Friday – 30th Week in Ordinary Time

Gospel – Luke 14:1-6

Choices

Chapel. Magdala


When was the last time you walked past or ignored someone who was obviously in need.  Maybe it was back in high school and someone was sitting in a corner crying their eyes out and we walked right past without even making eye contact.  Nope, nope, not my problem, keep moving on!  Or that obviously distressed driver with the flat tire and they looked utterly clueless about how to proceed?  Nope, I’ve got things to do and places to go; leave it to someone else.  Not my day to be Christian!  I’ve got more important things to accomplish.

Let’s not even use the word ‘kind’.  It’s about doing or saying the right thing, especially when it matters the most.  There are choices to be made in today’s Gospel reading, some obvious and some not so much.  The obvious one is whether to cure the man with dropsy or not.  For Jesus, this is not even a choice!  He made it clear to us in Sunday’s Gospel – the greatest commandments are Love God and Love Neighbor!  And He acts accordingly!  Besides, do you really want to call helping someone WORK?  Is it really work to be charitable and ease someone’s distress or suffering?

The other choice here is the Pharisees’ response (or lack of response) to Jesus’ question.  Is it lawful to cure on the Sabbath?  Follow the letter of the Law or the Law of Love?  And their response?  Silence, nothing but the sound of crickets!  They were too concerned with outward appearances, what their fellow Pharisees would think!  Too worried about their reputation and social standing that they wouldn’t even say a single word!  Nope, nope, not me, not here, not now!  They were more concerned with others’ opinions and not with their needs!

We face similar choices every day.  Too often we tell ourselves we are too busy, too rushed, too worried about how it would look.  Too often we are like the Pharisees, just sitting there observing life and hardships around us and not taking any action, waiting for someone else to act first!  But the choices keep coming; the opportunities to be and act Christian present themselves every single day.  God does not give up on us to do the right thing!  Great Spirit, give us the wisdom, the fortitude, the faith to choose rightly today!

 

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