands.  And some of the Pharisees said to them, "Why are you doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath?"  But Jesus answering them said, "Have you not even read this, what David did when he was hungry, he and those who were with him:  how he went into the house of God, took and ate the showbread, and also gave some to those with him, which is not lawful for any but the priests to eat?"  And He said to them, "The Son of Man is also Lord of the Sabbath."   The second Sabbath after the first is one in which a Jewish feast followed immediately after the normal Sabbath.  A feast is also called a Sabbath.  St. Ambrose says the term "second Sabbath" is an image of the new covenant and the eternal resurrection.  The first Sabbath would indicate the Law, while the second Sabbath gives us the gospel that follows it.  Under the new covenant, the food which once was not lawful for anyone but the priests to eat is now given freely to everyone by the Lord of the Sabbath, who is Christ.  This is prefigured by David when he gave the showbread . . . to those with him.

Now it happened on another Sabbath, also, that He entered the synagogue and taught.  And a man was there whose right hand was withered.  So the scribes and Pharisees watched Him closely, whether He would heal on the Sabbath, that they might find an accusation against Him.  But He knew their thoughts, and said to the man who had the withered hand, "Arise and stand here."  And he arose and stood.  Then Jesus said to them, "I will ask you one thing:  Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do evil, to save life or to destroy?"  And when He had looked around at them all, He said to the man, "Stretch out your hand."  And he did so, and his hand was restored as whole as the other.  But they were filled with rage, and discussed with one another what they might do to Jesus.  The scribes and Pharisees had build up certain traditions around the Law.  According to these, healing was considered work.  Therefore it wasn't permissible on the Sabbath.  For them, to zealously serve God was to uphold these peripheral traditions.  But this form of legalism makes them insensitive to the mercy of God.  In the Law it was permissible, for example, to save the life of an animal on the Sabbath, but here to heal is considered by them a different case.  Jesus' question demands that they think in the broader context of the aims of the Law.

From our perspective, it may seem difficult to understand the Pharisees and the scribes.  After all, Jesus did something good, he healed a man.  It's a sign of the presence of Messiah to do such a healing, a sign of the presence of God and the Kingdom at work in the world.  But if we look at these men, perhaps we must consider their positions in the society.  They regulated social and religious life.  They were the leaders of their people, at least in terms of the tradition and their religious life.  In some sense, they were the guardians of what it meant to be a Jew.  They lived under and reported to the Roman authorities, but to a very large extent it was they who were responsible for the people.  Under such circumstances, a type of strict obedience was perhaps necessary for purposes of survival of the people, the culture, and their particular life and tradition.  But in another sense, these men are quite consumed with their own positions of authority, as Jesus says elsewhere (see Matthew 23, and in particular verses 6 and 7, for example).  Here, Jesus defies their authority, and seems to do so quite deliberately.  He behaves as a Messiah, but they haven't ruled on whether or not He is the Christ, and it is their authority they so zealously seek to uphold.  What they do isn't strange or unusual, but rather it is quite typical human behavior.  They call us to question our own behavior when we think we hold authority in a particular situation, when our own "rules" are violated, even when we absolutely believe that we are doing good.  The Gospels give us one answer to this riddle about justice and authority, and Jesus says it over and over again.  The highest authority is God.  And no matter what else we know, what we may be experts in, what authority we are upholding, if we do not have the love of God as supreme in our hearts, we will make mistakes.  We will make mistakes of judgment and discernment.  And we will make mistakes about what mercy is and means and looks like.   This is where these men take us, into a familiar place in which we all are vulnerable -- the image of ourselves in the eyes of others, and in our own eyes.  Their rage tells us the story.  But there is one authority that reigns supreme, before which we all must be humble.