Good Help

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God's law, gratitude, healing, ignore, Jesus, John, pool, righteous, Sabbath, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, tireless people, unnecessary, water

This morning’s gospel left me with many possible avenues of exploration. It’s the familiar healing by Jesus of the man at the pool of Bethesda who had been ill for 38 years but had no one to put him into the pool for healing when the healing waters were stirred. (JN 5:1-16) I first think (and thus have commented about) how impossible it sounds that he was lying around for 38 years and nobody lifted him into the pool. Secondly, it gives me pause to think about that scene and how the whole thing worked: how large the pool was, how and how often the waters were “stirred”, how big a crowd was there waiting (I think of the processions in the grotto at Lourdes with massive crowds) and finally how intent everyone must have been on their own invalid so that everyone ignored this man. So many considerations with little information to help me conceive of his predicament…

Today, however, I was caught by the end of the text after the healing where the man was berated for carrying his mat on the Sabbath as that was against the law. That sounds almost as ridiculous as the difficulty he had finding help! (I don’t mean to denigrate any precept of the Mosaic law; I remember when in my youth we were to do “no unnecessary servile work” on Sunday.) And in the end, when those “righteous” people found Jesus, they began to persecute him “because he did this (healing work) on the Sabbath.”

I have always heard that God’s law is higher than human law so in cases of doubt, it’s always better to look to God. And the word “unnecessary” in the creed of my youth eliminated a lot of concern in that way. So the final strain of my thought process this morning was about doctors and nurses and other hospital workers whose week is generally not like that of other people. Often they have rotating schedules – off one weekend and on the next. Sometimes they are called in for an emergency at any hour of the day or night. First responders are in the same category. What would happen if the hospitals and urgent care clinics and fire houses were closed on the weekends?

Today, I will pray for people who have no one to care for them and will bow in gratitude for those tireless people who serve in professions where their willingness heals our ills and can sometimes save our lives.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sabbath

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Catholic Church, heal, keep holy the Sabbath day, Luke, Pharisee, Sabbath, servile work, teachable moment, the law of God, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, unnecessary

When I was a child, one of the laws of the Catholic Church was: “No unnecessary servile work on Sunday.” That meant that the laundry, ironing and cleaning house had to be done on Saturday in order that we might turn our minds to thoughts of God and church attendance on Sunday. We never forgot the adjective unnecessary, however, because it was clear that sometimes emergencies arose and something needful superseded the law. When I entered the convent, silence was the highest law of the night. We didn’t talk much anyway, but at 9:00 PM strict silence began and at 10:00 it became “Grand Silence.” The only cause for breaking the silence after that was a dire need of someone for help – serious illness or accident in the night. Even then, as novices, it took courage to break the silence, so well was “the law” drilled into us and so fervently did we wish to be obedient to God.

This morning’s gospel tells of Jesus having dinner at the house of a leading Pharisee (often a “teachable moment” for the others in attendance). It couldn’t have been a comfortable meal for him because, as Luke says (LK 14:1-6), “the people there were observing him carefully.” It was the Sabbath and the Mosaic Law was clear about Sabbath practice. There was a man there who suffered from “dropsy”  (edema, probably from heart disease) and Jesus, knowing the crowd was just waiting for a chance to catch him breaking the law, gave them an opportunity to accuse him before he did anything. He asked them (in some translations the lawyers among them), “Is it lawful to cure on the Sabbath or not?” When no one spoke up he healed the man and dismissed him. Knowing that the story of his actions would probably reach the whole town by morning, he asked them a further question. “Who among you,” he said, “if your son or ox falls into a cistern, would not immediately pull him out on the Sabbath day?” The gospel says that “they were unable to answer his question.”

There are lots of applications of this gospel. The point is, of course, that the law of God, which in its most basic form is all about love, is the highest law and everything else is subordinate to that. Extreme behavior in either direction of total disregard or rigid following does not work for those who live in “God’s house.” We see in our country today both extremes when it comes to Sabbath practice. The question for me today is about how I remember God – not only one day a week, to be sure. It is good, however, to set aside one day of the week (not necessarily the traditional Sabbath, especially if we work for our livelihood on that day) or to create another way to focus our attention on God and the things of God, to reflect on our relationship and give thanks for the blessings and the challenges of our lives that bring God clearly into focus for us. How do you spend your Sabbath? How do I?